BMX-ing the Metro

When Eric Minor accepted an offer to manage an auto parts store in Overland Park, Kan., and move his young family from its lifelong home in Alton, Ill., last spring, he just wanted to settle into a small, peaceful town like the one they left.

"When I got to the Kansas City area, (my co-workers) told me that Louisburg, Kan., would be a good place," Minor says. Louisburg, due south of Overland Park in Miami County, still has the small-town feel of a rural community, but the effects of sprawling Johnson County are beginning to wash up against its borders.

Minor didn't know it at the time, but his longtime love for BMX (Bicycle Motocross) was going to make him think about things he may never have before. Becoming a hopeful BMX track developer just months after moving to Louisburg, he was confronted with questions about light, noise, and dust pollution -- issues he didn't realize other BMX track developers around the country face. But other issues arose as well: proper use of public parkland and public resources' benefiting private enterprise.

ABA helping hand
"My son did (motorcycle) motocross racing in Illinois, and when I found out that really wasn't an option here (Louisburg), he wanted to get involved in BMX. I raced BMX when I was a kid, up until I was about 17, when an injury forced me to quit," Minor says.

Minor's family, with a boy age 8 and a girl age 6, is a typical "BMX family," as they call themselves -- young couples in their 20s and 30s, with one or both of the parents maybe having raced as children. Such families usually have one or more children racing, as do the Minors. As the Minor family made friends in Louisburg, several other families got their kids involved in the sport as well. "Bryce (Minor's son) would be riding around the neighborhood in his racing jersey, and as he met other kids and they would ask him what he was doing, more kids got into it with us. I think there are at least 10 kids in Louisburg racing now," Minor says.

In searching for a racing outlet, Minor found two American Bicycle Association (ABA) sanctioned tracks in the Kansas City area: a new track in Raytown and a 14-year-old facility in Blue Springs. Although there is a NBL (National Bicycle League) track near Buckner, Minor says he chooses the ABA because "they are well known and stand behind their racers."

The ABA, a for-profit sanctioning body of BMX racing, traces the first BMX races to the early '70s, when a few kids in California modified some bicycles and created the first track in a vacant lot. When the kids were caught on film for the movie Any Given Sunday, word of the sport spread across the country. By 1977, pockets of loosely organized races were developing nationally and the ABA was created to "establish the rules of racing that provide fair competition and fun family entertainment for all of its members."

The ABA maintains that BMX is a family sport, and its Web site states, "ABA BMX is a sport of youthful achievement and the American family. While the young boy or girl BMX racer develops skills at an individual pace, they are learning about winning, losing, and trying again. The racer's family learns that time spent together is in support of the racer and the individual achievement is quality time."

The ABA is also a business, and like all businesses, it wants to grow. Helping developers and would-be developers, such as Minor, is part of the business plan. The organization offers not only moral support but also the labor necessary to build the track.

"We will provide a promotional package, which contains information about ABA, information about insurance, and 501c3 form samples and sample letters to present to local city councils or park boards. We will also do an artist's rendering of the track based on photos or video of the proposed site," Shannon Gillette explains during a telephone interview from the national ABA track director's office in Chandler, Ariz. His office provides technical advice and maintenance to the 250 sanctioned tracks in the United States and Canada. "When the local developer has secured land, filled out the application, and we have received a certificate of insurance, we will send a professional track builder to help design and build the track," says Gillette.

The ABA recommends that the developer have at least two to five acres of land for an average 900- to 1,300-foot track. Several tons of packed dirt are needed to create the hills, jumps, and turns on the track, which is designed by the ABA office, usually with input from local developers.