David Clinton

BMX's First National No. 1 and Its First Official Pro

A Legend Bike Co. rider page · researched from Wikipedia's sourced rider record (citing period Bicycle Motocross News and BMX Action coverage), the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, and Legend Bike Co.'s own History of BMX hub

At a glance

Full name David Clinton, nicknamed "Dynamite"
Born January 2, 1960, Sun Valley, California
Career 1971–1980, with a brief 1982 comeback
Teams Pedalers West · Rick's Bike Shop · Kawasaki Motors · Jimmy Weinart · D.G. Performance Specialist · Shimano/Diamondback · Redline Engineering (1979) · Diamondback
Known for First rider ever to hold a National No. 1 plate (1975), BMX's first factory-sponsored rider (1974) and first official pro (1977), inaugural 1985 BMX Hall of Fame class

Before there was a National No. 1 plate, there was no such thing as a national champion in BMX — just fast kids at fast local tracks. David Clinton is the rider who existed on both sides of that line. He raced before any of the sport's structure existed, then became the first person to hold nearly every title the structure eventually created: first factory rider, first National No. 1, first licensed pro. When the ABA built BMX's first Hall of Fame in 1985, Clinton was one of three names picked to start it.

Racing Before There Was Anything to Race For

Clinton started racing in 1971 at eleven years old, doing halftime-show BMX races between the motocross events at the Indian Dunes track in Valencia, California — a period when some of the first BMX tracks were carved directly out of active motorcycle motocross courses. His first sponsor was Pedalers West, a Northridge, California bike shop, in 1972; the same shop where Redline founder Linn Kastan would bring his first tubular chromoly BMX fork to shop owner Jim Emerson two years later. Clinton moved to Rick's Bike Shop in 1973.

BMX's First Factory Rider

In August 1974, Kawasaki Motors — the motorcycle company — signed Clinton, making him, on the record, the first factory-sponsored rider in the sport of BMX. It's worth being precise about what that meant at the time: BMX had no factory teams yet in any organized sense. A motorcycle manufacturer putting its name behind a fourteen-year-old bicycle racer was a new kind of thing entirely.

The Yamaha Gold Cup, September 1974

That same September, Clinton won the Junior class at the Yamaha Bicycle Gold Cup final — the four-race promotional series Yamaha ran through California that year, capped by a night at the Los Angeles Coliseum on September 14, 1974, in front of more than 5,000 people. Stu Thomsen won the Expert class that night and Mark Whitehead won Novice; Clinton took Junior, and reportedly set the fastest single-lap time of the night on the quarter-mile course, 69.9 seconds. It wasn't a true national — no national points were on offer, and no sanctioning body yet existed to award them — but it was the first large, heavily promoted race series BMX had seen, and Clinton's win there is the closest thing the sport has to a first headline result.

The First National No. 1 Plate in BMX History

The following March, the newly formed National Bicycle Association ran what's generally counted as BMX's first true national — the NBA Winternationals in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 29, 1975, followed the next day by the Tri-State National in Tucson. When the NBA introduced its National No. 1 ranking that year, David Clinton became the first rider in the sport's history to hold it. (Because period results sheets published only the top four finishers, it isn't recorded exactly where Clinton placed at the Tucson race itself — only that he ended the season on top of the NBA's rankings.) He also topped the National No. 1 list that year for two other, shorter-lived bodies: the original American Bicycle Association, founded in Torrance, California in January 1975 by Bob Bailey, and the National Pedal Sport Association. That first ABA folded by the end of 1975 — a different organization from the ABA founded in Chandler, Arizona in 1977, which is the ABA that exists today — and Clinton was its only National No. 1 racer of any year.

Turning Pro, 1977

Clinton briefly stepped away from BMX in 1976 to race motocross for Kawasaki, then came back to bicycles and turned pro with the NBA in 1977 at seventeen years old — the first rider in BMX history to hold an official professional license. He was also a founding member of the Professional Racing Organization, the riders' guild pros formed that same year. His first pro win came on April 30, 1978, at an NBA National in Chandler, Arizona, and he closed out that season as the NBA's Open Pro and Overall Western States Champion and its Pro Class Grand National Champion.

Redline, 1979

Clinton spent part of the 1979 season on Redline Engineering, riding alongside Jeff Ruminer and Mike Bush on what Redline founder Linn Kastan has recalled as the brand's first ABA factory tour — though Kastan himself has said he isn't certain whether Greg Hill was on that very first trip or joined on a later one. Clinton moved between Redline, D.G. Performance Specialist, and Shimano Sales Corporation through 1979 before settling with Diamondback (Centurion) from January 1980 through the end of his career.

Knees, Retirement, and a Short Comeback

Knee injuries defined the back half of Clinton's career. A hyperextension injury during the 1977 season cost him a shot at that year's National No. 1 plate, and by the end of the 1980 season, at twenty years old, his knee forced him into retirement. He tried a comeback in October 1982 at the ABA Fall Nationals in Lancaster, California, but the same knee — combined with his refusal to give up the old-fashioned one-pedal starting technique most other pros, Andy Patterson among the notable exceptions, had already dropped for the faster two-pedal balance start — cut the comeback short.

Clinton spent his last active season as supervisor of the sales department at Western States Imports, Diamondback's parent company. He was featured in Bob Osborn's 1984 book The Complete Book of BMX, and as of 2005 was the inside sales manager running Answer Products' BMX co-factory program. He remains involved in cycling as a rider and through the Hershey's Tour de Pink charity ride for breast cancer awareness.

Two Halls of Fame

In 1985, ABA owner Bernie Anderson created what's now the USA BMX Hall of Fame, and named three inaugural inductees: racers David Clinton and Stu Thomsen, and Redline founder Linn Kastan in the Industry category. Clinton was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame on October 17, 2006 — a second honor, two decades later, for the same body of firsts.

Where David Clinton fits in the bigger story

Riders: Stu Thomsen, Greg Hill, Scot Breithaupt, Byron Friday, Linn Kastan. Brands: Redline, Diamondback. Sanctions: NBA, ABA. The bigger arc is in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Wikipedia, "David Clinton" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Clinton) — a heavily footnoted rider record citing period Bicycle Motocross News, Bicycle Motocross Action, and Snap BMX Magazine coverage from 1974 through 1988; used here for the amateur and pro sponsor timeline, national titles, injuries, and career firsts. United States Bicycling Hall of Fame — "David Clinton" (usbhof.org/inductee/david-clinton-2), 2006 induction biography. Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, "USA BMX Announces Inductees For Their 40th Anniversary BMX Hall Of Fame" (June 11, 2025), for the 1985 inaugural-class detail alongside Stu Thomsen and Linn Kastan. Legend Bike Co.'s own History of BMX hub and Linn Kastan page, cross-checked for the Yamaha Gold Cup result and the 1979 Redline tour roster. oldschoolmags.com and bmxsociety.com were searched directly for independent Clinton coverage; no material beyond what's cited above was found at the time of research.

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