New NBL Chief, Gary Aragon, Speaks

Literally moments before the BMXNEWS 4×4 was set to depart for the ABA Grands in Tulsa, the tipster hotline was ringing off the hook with tales that there was a new Sheriff in town at the NBL’s Hilliard, OH Headquarters. With an 11 hour drive ahead of us, we got the item posted as “breaking news” and then hit the Interstate. At that point, all we knew of Ken Masters’ replacement was that his name was Gary Aragon, he had no prior background in (nor, some said, exposure to), BMX Racing…and that he would be reporting for duty on or about December 7.

BMX News reached out to Mr. Aragon at the NBL email address we were provided by NBL staff, and requested an interview for the Announcers Tower Podcast. We were pleasantly surprised when we received a timely response to our inquiry, promising us an interview soon after the 7th.

Until this morning, we thought of Mr. Aragon as a “Charlie-from-Charlie’s-Angels” type figure, in that he is said to be pulling the strings, but nobody had ever heard nor seen him. In fact, nobody in BMX would be able to ID him, even if he mugged Chris Luna and slipped in as starter for the mains in Tulsa.

All that changed this morning, when we sat down with Gary for what would end up being a 31-minute interview, covering a list of questions which we feel everyone in BMX Racing will find quite interesting and informative. There are a couple of tidbits, that some might consider bombshells, contained in therein, and we encourage you to listen to the whole interview.

We usually try to keep “Announcers Tower” segments to 15 Minutes, but we felt this content would be best served up as one episode.

We’d like to say thanks to Gary for granting us the interview, and for speaking so candidly during our chat. Also, we pressed him hard for a photo…any photo…to post with the interview, so if his “executive” look strikes you as “un-BMX” it’s mostly our fault.

After you’re done listening, we’re talking about it in the forums, so come join the fun.

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