Denny Davidow

Late-1970s / early-1980s pro racer · Delta Racing → TW BMX → Skyway / TW → Redline Proline → Bassett (Mike Redman's version) · BMX Action March 1981 cover · Number 70X

A BMXRacingHistory.com preview · hosted on Legend Bike Co

At a glance

Name: Denny Davidow (also Dennis Davidow).
Era: Late 1970s through the early 1980s.
Race number: 70X.
Full career sponsor chain (per Bill Ryan, primary-source recollection):
  1. Delta Racing Products (DRP) — 1978
  2. TW BMX / TW Racing — around 1979 to 1980
  3. Skyway Tuff Wheel co-sponsor — early 1980s, while still racing a TW frame underneath
  4. Redline Proline — mid-career
  5. Bassett Bikes (Mike Redman's version) — his final sponsor before retirement
Major print credits: Cover of BMX Action, March 1981 (Vol. 6, No. 3) · "Denny Davidow's Pro Training Methods" feature, BMX Action, December 1980 · Hot Shots, BMX Action, September 1980 · Bassett product test, Super BMX, January 1982.
Hall of Fame: Listed among National BMX Hall of Fame members. Secondary sources report a 2003 induction year alongside Darrell Young and Richard Hutchins; not verified on the live USA BMX directory.

Why this page is shorter than most

Denny Davidow rode in the right years on the right magazines, but the published rider-profile record on him is thin compared to a Stu Thomsen or a Greg Hill. The corrected sponsor chain above comes from Bill Ryan's first-hand recollection of the era. We're publishing what we can verify and flagging what is still open.

Delta Racing Products (1978)

BMXmuseum.com carries an entry for a 1978 Delta Racing Products Denny Davidow bike. Delta Racing Products (DRP) was a short-lived late-1970s brand and Davidow's first documented factory ride. The museum entry puts him on a sponsored frame by 1978, which places his career start in the first wave of California BMX — the same wave that produced Scot Breithaupt, Stu Thomsen, Perry Kramer, and the early SE Racing roster.

TW BMX (around 1979 to 1980)

TW BMX, also known as TW Racing, is the brand Denny Davidow is most strongly associated with in the published record. The clearest contemporaneous cite for the team is in the Pete Loncarevich Wikipedia entry, which documents Pete on TW Racing from December 1979 to September 1980 and sources the team to a TW ad in Bicycle Motocross Action, January 1981, Volume 6, Number 1, page 74. The same entry notes that TW was run by Pete's father's business partners.

Davidow was a teammate of Pete's during that TW window. For more on TW itself, see the TW BMX history page.

The Skyway co-sponsorship — on a TW frame

Skyway, the Redding, California composite-wheel maker behind the Tuff Wheel, ran one of the most visible co-sponsorships in early BMX. Davidow picked up Skyway as a co-sponsor in the early 1980s. Per Bill Ryan's first-hand account, the bike Davidow was racing during the Skyway period was still a TW frame — Skyway's contribution was Tuff Wheels and co-sponsor support; TW kept supplying the chassis. Skyway's own Skyway Tuff Wheels Facebook page has shared his ad from the very early 1980s.

Component-brand co-sponsorships paired with a frame-brand chassis were common in the early 1980s. Skyway, ACS, Tioga, Oakley, and a half-dozen others underwrote top riders without taking the full-frame contract. Davidow's Skyway / TW pairing is one of the cleaner examples of that era's sponsor structure.

Redline Proline

After the TW / Skyway chapter, Davidow moved to Redline's Proline program — Redline's pro-tier race frame line built around the iconic Flight crank generation. The Redline Proline years sit in the mid-period of Davidow's career, between the TW-era cover-rider spotlight and his final sponsor.

Bassett Bikes (Mike Redman's version) — the final chapter

Davidow's last sponsor before retirement was Bassett Bikes — specifically the version of Bassett operated by Mike Redman. The Bassett name in BMX has gone through several iterations, and Redman's Bassett is the chapter that ran late in the period when Davidow was winding down his racing career. The Super BMX January 1982 issue carried a Bassett bike test with Denny Davidow as the test rider, which lines up with the Bassett era of his career.

1980 to 1982: the magazine years

Hot Shots, BMX Action September 1980

The September 1980 issue ran a Hot Shots section that included Brent Patterson's bunny-hop and a group of rider images: Scott Ahart, Henderson, Lambert, Denny Davidow, and John Crews.

