BMX Racing History · Track File · Legend Bike Co

Azusa BMX: Rich Long's Track, Where the ABA Went National

Some tracks matter because of who raced there. Azusa matters because of what started there. In February 1978, a few months after two Arizonans founded the American Bicycle Association, the new sanction held its first national — at the Azusa track run by Richard Long, the bike shop owner who, one year later, would co-found GT Bicycles. One dirt track in the San Gabriel Valley sits at the origin point of both the biggest sanction and the biggest brand BMX ever produced.

The Promoter

Richard Long owned Anaheim Cycles and ran the Azusa BMX track — shop owner by day, track operator on race day. He was selling Gary Turner's hand-welded frames over the counter at the same time, and in 1979 the two incorporated GT Bicycles. Even the kids hanging around the track ended up in the industry: Chris Moeller, who later founded S&M Bikes, remembers bagging number plates for Rich Long as one of his first BMX jobs.

February 1978

The ABA was three months old when it brought its first national to Long's track in February 1978. The Azusa national put the new Arizona sanction on California dirt — enemy territory, in sanction terms — and it worked. That era also brought the first big ABA pro purse, $1,000, real money in 1978. Within a few years the ABA was the largest sanction in the country, and the first national at Azusa is the race the growth story counts from.

The Track

Riders remember the original layout off Azusa Canyon Road: down the start hill into a left-hand sweeper, a quarter berm, a straight with doubles, a 180-degree berm, then speed bumps to the line. By 1983–84, rider memory puts two tracks side by side out there — ABA on the south end, NBL on the north — and the newer track is remembered as the better one, even appearing in the 1983 film Uncommon Valor. We flag the two-track detail and the movie appearance as rider recollection until period coverage confirms them. A track researcher working from period photos and historic aerials places the starting line near present-day Mirador Drive.

The End

Rider memory has the original track closing around 1982 with racing continuing nearby into 1983–84, but no documented final-closure date survives in the available record — we say so plainly. Richard Long went on to build GT into the biggest BMX company in the world before his death in 1996. The full GT story is Chapter 6.