A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Rebel Racing

The Story of the San Antonio BMX Brand — 1981 to 1987

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

One of the two guys who started this little garage brand in 1981 went on to buy the American Bicycle Association and turn it into USA BMX — the sanction every American racer holds a number with right now. That is the real story here, and it is why a small Texas brand gets a full chapter. I have kept it straight, same as the SE Racing and JMC chapters.

The name and the brand

Rebel Racing was a Texas brand, and it leaned hard into Southern imagery — the kind that was all over consumer products sold in the South in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Two signature frames carried it: the Johnny Reb and the General Lee. That second name came straight off the orange 1969 Dodge Charger from The Dukes of Hazzard, the CBS show that ran from 1979 to 1985 and was about as big as a TV show could be right when Rebel was launching its first frames. I am putting that here because any honest history of this brand has to.

Where it started — 1981, San Antonio

Bernie Anderson and Roland Chankin started Rebel Racing in 1981 in San Antonio, Texas. Anderson was already a known guy around the San Antonio scene. He ran the Lonestar BMX track, one of the early Texas tracks racing under American Bicycle Association sanction.

The first Johnny Reb and General Lee frames shipped in 1981. Here is the thing most people get wrong — they weren't built in Texas. They were built in Phoenix, Arizona, contracted through a man named Gene Roden, who was tied in with the ABA. And that same Phoenix shop wasn't only doing Rebel work. The Blazer brand was rolling off the same line at the same time.

1982 — sold to Charles Bruce, moved to Houston

In 1982, Anderson and Chankin sold the brand to Charles Bruce, who already owned Blazer. Bruce moved Rebel to Houston and took over the marketing side himself. After the ABA Texas Tour that year, Chankin and Anderson split up over personal differences, and from late 1982 on Bruce ran the factory race team directly. Brock Bruce rode for that factory team the whole way through, 1981 to 1987.

The Arizona quality problem and the move to Tennessee

The Gen 1 frames out of Phoenix had a real problem. They were cracking at the head tube — a lot of them. Same issue turned up across the Blazer line, which makes sense, since it was the same equipment building both.

So in late 1983 or early 1984, Bruce pulled the work out of Phoenix and moved it to Tennessee, to a shop already building Vector frames. Those Tennessee frames are what collectors call the Gen 2 Stick Tail generation. Different rear end than the Gen 1, cleaner build, and the head-tube problem was finally gone.

1987 — the closure

Charles Bruce shut Rebel Racing down in 1987. It wasn't just Rebel — the whole U.S.-built BMX business was collapsing right then, roughly 1986 through 1988, and a lot of brands went with it. One note worth making: there is an overseas Rebel BMX division catalogued on its own over on BMXmuseum.com. Different company entirely from the U.S. Rebel Racing we are talking about here.

The Bernie Anderson line — from Rebel to USA BMX

The frames are not the important part. What Bernie Anderson did next is.

In 1985, while Rebel was still running under Charles Bruce, Anderson bought the American Bicycle Association — the Arizona sanctioning body Clayton John had founded back in 1977. Same year, he set up the National BMX Hall of Fame to honor the riders and builders and organizers who put in the work during the sport's first decade. He got inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame himself in 2008. The ABA kept growing under him, and later it became USA BMX, the body that runs American BMX racing today.

Bernie Anderson passed away on October 14, 2025, at his home in San Antonio. He was 93. USA BMX, the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame, and the Texas BMX Hall of Fame all put out memorials in the days after. Think about the line that runs through this. A 1981 garage brand in San Antonio, all the way to the national sanction every American racer holds a number with — and it runs through one man. A man who got his start co-founding Rebel Racing.

Where Rebel Racing stands today

Originals trade on bmxmuseum.com, and reproduction decal sets for both generations of both models get made today by BMX Products USA. Rebel was never one of the big brands of its era. It built two frames people still recognize, ran a factory team for six years, got through an ownership change and a manufacturing move, and closed when the boom ended. The reason it earns a full chapter is the founder. Anyway — that is Rebel.

Sources

BMXmuseum.com Rebel Racing brand page. BMX Products USA Rebel Racing collection. USA BMX news release "Bernie Anderson Passes at 93" (October 15, 2025). U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame inductee record. Texas Bicycle Motocross Hall of Fame inductee record. Bicycle Retailer and Industry News "BMX pioneer Bernie Anderson dies at age 93" (October 17, 2025). FatBMX news release on Bernie Anderson's induction. oldschoolmags.com archived PDF scans of BMX Action and BMX Plus! 1981-1985.

About this page. See also: The History of BMX, SE Racing, JMC, Torker. Sanctions: BUMS, NBA, NBL, ABA, IBMXF, USA BMX.