Pro Training Methods, BMX Action December 1980

The December 1980 issue (Stu Thomsen's first BMXA cover) ran a feature called "Denny Davidow's Pro Training Methods." Magazines did not assign training-methods stories to riders the editors did not consider serious pros.

Cover, BMX Action March 1981

The headline credit. Denny Davidow was the cover rider of BMX Action, March 1981 (Volume 6, Number 3). The same issue carried product analysis of the Laguna 101 and the Ultima Cinelli, race coverage of the ABA Mongoose Grand Nationals and the NBL Kuwahara Grand Nationals, an interview with Greg Hill, and a piece on the factory pros.

Bassett test, Super BMX January 1982

The January 1982 issue of Super BMX ran a Bassett bike test with Denny Davidow as the test rider, fitting with the Bassett era of his career.

What we have not been able to verify against primary sources

• Exact dates for the Redline Proline and Bassett Bikes chapters. Bill Ryan's recollection establishes the sequence; the year-by-year breakdown is still open. Anyone with a dated magazine ad or race-coverage page from those chapters is invited to send it in.
• GT Bicycles sponsorship in 1980. Wikipedia's GT entry and a Stead Cycles GT history both state GT began sponsoring riders including Lee Medlin and Denny Davidow in 1980. No contemporaneous GT ad or BMX press cite showing Davidow in GT colors turned up in our search. Reported, not confirmed — and not in Bill's recollection of Davidow's career chain.
• Brian Scura mentorship. Multiple forum-era recaps list Davidow among the riders Brian Scura mentored, alongside Greg Hill, Billy Griggs, Woody Itson, Martin Aparijo, Pete Loncarevich, and Dave Voelker.
• 1980 Australia tour. One summary placed Davidow on the American tour Down Under with Scot Breithaupt and Bobby Encinas. The Australian BMX Museum 1980 history page does not name him in the material we could see.
• National BMX Hall of Fame, 2003 induction. Reported in secondary sources alongside Darrell Young and Richard Hutchins. Year open to correction.

Where he fits

Denny Davidow sits in the early-pro generation that put BMX on magazine covers before there was a real living to be made at it. He raced when the NBA, NBL, and ABA were still separate sanctioning bodies, before the eventual USA BMX consolidation. He was on Skyway Tuff Wheels when Tuff Wheels were the defining BMX wheel. He rode for TW BMX in the window when small California garage brands were still launching alongside the eventual majors. He picked up a Redline Proline ride at the brand's peak. And he closed out his career on Mike Redman's Bassett, in the same period when the first BMX boom was giving way to the rebuild.

Sources

• Bill Ryan, founder of Supercross BMX — first-hand recollection of Davidow's full sponsor chain (Delta Racing → TW → Skyway-on-TW → Redline Proline → Mike Redman's Bassett). Primary source for the corrected sequence.
• 23mag.com, BMX Action index 1980 — Hot Shots Sept 1980; "Denny Davidow's Pro Training Methods," Dec 1980.
• 23mag.com, BMX Action index 1981 — Denny Davidow as cover rider, March 1981, Vol. 6 No. 3.
• BMXmuseum.com, 1978 Delta Racing Products Denny Davidow bike profile.
• Wikipedia, "Pete Loncarevich" — establishes TW Racing as Pete's Dec 1979 to Sept 1980 sponsor, places Davidow as a TW teammate in that window.
• Skyway Tuff Wheels official Facebook page — share of the Denny Davidow Skyway ad.
• Super BMX, January 1982 — Bassett product test with Denny Davidow as test rider.
• NBA BMX Society history group (Facebook) — race photo of Davidow on plate 70X, April 1980.
• USA BMX Hall of Fame directory — checked; no Davidow page surfaced on quick search.
• Wikipedia, "GT Bicycles," and Stead Cycles, "The History of GT Bikes" — both report GT 1980 sponsorship of Lee Medlin and Denny Davidow. Reported here as unconfirmed against a primary BMX press cite and not part of Bill Ryan's recollection of Davidow's career chain.

About this page. See also: The History of BMX, TW BMX, Skyway, Redline, S&S Performance, Centurion Cycles, LRV, Pete Loncarevich.