Sarasota BMX

A 1974 track, a flea-market traffic light, and the road to the Olympics

Legend Bike Co · BMX heritage series

What it is A dirt race track — open, racing, and rebuilt to international specification

Where Sarasota County Youth Athletic Complex, corner of Tuttle Avenue and 17th Street, Sarasota, Florida

Also called SRQ BMX

Established 1974. Sarasota County calls it the oldest continuously running BMX track in the United States

Who ran it Dave and Erma Miller, co-track operators from 1980, fifteen years in the job, full-time volunteers since 2012

Sanction Sunshine State BMX Association at state level and the NBL nationally through the sport's Florida decades. USA BMX today, plus UCI international events

Rebuilt Reopened August 2016 after a $2.4 million project — eight-meter start ramp, dual amateur and supercross layout

Today The only BMX track in the country built to Olympic specifications

Most track chapters in this library end with a parking lot. This one ends with an Olympic qualifier. Sarasota is the rarest thing in American BMX — a track that started in 1974 with volunteers and donated junk and never stopped, and then, fifty years in, got rebuilt into a venue the world comes to.

It is also, and this matters more than the hardware, the story of two people from Kokomo, Indiana who took a job nobody wanted and did it for four decades.

Florida, 1974

Sarasota BMX was established in 1974 at what is now Sarasota County's Youth Athletic Complex, on the corner of Tuttle Avenue and 17th Street. That is early. The sport had a magazine and a handful of California tracks and not much else; Florida getting organized dirt in 1974 puts Sarasota in the sport's first wave, three thousand miles from where the first wave supposedly happened.

Sarasota County and Visit Sarasota County both describe it as the oldest continuously running BMX track in the United States. We will flag, because Legend Bike Co has a dog in this fight and should say so, that Apple Valley BMX Moto Park in California also dates to 1974 and has its own chapter in this library. We are not going to adjudicate a fifty-year-old tie between two tracks that both did the work. Read both and draw your own conclusion.

October 7, 1977: A Flyer Comes Home

Dave and Erma Miller married in 1964 knowing nothing about bicycle racing. They spent their early twenties driving around the country, wound up in Sarasota in 1969 more or less by accident because a cousin lived there, and stayed.

In 1977 their seven-year-old son Doug brought home a flyer for a time-and-skill event at the Sarasota track, set for October 7. The track was three years old. Doug raced. His parents got hooked — not on racing, on the running of it.

By 1980 they were co-track operators. Dave built things. Erma ran registration. And what they built things out of tells you exactly what a 1980 Florida BMX track was.

They asked Florida Power and Light for old utility poles and used them to frame jumps. Before every race they asked the Sarasota Fire Department to come dump water into the holes so riders had something to jump over. Dave developed the track's first electronic starting gate to replace the hand-operated one. For a start light, the two of them went to a flea market and bought a traffic light — and set it up in the middle of the track, directly in front of the riders, before working out through trial and error that it belonged off to the side. In Erma's words: they did not know any better.

Nobody did. That is what the sport was made of.

The Software

Here is the part of the Sarasota story that reaches every track in the country, and almost nobody knows it.

Erma Miller got tired of signing riders in on paper and sorting them into classes by hand. So she asked her nineteen-year-old neighbor to write software to do it. It went into use at Sarasota in 1986, and it was later bought by the National Bicycle League and by the International BMX Federation — the organizations that are now USA BMX and the UCI.

The way a BMX race gets organized, at the national and the international level, traces back to a local track operator in Sarasota who was sick of paperwork and knew a kid who could code.

Florida Was NBL Country

The Sarasota chapter is inseparable from the NBL, because the people running the track ended up running large parts of the sanction.

At state level, Dave Miller was race referee for the Sunshine State BMX Association from 1980 to 1995. Erma was state points keeper and race clerk from 1984 to 1999. Nationally, Erma served the NBL as national director of field operations from 1989 to 2009 and director of planning and innovations from 2010 to 2011. Dave was national referee and set-up and truck driver from 1995 to 2009.

Together they were the NBL's southeast regional race event team from 1986 to 2007. In 1993 they developed, organized and ran the league's Southeastern Championship Series, and the NBL then adopted that format as the model for all four of its regionals.

