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.
The Push to Bring BMX Back to Orange
As of October 2026, there is a live effort to put BMX back inside the City of Orange — and it is worth reading with the date attached, because it is moving.
The city is updating the master plan for Grijalva Park. Consultants presented that update to the Community Services Commission on May 19, 2026, reporting 182 survey responses, with a BMX or pump track among the top community priorities. Five members of the public spoke at that meeting asking for a BMX or bike park to be written into the plan.
SoCal BMX, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose stated aim is to bring BMX back to the City of Orange, says the city is evaluating three sites: the Grijalva Park North Parcel, the Grijalva Park South Parcel, and the original Y location. That site note is dated May 20, 2026. Sean Kading is the group's president, with Todd Huffman and Brian Lopes on the board.
Nothing is funded for BMX yet. The approved, funded project at Grijalva is a skatepark — the city awarded the construction contract on April 28, 2026, with completion expected in 2027. A councilmember said BMX discussions begin once the skatepark is done. So the realistic read is that BMX in Orange is a planning conversation, not a shovel in the ground.
Two things that get mixed up and shouldn't be. First, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a USA BMX-sanctioned track at Irvine Lake — Saddleback BMX — on June 23, 2026, which USA BMX announced publicly that August. That is a county project out in Silverado, run under an agreement with the Irvine Lake operator. It is not the city's Grijalva process, and the two should not be merged. Second, the old Orange Y land itself is not what the city is deciding. That parcel is privately owned and was sold in 2019. The city's process concerns new sites, one of which SoCal BMX describes as "the original Y location."
On the City of Orange side of this, nothing later than June 2026 surfaced in our research. If the Grijalva master plan has advanced since then, we don't have it yet — and we'd like to.
Open question: Thomas Ainsworth — whose parents later co-owned Azusa BMX — wrote in describing Rich Long as stretched across "Orange BMX, Azusa BMX, and GT Bicycles" (Thomas Ainsworth's account, 2026). Bill Ryan confirms there was only one Orange track — this one, the Orange Y — so it's very likely the same place (Bill Ryan, firsthand, 2026). But Long's name isn't in the documented record for this track, which credits the parents who founded it, the YMCA, Ruben Sanchez, and Paul Washington as the people who ran it. Bill didn't know Long well and can't confirm it either way — in his words, Long "might have" run something at the Y. We're leaving this open rather than guessing.
October 2026 — a second account. Chris Long, who identifies himself as Richard Long's son, wrote to the library: "My father definitely ran that track. I don't remember the years exactly as I was young but I do remember being there all The time." Ainsworth's account stands as written above; this sits alongside it, not in place of it. Two independent people now put Rich Long at an Orange track, which is a materially stronger position than one. And it matters for a specific reason: a 2016 GT tribute published by Red Kite Prayer states that Long "undertook the construction of two BMX tracks in Southern California," and names neither. This library has documented one of them — Azusa. The second has never been named in public. That is the gap this testimony could fill.
It stays uncorroborated for now. No published source names Richard Long as an operator of the Orange Y, and the documented origin credits local parents and the YMCA. But a 1970s YMCA track leaves almost no searchable record, so thin search results are not evidence against it — absence here is weak absence. One timing distinction, offered plainly and not as a challenge: if Chris Long is Richard Long's youngest son, and his father died in 1996 at 46, then childhood memories of being at the track "all the time" most plausibly land in the 1980s rather than the 1976–78 founding years. The track ran until 2016, so there's no conflict at all — his memory may simply speak to a later period than the founding.
The renaming report. Chris Long also reports that Todd Huffman has been spearheading a movement to rename the area after his father and rebuild the track. Those are two separate claims and they don't stand on the same footing. The rebuild is confirmed: Huffman sits on the SoCal BMX board, the organization exists to bring BMX back to Orange, and the city was actively considering it as of May 2026. The renaming is not. We found no public trace of any proposal to name a park, track, or area after Richard Long — not in city records, not in local news, not on the nonprofit's own pages, not in community posts. Chris Long is currently the only source for it. For context on Huffman: he co-founded Auburn with Bob Morales in 1987 or 1988, GT acquired Auburn in 1989, and he served as GT's director of marketing from roughly 1989 to 1998. He has been working on a book about Richard Long.
Raced the Y? Got photos from the 70s, 80s, or 90s? Know whether Rich Long had any hand in running it? Legend Bike Co wants to hear from you — this page grows as the people who were there fill in the record.
Sources: OC Weekly, "Oldest BMX Track in Southern California Closes This Weekend in Orange" (August 2016) — founding, nicknames, Sanchez, Cook quote, lease dispute (both sides reported), closing dates; riversideandbeyond.com Orange Y profile — location, Washington, sanction era, the 1977 founding variant; 23mag.com Chris Moeller history; bmxmuseum.com forums — S&M founding story and rider recollections (marked as such); BMX Action December 1987 scan via oldschoolmags.com; USC Annenberg Media (2024) on the Y's training legacy. Pete Loncarevich and Bill Ryan's Orange Y history confirmed firsthand by Bill Ryan.
Sources — the 2026 civic process (added October 2026): citizenportal.ai reports on the City of Orange Community Services Commission meeting of May 19, 2026 — Grijalva Park master plan update, 182 survey responses, and public speakers requesting a BMX or bike park; socalbmx.org Current Projects page, dated May 20, 2026 — the three candidate sites and the organization's stated aim; City of Orange Park Planning and Development page and the City Council action of April 28, 2026 — Grijalva skatepark construction contract and expected 2027 completion; USA BMX announcement (August 2026) via bmxcanada.org — the Orange County Board of Supervisors' June 23, 2026 approval of a sanctioned track at Irvine Lake, Silverado; lariatnews.com — SoCal BMX's nonprofit status and leadership; mynewsla.com (2016) and riversideandbeyond.com — the Orange Y property, since sold in 2019.
Sources — the Richard Long question (added October 2026): Chris Long's account, submitted to Legend Bike Co, October 2026; Red Kite Prayer, "Get It Done: Remembering Richard Long" (July 2016) — the statement that Long undertook the construction of two BMX tracks in Southern California, neither named; Wikipedia entries for GT Bicycles and Bob Morales — Auburn's founding with Todd Huffman, the 1989 GT acquisition, and Huffman's marketing director role (sources differ on the exact founding year, hence the 1987-or-1988 range). No public source was found for any proposal to rename a park, track, or area after Richard Long.