Chandler BMX

Track 001, and the ground the American Bicycle Association was built on

Legend Bike Co · BMX heritage series

What it is An outdoor dirt BMX race track — and it is still racing

Where 298 S. McQueen Road, Chandler, Arizona, on the northwest corner of McQueen and Frye

Track number 0001. USA BMX still routes the track's official pages through that number

Opened 1977 — the same year the ABA was created out of Chandler

Sanction ABA from 1977, then USA BMX after the 2011 merger with the NBL. One organization, unbroken

Documented national ABA Winter Nationals, 1989, filed under Chandler in USA BMX's photo archive

Today Open and operating, with a current USA BMX track operator on file

Most of the tracks in this library are gone. Bulldozed, paved, turned into a soccer field, remembered only by the people who raced them. Chandler is the opposite problem. It is still there, still hauling dirt, still running motos on the same corner in the Phoenix suburbs where it started — and that continuity is exactly what makes it hard to see how strange it is.

Chandler BMX carries the number 0001. Not as a nickname. As a filing number, in the records of the sanctioning body that runs American BMX racing today.

1977: Arizona Builds a Sanction

By the middle of the 1970s, BMX had outgrown its own paperwork. Southern California had invented the sport and had the tracks, the magazines and the factories, but the rules changed depending on who was running the gate that weekend. The existing sanctions were run out of California and were, depending on who you asked, either doing their best or protecting their own.

Arizona had tracks and it had people who were tired of it. Merl Mennenga was running a track. Gene Roden was promoting races. They put a structure together and started an organization: the American Bicycle Association. Wikipedia's history of the ABA dates the formation to August 30, 1977, with Mennenga as president from 1977 to 1985 and Roden as vice president from 1977 to 1982. Our own ABA chapter puts the incorporation out of Chandler on October 13, 1977.

What they built has outlasted almost everything else in the sport. The transfer system — win your moto, move up to the quarter, the semi, the main — came out of that first ABA rulebook, and it is still how a BMX race is run in this country half a century later.

One thing worth getting straight, because it gets muddled: the ABA's first sanctioned race did not run at Chandler. It ran on September 24, 1977 at Manzanita Raceway in Tucson, about two hours south, as documented in the October 1977 issue of Bicycle Motocross News. Chandler is not where the ABA held its first race. Chandler is where the ABA came from, and where its first track number landed.

What Track 001 Actually Means

Sanctioning bodies number their tracks. It is dull administrative housekeeping, and it is also the closest thing BMX has to a birth certificate. Chandler got the first number the ABA ever handed out, and it never gave it back.

Go to USA BMX today and Chandler BMX lives at track 0001. The organization has changed hands, changed presidents, gone through bankruptcy protection in 1985 and reorganization in 1987, absorbed a rival sanction in 2011 and moved its headquarters from Chandler to Gilbert and then to Tulsa. Through all of it, the number on that corner of McQueen and Frye did not move.

That is a rare thing. Compare it to the Apple Valley story, where a 1974 track survived by changing sanctions as the sanctions themselves rose and collapsed. Chandler survived by never having to. It picked one and the one it picked won.

The Nationals

Here is where we have to be careful, because the honest answer is that Chandler's national-event record is thinner in the accessible archives than its importance deserves.

What we can document: USA BMX's own photo archive files a gallery titled Winter Nationals 1989 under Chandler, Arizona. The Winternationals were the ABA's traditional season opener, the race where the previous year's champions collected their national number plates before anybody had a points total to defend. Running that event on the sanction's home ground, at the track that carried its first number, is exactly the kind of thing a sanction does on purpose.

What we cannot document from here: the full list of nationals Chandler held, the years, and who won them. The ABA's national schedule moved constantly across its run — the first ABA national went to Azusa, California in 1978, the first Grand National to Las Vegas on December 9, 1978, and the Grands settled into Oklahoma City through the 1980s. Where Chandler sat in that rotation year by year is a question for the period magazines and the moto sheets, not for anything we could reach tonight.

So we will say what is true and leave the rest open. Chandler is not important because of a long list of nationals. Chandler is important because it is the ground the sanction was born on, and because it is still there.

The Arizona Cluster

The ABA did not come out of nowhere. Arizona in 1977 had a real racing scene — Phoenix, Tucson, Chandler — with track operators and parents who had been running events long enough to know what a fair rulebook would look like. Manzanita Raceway in Tucson took the first sanctioned race. Chandler took the first track number. The state that had been a long drive from the center of the sport ended up owning its administration outright, and never gave it up: the sanction stayed headquartered in the Phoenix metro for more than four decades.

For a rider, that meant Arizona dirt was never provincial. The people writing the rules lived down the road.

