Alix for adventure
Alix Capper-Murdoch is the first female instructor at Dubai Autodrome’s Race and Driving School, ‘the only female deejay in Dubai,’ and also a radio presenter. She says her eclectic job profile represents different facets of the same person — one who loves being herself and doing what she loves. Rajeev Nair met her
After the day is way past behind her and the night has eased into a new dawn, Alix Capper-Murdoch will park her Jeep Wrangler, reach home, switch on the television, slide it on silent mode and sit back.
She will stare at those pictures, simply watching them, taking in hardly anything. She is a passive observer, trying to silence down all those noises that whirl up inside her head.
It is the calm after the high-decibel thunder of the dance floor. It is the soothing silence after hours of non-stop music. It is also the stillness after adrenaline-pumping sessions on the race track.
Alix and adventure are inseparable. It is hard to take one from the other. The adventurer in Alix is also an achiever, a ‘first-(or-only)-one-to-do-so’ on many counts.
To start with, she is the first female instructor at Dubai Autodrome’s Race and Driving School. She is also “the only female DJ” in Dubai’s happening dance club scene. If those two responsibilities aren’t enough to keep her busy, she RJs for Dubai Eye on her pet passion: Motor racing.
None of the three phases in her breakneck busy career was planned. They simply happened, as one logical extension of the other.
Alix recalls that she had always wanted to join the Air Force, which she did at the age of 16. She enrolled as a driver and got “all the licences and drove cars, trucks, motorbikes, buses and forklifts…”
“Because I was in the Air Force, by the time I was 17, I had more licences to drive (virtually all vehicles) when none of my friends could even drive a car,” Alix smiles.
From her Air Force stint, she moved to studying broadcasting. She interviewed for a radio station at a racing circuit and with her vehicle licences and new educational background, she was hired as a pit lane commentator — and became the first female to do so.
Broadcasting experience took her to deejaying, and she integrated both, working at the racing circuit during day, and in the evenings, spinning the discs. She eventually got to become team manager and team co-oridinator for the racing team and travelled through most of Europe.
Dubai happened through chance. She had come down to check out the new racing circuit. Her return ticket is still with her but she hopes to stay here for another ten years. (“Why ten? Oh, it is just a good number?”)
In Dubai, she landed her first job as a deejay — her residency is now at Madinat Jumeirah’s BarZar; the race course instructor job followed; so did the radio contract.
A typical weekend for Alix is one whirlwind tour of activity. “I deejay during the night, reach home at 4 am, get up at 11, go to the race track, finish my work by 7, go on air at Dubai Eye, and get back to deejaying…”
She plays very dance oriented songs, the sort of repertoire that men opt for, normally.
That streak of unbridled enthusiasm comes right from her childhood. “As a child, I was very hyper,” says Alix. “My mom wanted me to do ballet. I wanted to play ice hockey. I started figure skating and ended up in the ice hockey team.”
Racing in the UK is way different from the burgeoning motorsports culture in the UAE, says Alix. “The UK is the home of motorsports and most people are into Formula 1 some way or the other. Here, apart from the race culture being relatively new, most people come with different expectations and driving skills. Many are not sure what to expect.”
That wouldn’t take long to change, she is optimistic, especially with the Dubai Autodrome. “People can only dream of a circuit like this. It is really, really amazing, miles better than those in the UK.”
Speed is intrinsic in racing. Alix has hit heavy winds — how about 320 kilometres per hour — but she is also aware of the risks therein. “You are on the edge and you could lose control any time but you must manage to stay calm.”
She has lost a few friends in racing but, she says, over the years, safety standards in motor racing have improved incredibly. “The two most dangerous things are not having a roll cage in the car, and the driver not having a good safety harness and helmet,” explains Alix.
She had met with an accident earlier and was hospitalised for over two months. But within days of leaving the hospital, she headed straight for the race course. “I had to get back in the car as soon as possible to overcome the fear,” Alix says.
For all the motor racing experience, yes, the drivers on Sheikh Zayed Road do make her nervous. But no, she isn’t fast on the road. “I am quite calm, I take it easy on the road,” says Alix.
A female race course instructor can lend a psychological advantage, she feels. “When you have a woman instructor inside the racing car, you tend to listen to her more carefully and take her seriously.”
With the diverse roles that she plays, if you ask Alix to describe herself, she simply spells out: “I am Alix, and I am… mad.”
“People say I don’t look like a tomboy. I have the girl habits too, like say, trying on ten different dresses… And then I am deejaying and some one turns up with a problem with his car, and the next minute I go beneath the vehicle to fix it…”
Alix, thus, does not conform to any set notions about any of her work profiles.
Though she deejays, Alix isn’t a party person who goes clubbing. “When I am not on radio, I listen to classical or country music. When I am not at the club, I am at a coffeehouse doing sudoku….”
She says there are no contradictions in these. “Nothing is forced about any of these. They are all different facets of myself. I love whatever I do, and I am happy to be myself.”
Her biggest fear is the “feeling of not being able to get any further. I have been doing many things already, and what happens if in another year I am not doing anything more than these?”
She has dreams of her own radio show, of doing more racing and deejaying, and trying to write some songs…
And her weakness is “not knowing when to stop. I am a hyper personality, and I end up constantly burning bridges at both ends…”
But she likes going around in circles and keeping on going…
As in the race track, so in life. Keep moving.
Photographs: Rajan
