A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Patterson Racing

The Family Brand Vance Patterson Built Around His Two Fastest Sons — 1977 to 1986

By Bill Ryan · Founder of Supercross BMX · 37+ years in BMX · Started at SE Racing, 1981

Some BMX brands start with an engineer. Patterson Racing started with a father watching his own investment go nowhere. Vance Patterson had put money into Speedo Racing Products expecting it to turn into a BMX racing frame his sons could ride. When Speedo never delivered one, Vance did what a lot of BMX dads up and down California were doing by the late 1970s — he built the frame himself. Patterson Racing ran nine years out of Hayward, California, carried by two brothers who between them held more National No.1 Pro plates than almost anyone racing in that era.

Before Patterson Racing, there was Speedo

Brent Patterson started racing in early 1976 at fourteen, exposed to BMX through friends in his Hayward neighborhood. His younger brother Brian followed within the year — his first documented result came March 20, 1976, in the 10 & 11 Novice class at the Pioneer Arena, with Brent finishing third in 14 Novice the same day. Both boys raced out of the National Bicycle Association's District N, Northern California.

Their father Vance Patterson had invested in Speedo Racing Products, a firm he expected to build a BMX racing frame. Both brothers rode for Speedo — Brent from October 1976 into 1977, Brian for a shorter run across 1976 and 1977. Speedo's frame never showed up. Vance had bet his own money that his sons needed a bike built by people who understood what a racer needed, and Speedo wasn't going to be that company.

November 1977 — a father starts a brand

In early November 1977, Vance Patterson started Patterson Racing Products himself. The idea was direct and personal: build the frame he'd originally paid Speedo to build, and put his sons on it. Brent turned pro that same November at sixteen, and won his first professional race almost immediately — November 6, 1977, at the NBA Arizona State Fair event in Phoenix, Arizona. Brian turned pro later, in early 1982, at seventeen.

Vance didn't only sign his own sons. The old Speedo team — despite offers from other companies — chose to stay together and move to Patterson as a group: Brent, Brian, Kevin Riding, John Crews, and Mike Koron. Vance also brought in a Northern California amateur named Richie Anderson, who became the rider most associated with Patterson Racing outside the family itself.

The team: family in the name, family in practice

Richie Anderson — riders of the era called him "The Avalanche" — joined Patterson Racing in early 1978 and stayed on through mid-May 1984, longer than almost any top amateur or pro stayed with one sponsor in that stretch of BMX. He won two world titles racing a Patterson PR-200. The loyalty ran both directions: Vance Patterson treated him close to family, and Richie stayed put while riders all around him bounced from sponsor to sponsor chasing the next paycheck.

By the early 1980s, the Patterson name meant Brent, Brian, and Richie Anderson — the brothers carrying most of the national headlines, Richie carrying the frame's reputation on the amateur and cruiser side.

Freestyle rider Dave Vanderspek also carried Patterson colors for a stretch, one of several bike sponsors he moved through during his career.

The frames — PR-200, PR-240, and the years GT built them

Patterson's catalog through the early 1980s ran the PR-200 as its flagship race frame, later joined by a PR-240 cruiser version. Collectors on bmxmuseum.com and researchers on bmxsociety.com's community forums still trade documented examples dated 1981 through 1985, and the PR-200 is the frame most tied to Richie Anderson's world titles.

Multiple secondary accounts place a change in the brand's frames around 1983, when GT Bicycles began building Patterson frames under contract. The frame, dropout, and fork design changed with that arrangement, and Patterson's handlebar and seatpost lineup picked up GT-adjacent hardware around the same period — before that, Brent Patterson had appeared in print ads for Greg Hill's handlebars, the line that later became GHP. The exact date GT's contract-build arrangement started is not confirmed in a period magazine test checked for this page; see the note below.

Period tests survive in the oldschoolmags.com archive, including a "Patterson Kit" test run in BMX Action and a "Patterson Team Replica" test run in BMX Plus! in January 1984 — both cited here as period coverage, though the scanned PDF text itself could not be extracted for direct quotation during research for this page.

1986 — the end

Patterson Racing Products went out of business in the summer of 1986, worn down by production problems. The timing lined up with both brothers stepping back from full-time senior pro racing that same year — Brian at twenty-one, Brent in his mid-twenties — though neither retirement is documented as the reason the company folded. The brand simply ran out of runway around the same time its two biggest reasons for existing were moving on to other things.

Two Pattersons people still mix up

One correction worth making plainly: Andy "Mr. Bigfoot" Patterson — the Southern California pro who rode for GT, Skyway, and JMC Racing in the same era — is not related to Brent and Brian Patterson. The record on Andy Patterson states this directly, because the mix-up has been common enough in BMX circles to need saying. All three Pattersons raced at a high level in overlapping years, all three wore GT-adjacent gear at different points, and none of it makes them family.

Where Patterson Racing stands today

Original Patterson frames trade on bmxmuseum.com and eBay, prized by East Coast collectors especially — on the East Coast, period Patterson bikes were rare enough to feel like a unicorn brand, since the company sold mostly through hardcore West Coast shops. A fan-run frame identification site, pattersonracingbmx.com, and a Facebook group, Team Patterson Racing BMX, keep the identification and nostalgia going today. Nobody's relaunched the brand.

Sources

Wikipedia: Brian Patterson, Brent Patterson, Andy Patterson — each citing period Bicycle Motocross Action, BMX Plus!, Super BMX, and Bicycle Motocross News issues for the team roster, race dates, and company timeline. oldschoolmags.com — "Patterson Kit" (BMX Action) and "Patterson Team Replica" (BMX Plus!, January 1984) period test archive listings; PDF text could not be extracted directly and these are cited as archive entries, not quotations. bmxsociety.com community forum threads "Patterson Racing," "Patterson Racing — The Final Months," and "Lunch with Brent Patterson" — JS-rendered pages; content here is drawn from search-result snippets, not a full page fetch, and is disclosed as such. bmxmuseum.com — Patterson Racing brand and bike-of-record pages, and forum threads on the brand's GT-built years and handlebar/seatpost history. pattersonracingbmx.com — fan-run frame identification reference.

About this page. Part of the Patterson family story on Legend Bike Co, alongside Brian Patterson and Brent Patterson. See also: The History of BMX, GT, AERO Racing Products, BMX Action, BMX Plus!, Super BMX.