Read that again. A regional championship structure built by two volunteers in Sarasota became how the NBL ran regional racing nationwide. Florida did not just host NBL events. Florida wrote a piece of the NBL's rulebook.

Their reach kept going. Both went on to work for the UCI — Dave as race commissaire, Erma as chief administrative commissaire — and Erma served as secretary commissaire for BMX at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the first Games the sport was ever part of. In 2025 the pair were inducted into the National BMX Hall of Fame, and the Florida BMX Hall of Fame honored them the same year.

Both now have their own chapter in this library: Dave and Erma Miller, the full account of two volunteers who ended up running the sport instead of racing it.

February 24, 2010

On that date Erma Miller stood in front of Sarasota County Parks and proposed turning the old track into a supercross track and training center.

It took more than six years and $2.4 million. The track reopened in August 2016 with an eight-meter start ramp and a dual-purpose layout — an amateur course and a supercross course sharing the same ground. Later that year it held its first UCI BMX Racing World Cup.

What followed is not the arc a 1974 municipal BMX track is supposed to have. National teams from France, Colombia and Canada have come to Sarasota to train ahead of World Cups and World Championships. Mariana Pajon, the Colombian Olympic gold medalist, has trained there more than once. The track is now the only one in the United States built to Olympic specifications.

On January 5 to 7, 2024, Sarasota opened USA BMX's national race series with the Sunshine State Nationals, with roughly 1,500 riders expected from across the United States and Canada. The Friday of that weekend was the first of four American qualifiers for the 2024 UCI World Championships at Rock Hill, South Carolina, and the Sunday carried UCI Elite racing with points toward Olympic qualification. The track is scheduled to hold the final stages of the 2026 and 2027 UCI BMX Racing World Cups, both of which feed the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

What Stands There Now

The track. That is the answer, and it is the answer we almost never get to give.

Sarasota BMX is open at the Youth Athletic Complex on Tuttle and 17th, hosting Gold Cup rounds and World Cups and Tuesday-night locals on the same dirt. The Millers are still there, volunteering full time since 2012, which is to say they gave up the paid job and kept the work.

Fifty-plus years from donated power poles to Olympic qualifying, on the same corner, run largely by the same people. There is no other track in this library you can say that about.

Where the record runs thin

Who founded the track in 1974, and on what date it first ran, are not documented in anything we could reach — only the year, and only from Sarasota County and its tourism office. Who operated it between 1974 and the Millers taking over in 1980 is not documented. The name of the neighbor who wrote the 1986 race-management software is not given in the account we have, and the terms under which the NBL and the International BMX Federation acquired it are not documented. We could not build a list of the state, regional and national events the track held across the 1980s and 1990s, or their winners; the county's own release says countless without naming any, and the sanctioning bodies' results archives render in the browser and could not be read directly. What the original 1974 course was physically like is not documented, and the present layout is a 2016 rebuild rather than an evolution of it. Two dates conflict in our sources: Sarasota County's December 2023 release places the first UCI BMX World Cup at the track in October 2016, while the Observer's February 2026 profile places it in November 2016 — we have not been able to resolve which is right and have written around it. The oldest continuously running claim comes from Sarasota County and Visit Sarasota County; we report it as their claim, note that Apple Valley BMX also dates to 1974, and take no position. On sources: bmxsociety.com was unreachable throughout this research and bmxmuseum.com blocks automated access, so their Florida track threads could not be read.

Raced Sarasota in the seventies or eighties? Know who built it, or who ran it before 1980? Got a plate, a flyer or a photo from Tuttle and 17th? Legend Bike Co wants to hear from you — this page grows as the people who were there fill in the record.

