BMX Racing History · Track File · Legend Bike Co

The Orange Y: The World Famous Mecca of BMX

It was a landfill before it was holy ground. Sat right next to the 55 Freeway in Orange, California, and for forty years it was the place every fast kid in the sport had to come prove it. Riders called it the World Famous Y. They called it the Mecca of BMX. Nobody was exaggerating — every sport has that one spot where the locals are just better than everyone else's locals, and for BMX, this was it.

From Landfill to Mecca

Back in 1976, a group of local parents walked into the YMCA of Orange with a simple pitch: let us turn the landfill on your property into a BMX track. The Y said yes. What opened next to the 55 at Chapman Avenue became one of the longest-running tracks in the history of the sport. It never moved. It barely stopped. For four decades, if you were fast in Orange County — and Orange County turned out more fast BMX racers than anywhere on earth — the Y was where you backed it up.

I'm part of that story myself. Pete Loncarevich and I have been friends since we were 14, racing out of the Orange Y together. Two kids from the same local track. Between us we went on to four ABA #1 Pro titles and the founding of Supercross BMX — and none of it happens without that dirt. That's what the Y did. It took neighborhood kids and turned them into the sport.

Where the Pros Lived

Long before the Olympic Training Center opened in Chula Vista, the Orange Y was where the best in the world came to train. Pro Kory Cook said it plain: the Y was the place all the top pros in the world would come to train and live. Pistol Pete kept riding there straight through his pro years. Chris Moeller started racing at the Y in 1982, and years later the partnership behind S&M Bikes was first floated one night at the Orange Y track, between Moeller and Pete. BMX Action's December 1987 issue even credits a team page as "powered by: Orange 'Y' BMX Track." When a magazine starts crediting a local track like it's a sponsor, you understand what that place 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, ran the track for its final sixteen years. Even in its last era the Y was still pulling roughly 500 riders and family members a week, and it hosted California state championship events deep into its life.

The End

It all 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 keep going. The YMCA publicly disputed that account. Whatever the full story was, no agreement got 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.