Photo Credit: USA BMX
In the last decade, “wheel-friendly” parks and plazas have exploded across the country, whether intended for bikes, skateboards, or both. Skateparks in particular are showing up in communities from St. Cloud, Minn., to Poplar Bluff, Mo., as more parks departments realize the benefits of dedicating public space to individualized action-sport activities.
The action-sport landscape now has another under-realized newcomer gaining ground in public parks: sanctioned BMX race tracks. Until recently and much like skateboarding, BMX racing had little public awareness as a “sport,” leading many municipal parks departments to assume it appealed only to small groups. But with the Olympics having successfully added BMX racing to its docket in the 2008 Beijing Games, awareness—as well as demand for facilities—is on the rise.
From Humble Beginnings
BMX, an abbreviation of “bicycle motocross,” got its start in the early 1970s in the birthplace of action sports: Southern California. By 1977 the American Bicycle Association—now under the name USA BMX—was established as the official sanctioning body for the sport. For the next three decades, particularly as the X Games grew in the late 1990s, the sport became more popular but never rose to a “mainstream” level.