BMX Racing History · Track File · Legend Bike Co

The Orange Y: The World Famous Mecca of BMX

Every sport has one place where the locals are better than everyone else's locals. For BMX, for forty years, that place was a converted landfill next to the 55 Freeway in Orange, California. Riders called it the World Famous Y. They called it the Mecca of BMX. They were not exaggerating.

From Landfill to Mecca

In 1976, a group of local parents went to the YMCA of Orange with a proposal: let us turn the landfill on your property into a BMX track. The Y said yes, and one of the longest-running tracks in the history of the sport opened next to the 55 at Chapman Avenue. It never moved. It barely stopped. For four decades, if you were fast in Orange County — and Orange County produced more fast BMX racers than anywhere on earth — you proved it at the Y.

Legend Bike Co's own founders are part of that story. Pete Loncarevich and Bill Ryan have been friends since age 14, racing out of the Orange Y together — two kids from the same local track who, between them, went on to four ABA #1 Pro titles and the founding of Supercross BMX. That's what the Y did: it took neighborhood kids and turned them into the sport.

Where the Pros Lived

Before the Olympic Training Center opened in Chula Vista, the Orange Y was where the world's best came to train. Pro Kory Cook put it plainly: the Y was the location where all the top pros in the world would come train and live. Pistol Pete kept riding there through his pro years. Chris Moeller started racing at the Y in 1982 — and years later, the partnership behind S&M Bikes was first proposed one night at the Orange Y track, between Moeller and Pete. BMX Action's December 1987 issue credits a team page as "powered by: Orange 'Y' BMX Track." When a magazine credits a local track like a sponsor, you know what that track meant.

The fixtures were as famous as the racers. Paul "The Jammer" Washington announced and coached clinics at the Y for over twenty years. Ruben Sanchez, owner of the Bike Alley shop in Orange, managed the track for its final sixteen years. In its last era the Y was still drawing roughly 500 riders and family members a week, and it hosted California state championship events deep into its life.

The End

The track's run ended in 2016 over a lease. As reported at the time, track operator Ruben Sanchez said the monthly rent had climbed from $1,500 in 2012 to $4,400, with a far higher figure quoted to continue; the YMCA publicly disputed that characterization. Whatever the full story, no agreement was reached. The final race ran Sunday, August 28, 2016, and BMX programming on the property ended that week — right around forty years after the parents and the landfill started it all. At the end, it was the oldest BMX track in Southern California.