Matt Hadan

Azusa, California · "The Master" / "The Diesel" · 1986 IBMXF Junior Pro World Champion · 1986 ABA National No. 1 Cruiser · AA pro for Diamondback, Redline, Gary Fisher, and Torker

A BMXRacingHistory.com preview · hosted on Legend Bike Co

At a glance

Name: Matthew Merle Hadan, racing as Matt Hadan. Spelled H-a-d-a-n, confirmed against Wikipedia, the bmxultra.com interview byline, BMX Weekly's 1998 ABA Lakeside throwback caption, and the Torker Racing official history page.
Born: June 4, 1970, Azusa, California.
Nicknames: "The Master" early in his career, "The Diesel" later.
Prime competitive years: 1985 to 1995, per Wikipedia, with documented Torker AA Pro race results into 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Sponsors (career): Bandito Racing (amateur), Diamondback (December 1987 to early February 1991, turned pro under this contract), Balance, Redline, Gary Fisher, and Torker Racing. Torker-era co-sponsors per his bmxultra.com interview: ODI, Airwalk, Kool Stop, Tioga, Troy Lee Designs, Crupi, PowerBar, Oakley, Alex Rims, JNCO.
Headline titles: 1986 IBMXF Junior Pro World Champion (Gainesville, FL) · 1986 ABA National No. 1 Cruiser · 1986 Canadian-American (Can-Am) 16 Expert and 16 Cruiser Champion.

Azusa start

Hadan grew up in Azusa, California, the foothill town just east of Los Angeles that sits in the middle of the Southern California BMX belt. In his bmxultra.com interview he tells the start the same way most riders of his generation tell it: his dad bought him a Redline when he was 10, took him to the local track to watch, and Matt thought it looked like fun. From there he ran the late-amateur ladder through the mid-1980s on Bandito Racing.

1986: the breakout year

1986 is the year that anchors Hadan's record.

At the IBMXF World Championship in Gainesville, Florida, he won the Junior Pro class. The IBMXF (International BMX Federation) was the global sanctioning body before the UCI took over BMX in 1993, and the Junior Pro World title in 1986 placed him among the top young factory riders in the world.

Domestically, he took the ABA National No. 1 Cruiser title for the year, a points-chase title that requires running the full ABA national schedule and beating the field across cruiser at every stop.

The same year he took both 16 Expert and 16 Cruiser at the Canadian-American Championship — the Can-Am, an annual cross-border meet that mattered to riders on both sides of the line.

Turning pro: Diamondback, December 1987

Hadan turned pro under Diamondback, joining the team in December 1987 and racing for them through early February 1991. Diamondback exited BMX racing in early 1991 and released him at that point.

From there he moved through a working pro's roster of late-80s and 90s sponsors: Balance, Redline, and Gary Fisher all appear on his sponsor list before he landed at Torker.

The Torker years

Torker is the team Matt Hadan rode for the longest stretch of his career and the team Bill Ryan documents on the Torker Racing history page. The bmxultra interview pegs Torker Bicycles as his main sponsor with the Torker-era co-sponsor list above.

Hadan's Torker results from the late 1990s into the early 2000s are on the BMX Weekly and CrankTV archive. BMX Weekly's throwback post documents him taking the AA win at the 1998 ABA Lakeside National. CrankTV's archive runs Torker-team videos of him at the 1998 ABA Winter Nationals, the 1998 ABA SoCal Nationals, and pro time trials at the 2000 ABA World Championship.

The ABA 1999 season has him ranked No. 17 AA Pro and No. 7 Cruiser, per the published profile summary.

The international pro line

The bmxultra interview and the Wikipedia entry both note the spread of pro-class international results Hadan picked up on the IBMXF / early-UCI tour: 2nd in Michigan, 3rd in Canada, 3rd in France, and 3rd in cruiser in Australia. These appear without a tight year-by-year tag in the public record we could find, so they sit here as a career summary rather than a single-season recap.

Hall of Fame

A 2013 USA BMX feature on the Terrible Ten Tradition described Hadan as a potential future Hall of Famer, and he has shown up in BMX Hall of Fame nomination lists in the years since. We could not confirm a finalized induction on the live USA BMX Hall of Fame directory at the time of writing. Reported as published, open to correction.

Where he fits

Matt Hadan is the bridge rider between the mid-1980s factory amateur class and the late-1990s Torker AA Pro lineup. He raced under ABA and IBMXF rules before the ABA / NBL consolidation into USA BMX, alongside NBA and NBL regional history that fed into both.

Wider context: History of BMX, the Torker Racing chapter, and the SE Racing chapter.

Sources

Wikipedia, "Matt Hadan" — primary biographical entry. bmxultra.com, "Matt Hadan" interview. Torker Racing, "Complete Torker Racing History (1977-Present)." BMX Weekly Facebook — "Throwback: 1998 ABA Lakeside Matt Hadan with the AA win." CrankTV / YouTube — Torker BMX team videos 1998-2000. USA BMX, "The Terrible Ten Tradition," Sept 11, 2013. BMXmuseum.com. Bill Ryan supplied the Torker-era context.

About this page. A preview of the forthcoming BMXRacingHistory.com, hosted on Legend Bike Co as a placeholder. See also: History of BMX, Torker Racing, SE Racing, Damian Fulton, Clint Miller, Denny Davidow.