BMX Racing History · Rider Profile · Legend Bike Co

Brent Romero

Every so often a rider comes along who never turns pro, never gets the magazine empire built around him, and still ends up being one of the names old racers argue about decades later. Brent Romero is one of those riders. Ask anybody who lined up at a national in 1985 who the fastest amateur on the planet was, and a whole lot of them give you the same answer without thinking twice.

The year he ran the table

1985 was his. He took the ABA National No.1 Amateur plate that season, and here is the part that still gets brought up: he held it in both sanctions at once. ABA and NBL, the two big bodies of the day, ran their own points races, their own nationals, their own number-one chases. Winning one was a full season's grind. Brent had both. Guys who were there call it damn near a clean sweep of everything. That is not a thing that happens by accident, and it is not a thing most riders ever do — pro or amateur.

He was racing the toughest amateur classes in the country and beating the toughest amateur fields in the country. The names around him in those motos went on to long careers. He was the one to beat.

Diamond Back, then Huffy

He came up on Diamond Back, riding for the factory team in 1984 when that squad was loaded — one of the strongest amateur lineups anybody put together in that era. He was a young kid on it, eleven years old in the standings late that year, already stacking up national points against riders older than him. Diamond Back even put him on a trading card in 1984, which tells you the industry already knew what they had.

In 1985 he moved to Huffy and kept right on winning, lining up alongside teammates like Mike King and Gary Ellis. Same speed, different jersey. The number-one season came on Huffy.

The amateur who belongs in the conversation

Here is the honest tension in Brent's story, and it is worth saying plainly. BMX has a long habit of measuring greatness by the pro ranks — did you win an AA title, did you turn pro and dominate. Brent's biggest years were as an amateur, and for a long time that kept his name off the Hall of Fame list while riders with thinner records went in. The people who actually raced against him never bought that. For years the question on the old-school boards was the same: how is Brent Romero not in the Hall of Fame?

In 2026 that finally started to turn. The National BMX Hall of Fame named him one of its "Great-8" nominees in the Early Racer category — the short list that goes to a vote. Whether the final plaque comes this round or the next, the record is the record. For a couple of seasons in the mid-1980s, the fastest amateur in American BMX was a kid out of Arizona named Brent Romero, and the sport is slowly catching up to what the riders already knew.

Sources
• National BMX Hall of Fame — Diamond Back team reunion post ("Brent Romero, 1985 ABA No.1 Amateur"), facebook.com/bmxhof
• Arizona BMX Hall of Fame — photo caption ("Brent Romero, the 1985 ABA National #1") and "Great-8" Early Racer nominee announcement, facebook.com/arizonabmxhof
• BMXmuseum.com Forums — "HOF votes are in" thread (1985 ABA + NBL number-one discussion), bmxmuseum.com/forums
• BMX Plus! magazine national standings, 1984–1985 ("Brent Romero / Diamond Back"), oldschoolmags.com
• BMX Action magazine, Jan 1986 issue (Brent Romero race coverage), oldschoolmags.com
• 1984 Donruss BMX trading card set, #43/#44 — Brent Romero, Diamond Back
• BMX Weekly podcast — mid-1980s Huffy team (Mike King, Brent Romero, Gary Ellis)