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 came up in Azusa, the foothill town just east of Los Angeles, smack in the middle of the Southern California BMX belt. And he tells the start the way most riders of his generation tell it. In his bmxultra.com interview the story is simple. His dad bought him a Redline when he was 10, took him out to the local track to watch, and Matt figured it looked like fun. That was it. From there he climbed the late-amateur ladder through the mid-1980s on Bandito Racing.
The Azusa roots run through the family. His father, Don Hadan, helped with track operations there during those years — per Thomas Ainsworth's firsthand account, 2026, whose own parents co-owned Azusa BMX.
1986: the breakout year
Everything in Hadan's record anchors to 1986.
At the IBMXF World Championship in Gainesville, Florida, he won the Junior Pro class. The IBMXF — the International BMX Federation — was the global sanctioning body before the UCI took over BMX in 1993. So the Junior Pro World title in 1986 put him in with the top young factory riders anywhere.
Back home, he took the ABA National No. 1 Cruiser title for the year. That is a points-chase title. You run the full ABA national schedule and you beat the field in cruiser at every stop. No shortcuts.
And the same season he swept both 16 Expert and 16 Cruiser at the Canadian-American Championship — the Can-Am, the annual cross-border meet that meant something to riders on both sides of the line.
Turning pro: Diamondback, December 1987
Hadan turned pro under Diamondback. He joined the team in December 1987 and raced for them through early February 1991. On that team he was riding alongside Cyndi Ainsworth — another Azusa rider, daughter of the family that ran the Azusa track — and the two of them were still teammates when Diamondback walked away from BMX racing in early 1991, per Thomas Ainsworth's account, 2026. That's when they released him.
Afterward, as Thomas Ainsworth recalls it, Matt picked up with the S&K bike shop team back in Azusa and helped make S&K a two-time No. 1 ABA Bike Shop Team in the country. Take that one as recollection, not a confirmed record — but the kind of local detail that rounds out his early career.
From there he did what a working pro does. He moved through a string of late-80s and 90s sponsors — Balance, Redline, Gary Fisher — before he landed at Torker.
The Torker years
Torker is the team Matt rode for the longest stretch of his career, and the team I document on the Torker Racing history page. He shared that factory program with Steve Veltman, a teammate he'd already appeared alongside years earlier in a pair of 1990 rookie-pro magazine features. The bmxultra interview pegs Torker Bicycles as his main sponsor, with the Torker-era co-sponsor list above.
His Torker results from the late 1990s into the early 2000s live on the BMX Weekly and CrankTV archive. BMX Weekly's throwback post has 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 results Hadan picked up overseas on the IBMXF and early-UCI tour: 2nd in Michigan, 3rd in Canada, 3rd in France, and 3rd in cruiser in Australia. The public record we could find doesn't pin a tight year to each one. So they sit here as a career summary, not a single-season recap.
Hall of Fame
A 2013 USA BMX feature on the Terrible Ten Tradition called Hadan a potential future Hall of Famer, and his name has turned 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.
Bill Ryan still talks to Matt regularly today — firsthand, 2026.
Where he fits
Matt Hadan is the bridge. He connects the mid-1980s factory amateur class to the late-1990s Torker AA Pro lineup. He raced under ABA and IBMXF rules before the ABA / NBL consolidation into USA BMX, alongside the 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. Matt's Azusa roots — his father Don Hadan's role in track operations, his Diamondback years alongside teammate Cyndi Ainsworth through the team's end, and the S&K bike shop team detail — are per Thomas Ainsworth's account, 2026, whose parents co-owned Azusa BMX. Legend Bike Co.'s own Steve Veltman page — cross-checked for the shared Torker tenure and the 1990 rookie-pro magazine pairing. Bill Ryan supplied the present-day note that he and Matt still talk regularly.
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.