Timeline

  • 1969Dave and Erma Miller move from Kokomo, Indiana to Sarasota, eight years before BMX finds them.
  • 1974Sarasota BMX is established at the site that is now Sarasota County's Youth Athletic Complex, Tuttle Avenue at 17th Street.
  • October 7, 1977Seven-year-old Doug Miller races a time-and-skill event at the track. His parents get involved and never leave.
  • 1980Dave and Erma Miller become co-track operators. Dave is state race referee for the Sunshine State BMX Association from this year.
  • 1984Erma Miller becomes state points keeper and race clerk for the Sunshine State BMX Association.
  • 1986The race-management software Erma commissioned goes into use at Sarasota. The NBL and the International BMX Federation later buy it. The Millers become the NBL's southeast regional race event team.
  • 1989Erma Miller becomes the NBL's national director of field operations, a post she holds through 2009.
  • 1993The Millers develop and run the NBL's Southeastern Championship Series. The league adopts it as the model for all four regionals.
  • 2008Erma Miller serves as secretary commissaire for BMX at the Beijing Olympics, the sport's first Games.
  • February 24, 2010Erma Miller presents Sarasota County Parks with a proposal to rebuild the track as a supercross venue and training center.
  • August 2016The track reopens after a $2.4 million rebuild, with an eight-meter start ramp and a dual amateur and supercross layout. Its first UCI BMX Racing World Cup follows the same year.
  • January 5 to 7, 2024Sarasota opens USA BMX's national race series with the Sunshine State Nationals, drawing an estimated 1,500 riders and carrying UCI Worlds and Olympic qualifying points.
  • 2025Dave and Erma Miller are inducted into the National BMX Hall of Fame and honored by the Florida BMX Hall of Fame.
  • 2026 and 2027Sarasota is scheduled to hold the final stages of the UCI BMX Racing World Cup, feeding qualification for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Where Sarasota fits in the bigger story

The people who ran it: Dave and Erma Miller. The sanctions: NBL, ABA. The other tracks still standing: Apple Valley, Chandler, Rockford. Tracks that carried a national: Azusa, Anaheim Stadium, La Mirada, and the wider survey in The Tracks That Built BMX. Riders who raced the era: Pete Loncarevich, Gary Ellis, Mike King, Jamie Staff. Our own corner of it: Supercross BMX, Bill Ryan. The full arc lives in our History of BMX series.

Sources

Sarasota County government news release, Sarasota BMX celebrates 50 years (December 7, 2023) — the 1974 establishment, the Youth Athletic Complex location at Tuttle Avenue and 17th Street, the oldest continuously running BMX track in the United States description, the 2016 renovation with an eight-meter start ramp and dual amateur and supercross layout, the UCI BMX World Cup hosted in 2016, the national teams from France, Colombia and Canada training there, Mariana Pajon training there, and the January 5 to 7, 2024 Sunshine State Nationals as the opening event of USA BMX's 2024 National Race Series with an estimated 1,500 riders, the first of four US qualifiers for the UCI Worlds at Rock Hill, and Sunday's UCI Elite Olympic qualifying racing. Jack Nelson, Sarasota couple stand side by side with BMX, Your Observer (February 5, 2026) — the Millers' 1964 marriage and 1969 move from Kokomo, the October 7, 1977 time-and-skill event that Doug Miller raced at age seven, the Millers becoming co-track operators in 1980 and their fifteen years in the role, full-time volunteering since 2012, the Florida Power and Light poles and Sarasota Fire Department water, the first electronic gate and the flea-market traffic light, the 1986 race-management software and its later purchase by the NBL and the International BMX Federation, Dave Miller as Sunshine State BMX Association race referee 1980 to 1995 and Erma Miller as state points keeper and race clerk 1984 to 1999, Erma as NBL national director of field operations 1989 to 2009 and director of planning and innovations 2010 to 2011, Dave as NBL national referee and set-up and truck driver 1995 to 2009, the pair as NBL southeast regional race event team 1986 to 2007, the 1993 Southeastern Championship Series adopted as the model for all four regionals, their UCI commissaire roles, Erma as secretary commissaire for BMX at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the February 24, 2010 proposal to Sarasota County Parks, the six-year $2.4 million rebuild and August 2016 reopening, the 2025 National BMX Hall of Fame and Florida BMX Hall of Fame honors, the Olympic-specification claim, and the scheduled 2026 and 2027 UCI World Cup final stages feeding the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Visit Sarasota County — the track's present-day status and the country's oldest continuously running description. Not reachable during research: bmxsociety.com was down throughout; bmxmuseum.com blocks automated access; sarasotabmx.com returned no readable content to our fetches; and the USA BMX results archive renders client-side, so event-by-event results could not be read directly.