FIM-E 2025 Champions Review
Super Street Bike: Jake Mechaell

words and photos by Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes

Jake Mechaell looks back on 2025 and plots 2026 Title Defence

 Twice runner-up, Jake Mechaell stepped up to run the full FIM-E Super Street Bike championship in 2025 and delivered the title for the JKE team by a mere point at season’s end (the top three in class being separated by less than an elimination round in the final tally).

Mechaell also added a second ACU UK domestic class title during the course of the year having racked up the miles in testing and competition. We caught up with the second generation racer (father Clive being a long time stalwart of UK drag racing, most notably in the Fuel Altered ranks) during the off season for his reflections and future thoughts.

Although you’ve been competing (and winning) at European level for a while now 2025 was your first full season on the FIM-E tour and your first FIM-E championship title, how do you look back on the season just gone?

 “The FIM-E European tour has been incredible and certainly a tour I’ll be competing in again.

For a few years I’ve not been in a position to commit to full tour but still managed to finish runner up in the FIM Championship twice!

After finishing runner up in 2024 my JKE Race Works team members were not going to take no for an answer to a full tour in 2025. With their support and my sponsors stepping in to make it possible we planned our journey and achieved what we set out to do taking the 2025 FIM Super Street Bike European Championship!”

What was your season highlight?

“My highlight has to be Nitrolympx at the Hockenheimring in Germany. I qualified 1st and took the event win which I had to do to stay in the championship chase after losing in the semi-finals the meeting before at Tierp in Sweden.

There’s just something about Hockenheim that makes it a meeting that’s different from the rest and my favourite thing about it is that it’s a tuners track. With it only being a drag strip once a year the track is unpredictable and constantly changes throughout the event which requires a lot of knowledge to tune the chassis and power strategies to stay in front of the tough competition faced.

I enjoy understanding the complexity of tuning these 800+bhp street tyre machines and to make the difficulty of the tuning much harder myself and the rest of the JKE Race Works team choose not to use the wheelie height sensors and traction control which are legal in FIM.

This certainly puts us at a disadvantage but as a rider the adrenaline and excitement of achieving a quick smooth run or controlling the bike when it wants to do anything and everything not to be smooth is in my eyes what SSB is all about.

When I first started watching European Super Street Bike and Pro Street Bike in the States 15 years ago this is how the bikes were, no sensors just rider and machine… true hero’s controlling crazy horsepower in one hand!

Seeing these fast and unpredictable machines be muscled down the drag strip is what made them stand out to me and is one of the reasons I learned what was needed to compete in SSB.

So this FIM Championship win means so much knowing that I had to use every bit of riding ability and experience I’ve learned over the years when the run didn’t go quite as planned.”

 

Opportunity missed?

“Racing at Tierp Arena in Sweden for the first time was a lot of work to get the bike dialled in.

With all the data I’ve gathered over the years I’ve never experienced air conditions so good which helped the bike make more power. Subsequently this affected the clutch setup which became a big problem heading into eliminations.

I qualified 3rd with a 6.74 so I knew that I needed to push the bike harder in eliminations to be competitive. This is where the clutch issue really became apparent, by 1000ft the clutch had worn so badly I had no choice but to shut off and roll to 6.8s. Heading to the semi final’s I had two options, back the power off so the clutch would hold or change the clutch setup to something I’d never tried before to hold the extra power.

Backing the power off wasn’t an option this far into eliminations so I had to go with the new clutch setup.

Not knowing exactly how the bike would behave I was late on the tree with a 0.115 to a 0.079 and the worst part was I ran my quickest time of the weekend 6.706 loosing on a holeshot to a winning time of 6.714.

Nothing worse than losing on a holeshot but I took away the positives and a new clutch setup that would give me some performance heading into the last two meetings of the season.”

The end of season performance onslaught bodes well for next year – what are your plans/aims for 2026 for you and the rest of the JKE team?

“My plan is to do it all again next season to try and defend the championship against a tough group of racers in a class that is consistently raising the bar and pushing into new territory. As a racer and a fan of Super Street Bike I’m excited to see what 2026 has to offer.

The JKE Race Works Team Rider Plans

Hayden Mechaell will again be riding in ACU 9.50 bike to try and defend his 2025 Championship title.

Jack Shook on the turbo methanol GSXR will hope to race at all the FIM rounds and continue to work on improving his pb of 6.93. We have some chassis updates along with some other upgrades and a new look for 2026.

Bradley Head is only planning to ride at a couple of events this season to free up funds to invest into his bike to make it more competitive in SSB for 2027. The bike was originally built for 8.50 bike and now running 7.2’s we’ve reached the capabilities or various components and chassis setup that now requires attention to go faster.

Kostas Giannopoulos will be missing most of the 2026 season due to the bike undergoing huge updates including a JKE turbo system, engine package upgrades, new MoTeC M1 including a fresh motorsport loom and updated fuel system to move over to a methanol setup to be a serious contender in 2027. Kostas has a lot of innovative idea’s he’d like to try which makes him very interesting to work with. This guy has no limits and could possibly take SSB to another level.”

Sponsors/People to Thank

 “So many people to thank that keeps myself and the team competitive. The support from our friends, the team families and all our supporters keeps us working hard and drives us to dedicate so much time to the sport.

I’d also like to say thank you to my sponsors that have stuck by me for some time now and hopefully for years to come because their world class products and support which contribute massively to all my achievements.

This European Championship was won by all of us and I’m forever grateful to you all.

JKE Race Works
Turbosmart
ARP
Putoline UK
Robinsons Foundry
Kent Cams
EPSmotorsport
Racinglines
Owen Developments
MTC Engineering
Antigravity Batteries UK
VP Racing Fuels
helperformance.com
Kathy Taylor
Neil Holliday
Darren Clarkson
WCS Ltd

2026 will prove to be an absolute barnstormer for Super Street Bike, the class having taking a major step forward on and off track 2025. With this in mind, picking a winner for next season this far out is somewhat speculative, but pedigree and work ethic certainly won’t be found wanting in the JKE camp in the quest to add two titles in a row.

To see the complete listing of FIM-E 2025 points, CLICK HERE. 

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