This is a BLOG About BMX Racing

This is not about motorcycles, but about actual performance pedal bikes where You do the work with your own power. 

Nobody rides the bench in this sport! 

What’s BMX?

Why BMX?

Who even cares about BMX? 

BMX stands for bicycle moto cross.  This all started in California in the early 70’s by dudes like me who basically couldn’t afford motorcycles.  They wanted to emulate that feeling of having butterflies-in-the-gut and being faster-than-a-willie-shrinking-speed-buzz jumping over tall dirt jumps as though they were Evil Knievel.  Half of these guys started telling their friends that their middle name was actually “Danger” (or maybe that was just me).

BMX racing is part of a sanctioned organization - @usabmx

There are BMX tracks in most states where you can compete at local races and stack points for end-of-year rankings as well as compete for such as:  State Championships, Gold Cup Regional status, National event status, etc. 

Our local BMX track - @magridgebmx offers practice sessions 2 nights per week and Friday night races.  They love new folks coming out.  You can always borrow a bike and a helmet to test your luck as well.  The BMX community as a whole has the same mentality of cultivating the newcomers in any way possible to keep you enjoying this great sport.  

When I was thirteen and swappin’ bike parts around on my prized Raleigh Rampar R10 (a tank by today’s standards) pretending to be a BMXer, I was invited one day to the Vicksburg BMX track in Vicksburg, MS.  We rolled up to a dirt track armed with our Toughskins jeans, borrowed football helmets and rattletrap bikes held together with spit, zip ties, electrical tape, spray paint and dreams.  (I can honestly still smell that moist dirt from that cold night in November !)

The track was lined with old car tires and hay bales and offered a starting hill/gate, 3 turns (berms), and a start and a finish line.  

We obviously signed up as novices and rolled out of a makeshift starting gate and looked like scurrying squirrels running for safety.  I, of course was the very last to cross the finish line after receiving fuzzy directions of how to get there.  At this very point, being a failure never felt so magnificent.  

(This was the birth of my two life mantras: 1. being too stupid to quit and 2. being dumb enough to be dangerous).  

There was this killer bike and skate shop by the track called Kiddie City - it was the first time I had ever walked into a store and was pretty sure I was in Heaven.  (This reference is the backstory to the birth of Swell-O-Phonic & shopswellophonic.com)

In that 45-60 seconds on the track, my life would literally change forever; to love a sport that would not only influence me for the next 7 years (5 as an amateur and 2 years as a single A pro), but re-enter my life at 55 and reignite me to be a training athlete at 56 beginning to tour the country once again chasing the ultimate high of wins on dirt.  There is no better stoke!

I had found my “thing” as to whatever a thing was supposed to be.  

(I have to also admit that I had also found my “other thing” that same week with skateboarding, but that’s the next story to tell in a later blog).

I was definitely the slowest kid in the neighborhood.  So slow, that the other kids would put their couch-cushion change together to pay for me to race since they knew they could beat the pants off of me to make it to the main and win a trophy. 

This, my friends, was a bonafied “sponsorship” as I saw it!

This went on until the Summer Olympics of 1984 - The LA GAMES.

I watched a TV documentary about the training regimes of the Velodrome bike racers at the Olympics.  Although starkly different from BMX, the effect was the same in inspiring me to try this thing called “training”.  The next thing you know, I had a yellow rope tied to my seat post and was dragging a car tire uphill and carrying buckets of rocks as weights to get stronger or just oddly sore.  The neighborhood kids started calling me the “Night Rider” since I trained after dark. That whole summer focused on this (he may be getting a little soft in the noodle) behavior as I slowly morphed into winning a few races here and there to miraculously becoming unstoppable by age 18.  A few of us travelled to nearly 30 tracks around the lower US.  We were living the BMX life. We lived on our bikes sun up to sun down.  The way we dressed dramatically changed to wearing Vans and ripped up jeans and our race jerseys everywhere.  We wanted everybody to know that we were essentially outcasts in the spirit of BMX.  The local track in Clinton, MS dubbed me as “The Rocket” since I figured out the whole gate jumping thing and could shoot out like nobody’s business.

Shortly after this proclamation of BMXness, the training was paying off, the magazine appearances started happening and then a bike shop sponsor (The Bike Rack) and then a major distributor sponsor (WSI/Diamondback). 

I do have to admit that I was never titled as a “Factory” rider(maybe one day).From here, I was getting free bikes, parts, hotels stays and literally getting paid to train.  During the summer of ‘88, I had gotten bored with the winning of State Championships, Gold Cups, and lots of National 2nd places (However, I never actually WON a national until I was 55).

It was time to move on or go big.  I chose to turn pro.  As a deer in the headlights, I started aggressive training and training became my job as competing on this level required an all-in commitment.  The school of BMX Hard Knocks was now in session.  I was now getting a master’s degree in reality with a few pro highlights for sure and of course getting my rear end handed to me too.  

Eventually, I had to choose between being a BMX pro and finishing college - therefore the metaphorical pro-career kickstand would go down and this energy-charged life would hit a pause.  

Six years later, after graduating college and opening my own shop, we added BMX products to our shop lineup.  (My shop also got its start from selling tee shirts on the bleachers at BMX races.) 

