Brian Foster

The Blue Falcon, ABA/NBL Racer Turned Dirt Jumping Champion

A Legend Bike Co. rider page · primary sources: Wikipedia's detailed racing ledger, period BMX Plus! and Snap BMX Magazine coverage, and USA BMX Hall of Fame records

At a glance

Level AA Pro (ABA/NBL), then pro dirt jumper
Scene Wilmington, Delaware, early 1980s through the 2000s
Teams S&M Bicycles (amateur, 1989) · Cyclecraft · Airwalk · Schwinn · Fit Bike Co.
Known for Being a genuine double threat — a title-contending ABA and NBL pro racer who also became an X Games dirt jumping gold medalist

Brian Foster is one of the rare riders BMX history remembers for two separate careers under one name. First he was an AA Pro racer good enough to nearly take the ABA National No. 1 plate. Then, as racing gave way to the new sport of dirt jumping in the 1990s, he became one of the riders who defined it, medaling five times at the X Games. Almost nobody did both at a high level. Foster did.

Starting Young, With His Brother

Foster started racing in April 1981 at eight years old, a week after his older brother Alan. The two of them became one of BMX's recurring sibling stories — in the same tradition as Brent and Brian Patterson, or Eddy and Mike King — riding and later racing against each other for most of two decades. Brian was the more successful of the two on the track. His amateur ranks ran through JF&S Plumbing (1982 to 1983), Wheel Power (1983 to 1989), a brief stop with S&M Bicycles in 1989, TNT/Goodtimes in 1990, and Cyclecraft from 1990 into his pro years.

Turning Pro, September 1991

Foster turned professional in September 1991 at nineteen, shortly after the NBL restructured its pro ranks, and placed third in "A" Pro at the ABA Fall Nationals in his first professional race. His first pro win came a few months later, in "A" Pro at the NBL Christmas Classic in Columbus, Ohio, on December 29, 1991. As an amateur he had already won the 1988 ABA 16 Expert Grandnational and the 1990 and 1991 NBL 18 & Over Expert Grandnational and National No. 1 titles.

1995 — The Title That Got Away

The closest Foster came to the sport's biggest prize was 1995. He trailed points leaders John Purse and Gary Ellis heading into the ABA Grandnationals, then closed the gap hard across the final motos. Going into the AA Pro main, he needed only a fifth or sixth-place finish to win the ABA National No. 1 title outright. He crashed instead — first an eighth-place finish after a pileup, then a last-place finish after tangling with Jamie Staff, then a seventh in the decisive main after his front wheel slid out in a crowded pack. The plate went to Gary Ellis instead, under a rule of the era that barred a foreign rider (Frenchman Christophe Lévêque, who had the points lead at that stage) from taking the ABA No. 1 title. It remains one of the more talked-about near-misses of 1990s BMX racing.

Becoming the Blue Falcon

Through the second half of the 1990s, Foster's focus shifted toward the new discipline of dirt jumping, which had only become an organized competitive sport in 1989. He won the NBL Dirt Circuit Championship in 1996 and the ABA King of Dirt title in both 1996 and 1997, and his nicknames — Blue Falcon, BF, and Dirt — followed him into the new discipline. Schwinn built a signature frameset around the name in 1997, the Schwinn Brian Foster Blue Falcon Frameset, and followed it with full signature complete bikes in 2000 and 2001.

X Games — Gold in 1998

Foster medaled five times across his X Games BMX Dirt and Downhill BMX career: bronze in 1996, silver in 1997, gold in 1998, silver again in 1999, and a final silver in Downhill BMX in 2001. The 1998 gold is the signature result of his dirt jumping years, won at the same moment Schwinn was building its marketing around him as one of the sport's headline names.

Life After Racing

Foster stepped back from racing in 2001, deciding to quit competitive racing at a "La Revolusion" freestyle contest, though he kept riding and building his profile in dirt jumping into the mid-2000s with Fit Bikes, Fox Racing, and Primo. He is now a doctor specializing in physical therapy.

2018 — USA BMX Hall of Fame

USA BMX inducted Brian Foster into the National BMX Hall of Fame in 2018, in the Racing category — recognition of the racing career, not just the dirt jumping years that made him famous to a wider audience.

Where the public record runs thin

Foster's exact results and standings during his brief 1989 stint with S&M Bicycles are not broken out in detail in the sources checked for this page — it appears as a single line in his amateur team ledger, without a fuller account of that period. oldschoolmags.com and bmxsociety.com were checked directly and did not return independent Foster-specific material beyond general archive scans at the time of research.

Where Brian Foster fits in the bigger story

Brands: S&M Bikes. Sanctioning and honors: ABA · NBL · USA BMX (2018 Hall of Fame). The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Wikipedia — "Brian Foster (BMX rider)," including its detailed racing ledger drawn from period issues of BMX Plus!, Go, Snap BMX Magazine, Ride BMX, and Transworld BMX. USA BMX National BMX Hall of Fame records, 2018 Racing category. oldschoolmags.com and bmxsociety.com were checked for independent period coverage; neither returned results beyond general archive material at the time of research.