What Stands There Now

Chandler BMX is open. It is at 298 S. McQueen Road, northwest corner of McQueen and Frye, with a USA BMX track operator on file and a race schedule that runs classes from balance-bike riders on up. It is a working local track that happens to be one of the most historically significant pieces of dirt in American BMX, and if you turned up on a race night without knowing that, nothing would tell you.

Which is, in its way, the best possible outcome. The sport does not keep many of its landmarks. This one it kept by using it.

Where the record runs thin

The exact opening date of the Chandler track within 1977 is not documented in anything we could reach — only the year. Who physically built it, who cut the first turns and who operated it in its early seasons are not documented. Whether the number 0001 was assigned at the moment the ABA formed or applied to Chandler afterward, once the numbering scheme existed, is not documented; the surviving accounts simply state the result. The full list of nationals Chandler hosted, the years they ran and the riders who won them could not be confirmed; we can document the 1989 Winter Nationals gallery in USA BMX's archive and nothing more precise than that. What the course was physically like in any given era — length, number of straights, the shape of the first turn, whether the layout has been rebuilt or moved within the parcel since 1977 — is not documented in sources we could read. Published street addresses for the track vary between listings; we have used the one carried on USA BMX's own contact page and on the track's public listings, and the cross-street description of McQueen and Frye is consistent across all of them. On sources: bmxsociety.com was unreachable throughout this research, bmxmuseum.com blocks automated access so its Arizona track threads could not be read, and usabmx.com and photos.usabmx.com render their content in the browser, so the track record and the national photo galleries could not be read directly and are reported here only from their indexed titles and listings.

Raced Chandler in the early years? Know who built it, or which nationals it held and when? Got a flyer, a plate or a photo from that corner? Legend Bike Co wants to hear from you — this page grows as the people who were there fill in the record.

Timeline

  • August 30, 1977The American Bicycle Association is formed, with Merl Mennenga as president and Gene Roden as vice president.
  • September 24, 1977The ABA runs its first sanctioned race — at Manzanita Raceway in Tucson, Arizona, not at Chandler.
  • October 13, 1977The ABA is incorporated out of Chandler, Arizona.
  • 1977The Chandler track opens and takes ABA track number 001.
  • 1978The first ABA national runs in Azusa, California, with 35 tracks and 3,000 participants. The first ABA Grand National follows in Las Vegas on December 9.
  • 1979The ABA becomes the largest governing body in BMX racing.
  • 1985 to 1987The sanction goes through sale, Chapter 11 protection and a court-approved reorganization. The Chandler track keeps racing.
  • 1989USA BMX's photo archive files a Winter Nationals gallery under Chandler, Arizona.
  • 2011The ABA acquires the assets of the NBL and becomes USA BMX. Chandler's number does not change.
  • TodayChandler BMX is open at 298 S. McQueen Road, listed by USA BMX as track 0001.

Where Chandler fits in the bigger story

The sanctions: ABA, NBL. Other tracks that carried a national: Azusa, Anaheim Stadium, Apple Valley, La Mirada, and the wider survey in The Tracks That Built BMX. The people who raced the ABA system: Greg Hill, Stu Thomsen, Gary Ellis, Mike King, Pete Loncarevich, Brent Romero. The brand that put its name on the ABA's regional series: Redline. The full arc lives in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Wikipedia, American Bicycle Association — the August 30, 1977 formation date, Merl Mennenga as founder and president 1977 to 1985, Gene Roden as vice president 1977 to 1982, the first sanctioned race on September 24, 1977 at Manzanita Raceway in Tucson (citing Bicycle Motocross News, October 1977, Vol. 4 No. 9), the first ABA national in Azusa in 1978 with 35 tracks and 3,000 participants, the first Grand National in Las Vegas on December 9, 1978, the ABA becoming the largest governing body in 1979, the 1985 sale and Chapter 11 filing, the September 24, 1987 court-approved reorganization, the 2011 NBL acquisition and rename to USA BMX, and the Gilbert, Arizona headquarters. USA BMX track listings and contact page for Chandler BMX, filed under track number 0001 — the current operating status, the 298 S. McQueen Road address and the northwest corner of McQueen and Frye. USA BMX photo archive, 1989 ABA Nationals, gallery titled Winter Nationals 1989 — Chandler, AZ — the documented national at this track. Visit Chandler and City of Chandler public listings for the track's present-day existence. Legend Bike Co's own ABA chapter for the October 13, 1977 incorporation out of Chandler and the Track 001 designation. Not reachable during research: bmxsociety.com was down throughout; bmxmuseum.com blocks automated access, so its Arizona track-history forum threads could not be read; and usabmx.com and photos.usabmx.com serve their content client-side, so the track record and the national galleries could not be read directly.