My First BMX Race

It's amazing that this is on You Tube, but this is what the Fort Boise BMX track was like in the fall of 1982 when I went to my first race.  I think this clip is actually from 1983, not 1984 like it says, because we rebuilt the track in late 1983 and it had better jumps.

There was a good size crew of BMXers in the Blue Valley Trailer Park outside Boise in the summer of 1982.  There was one family which had Mike, Steve, Greg, Brian and Andy, two families of divorcee parents that remarried, kind of like an all male Brady Bunch.  Then there was Scott, Rocky, Buzzard, Shane, James, and myself.  Yes, I actually knew a kid known as "Buzzard."  He had a real name, but nobody remembered what it was.  I was going to be a sophomore in High school, and most of the guys were a year or two younger than me.  In any case, we rode our jumps nearly every night through the summer and into the fall of 1982.  Then, somehow, someone learned that there was a BMX track at the north end of Boise, an area called Fort Boise.  This was long before the internet as we know it today, so we couldn't just look stuff up like we do now.  Our whole group rode together for months not knowing there was a BMX track in town, and several more in surrounding towns. 

It was the second to last race of the season when we packed four guys and three bikes into Scott's mom's Ford Pinto.  For those of you who remember Pintos, this wasn't even a hatchback.  The two of us crammed into the back seat had a bike (minus the front wheel) across our laps.  It was Scott, James, Brian, and me that went to that first race.  Scott had lived in California, and had been to a couple of tracks before, so he was the only one that had any idea what to expect.  We pulled upto the track, which we later found out was built in a former sewer pond.  Seriously.  The first thing that struck me was that there were forty or fifty other BMXers.  I had no idea that ANYBODY else in Boise rode BMX besides us.  That's how small the sport was then.  It NEVER got on TV in those days, and many people had never even heard of BMX.

We piled out of the Pinto and checked out the track.  It just seemed so cool that there was actually a place MADE for BMX.  The other three guys put their front wheels back on, and went to sign up for the race.  I was just watching that first race.  We only had room in the car for three bikes, so I decided to be a spectator.

The track had a six person, hand-held gate on the hill leading into the old sewer pond.  That meant that the starter actually held a pole attached to the gate that held the gate up.  He would yell the start signals."Riders ready, pedals ready, GO!" and then let go of the pole so the gate would drop.  The track was a backwards "M" design.  The first hill led down to a rounded tabletop jump, into a tight first turn to the left, then through some moguls, over a roller jump, and into the big second turn to the right.  Coming out of the second jump the track operators would actually make a mud hole in the third straight most of the time.  Then there was a tiny, one foot high berm in the third turn to the left, and a small double jump that most riders just speed jumped before the finish line.

My trailer park friends started practicing while I watched the lines other riders took, and then we all discussed how best to ride the track.  Before long, the race started.  I don't remember exactly how the guys did, but they all got trophies to bring home.  Despite never racing before, they were all right in the mix with the experienced racers.  Our competitive nature in the trailer park had honed our skills fairly well.

After the race was over came something I hadn't expected.  There was a lip built on one side of the backside of the tabletop jump.  Riders lined up on top of the first berm, which was built into the side of the hill, and they started taking turns jumping off that lip for style.  It was my first real jumping jam, and at that point I was totally bummed I didn't have my bike.  Tabletops, X-ups, and kick out cross-ups were the main jumps being thrown at that time.  I watched as my friends sessioned  the jump.  Then we piled into the Pinto again for the ride home.  All we knew is that there was one more race left in the season, and we were going to be there.  BMX racing was our thing.