I was moving some things around in my garage this weekend and I ran across a trophy from The Jag World Championships of BMX. It was only a third place trophy but it was still over 4ft tall, anyway seeing it reminded me of the story I am about to tell.
It was right after I got picked up on HARO, so a couple weekends later we jumped in the van to go check out the the event. They scheduled a freestyle contest as one of the events during the race weekend so off I went. The contest was small only a handful of entries, there we only three of us in the 16 and under class but it was the first time I would meet two guys with who I would have many air battles in the years to come. The first was a rider named Todd Anderson and the other Tony Murray. The contest went off as normal and Bob Haro sat in as one of the celeb judges. After it was all said and done I ended up with third place with Todd in second and Tony in first. I thought I should have placed higher than third but hey when your sponsor is one of the judges what are you gonna do? I suppose he did not want to appear biased.
After the contest was done we went to this Mexican restaurant to get some thing to eat I was told some other riders were going to meet us there so when I sat down my jaw dropped to my knees when these "other" guys came in. Here I was this skinny kid who grew up reading every BMX magazine I could get my hands when all my heros began sitting down...
Stu Thompson
Harry Leary
Perry Kramer
Brent Patterson
Jeff Bottema
Scott Breithaupt
Tommy Brackens
and some other AAA Pro's I can't remember.
There we all were having lunch together the hottest pros in the world and the skinny kid from Whittier. I could hardly believe that a few months earlier I was reading about these guys wondering what it would be like to be one of them and now here they all are sitting in front of me. They were all really cool guys and treated me like a little brother even though I never met any of them before. This was a good day but had I knew who I was having lunch with that afternoon I was have brought my DAMN CAMERA!!! I wonder how awesome it would be to have a photo of that gathering. What would it have been worth today with all the Old School Pro's who started it all and a young newschooler just gettting his feet wet.
Well if I could have a do over on this day. I would wish for a picture with the group of BMX legends...
RS