A few of us started touring regional BMX races and crossing state lines again selling merch, hocking tee designs and running a BMX team of misfit potentials.  This is indeed a reference to the movie BREAKING AWAY!

Fast forward from the early two thousands from my early thirties to age 53 - and here we go, back to the BMX track again with a 2 and a 3 year old.  We entered Seven, my first born into the Stryder class.  Little did we know that both he and Mercer (my little sawed-off wirey one) would feel BMX exactly how I felt it.  Then at age 55 the now 5 & 6 year olds began shaming daddy about being too scared to ride a BMX bike again...  

(I was recovering from an auto accident where I got a  major concussion/brain injury - it was a year of mental hell to put it lightly)

Although skiddish at the thought, I remember my reaction to these two little punk kids being something like, “Oh Yeah?  Well, I’ll show you!" I went to the shed at the track that had older retired bikes for idiots like me. I grabbed the first bike I saw.  It was a Redline expert cruiser - perfect for any 14 year old girl! 

I pumped up those cracked-up tires up, borrowed a dusty helmet and got on the starting gate.  Somehow I won that day by the grace of God - surely this was a fluke.  The next two weekends doing the exact same.  I got cocky the fourth weekend and left a pound of flesh on the first asphalt berm and cracked my ankle bone trying to undercut a guy (sorry about that, Ronnie Wilson).  Upon my wife instructing me that I had lost my mind, I got back on that d@mn bike and finished the race.  My boys were watching and I was going to set a standard of never quitting.  So, from there I went flailing off to the finish line.  

Side note - I feel compelled to say this as well. We all started/restarted as the kids in blue jeans, long sleeve tee shirts and flat pedals.This was the intention, not because it could not be afforded, but with the intention of modestly earning our way up to better bikes, parts, uniforms etc. as we improved.  There’s a thing to being unassuming and rolling up to a starting gate, looking terrified and immediately being discounted and then winning that race.   

In March of 2025, I took the boys to their first USABMX national BMX event in Monroe, LA.  They were scaredsh!tless, but they still came out with a couple of firsts, seconds and thirds.  Were we on the slippery slope back into serious BMX now? 

Shortly after I was sort of healed enough to race again, I ran that same rattley old little kid sized cruiser into the ground with more racing and soon did a custom build (SCR cruiser 24”) and then a few months later an SCR 20” class bike.  There would be no looking back now.  

It’s 2026 now with 3 nationals (5 national wins) and multiple Gold Cup races, qualifiers, etc, we’re fully infected.  

When I fell back into BMX racing now as a returning amateur, I was reclassified as an Intermediate. It took a quick seven weeks to move up to Expert with the 5 National wins.  Boy, do I miss intermediate ! 

The boys have been picked up with a sponsorship from WHEELER DEALER Bike Company in Memphis.

I’m writing this blog today on the flight back from Temecula, CA where I just raced at Dirty Fest -  the most amazing weekend of my life.  A one mile old school downhill with all flat turns and enough loose dirt to take anyone out.  Seven, Mercer and I had the distinct privilege of meeting Bill Allen (Cru Jones from RAD), Hollywood Mike Miranda, Eddie Fiola, Todd Lyons, Bob Haro and a few others.They don’t call it Dirty Fest for nuthin’ though.I was fortunate to live the dream of killing it in Cali all weekend taking lots of wins in the motos until Sunday when I wiped out (in 1st). 

I got back up and finished the race with what turned out to be bruised ribs, a bruised pelvis and torn ac joint in my shoulder.  My boys were watching and they will never see their dad not finish a race.  Hoped up on Morphine and my pride in tow, I left that ER with just one thing in mind - I’ll be back next year for redemption, but there are no bandaids for BMX heartache! 

The rest will be what the future decides.

In my wildest imagination, I would have never thought I would be a training BMX athlete at 56.  

BMX is life, but a little known sport although it has been in 4 olympics already.  BMX is a great community mostly free of attitudes, egos, and politics.Its bigger days are coming as more bright-eyed hopefuls discover it.  

I would like to give props here to Shane Adams and Bernie Brenemen who run our local track in Ridgeland, MS - @Magridgebmx

These guys have been the foundation for my start back into BMX. They work their tails off as that track has remained based on their true sweat equity.  

Thank you 

@parkerginn 

@chrisdockery 

@buddymayner 

for that invite to the BMX track back in 1983. 

Thank you 

@debbypearman of Revolution Bikes of Eldorado KS - thanks for extending a great wing over me while touring.  

Thank you 

@frankbranum for building the machines that we sweat on and thanks for always being a worthy opponent with a great spirit in BMX - your guidance has been greatly appreciative as I relearn this world.

I also would like to say thatas much as I want to compete and of course win, It is also my goal here to turn more folks onto this great sport. There are others out there who also just need that 1 invite to a BMX track to change their life forever too.  

There are a lot of little girls out there who could one day be the next 

@alisewilloughby

@molliesimpson44 

@alexis.alden

There are little boys out there that could be the next 

@barrynobles 

@camwood  

@kamrenlarsen 

LIVE FAST DREAM FOREVER ! 

CHANE