2010 BMX Hall Of Fame Inductees Announced
Tim Judge, (#2, above, from the 1981 Jag World Championships) is one of six inductees in the Class of 2010.
Photo By Bob Osborn, ©Wizard Publications, used by permission.
The 2010 National BMX Hall Of Fame inductees have been officially announced. Six BMX greats will be inducted at the September 16 ceremony in San Diego.
Each year, the public nominates their most worthy heroes from the 40-year history of the sport of BMX. The top nominees are placed in one of four categories (Pioneer BMX Racer, BMX Racer, BMX Industry and BMX Freestyle), and a ballot is sent to current Hall Of Fame members, BMX media and industry figures for their vote.
The Hall Of Fame board of directors, based on recommendations from a steering committee, also considers if there are any persons worthy of a “Special Recognition” award, which the board bestows above and beyond the standard four voting categories.
Here are in-depth bios on all six inductees:
National BMX Hall Of Fame 2010 Inductees
Pioneer BMX Racer – Tim Judge
“Here Come Da Judge!” was a popular refrain from announcers and magazine writers anytime Florida flyer, Tim Judge, was in view. Tim got into BMX when he noticed a kid on his block, jumping a ramp made of found wood and an old tire. That day in 1973 would propel TJ into a lifelong affection for BMX, and “go-fast” sports, in general.
As a member of the Speed Unlimited/Thruster Factory team, Tim was one of the youngest riders of his time to have a replica frame named after him. His eventual departure from Thruster came only days before the 1981 Jag World Championships, so Tim borrowed a bike from pal Greg Esser and packed for Indy. There, he won 14-Over Open, earning a spot in the “World Championship” Trophy Dash. In an epic lap, Tim beat Pro Money winner Kevin McNeal to take home the title, and what may be the tallest trophy ever awarded at a BMX race.
Tim did a brief stopover on the Mongoose Factory Team, before landing on what would be his “home team” for the balance of his career. With Hutch BMX Products, Tim got a second “Judge Replica” frame named after him, and chalked up another world title, this time in Cruiser, at the IBMXF World Championships in Slagharen, Holland.
He won a slew of age group titles in his 12-year career, but he says his two world titles, are his most memorable.
TJ transitioned out of BMX Racing in 1985 and made a name for himself in the watercraft (JetSki) world, earning countless awards and honors as both a rider and one of the industry’s top mechanics/builders. The drive that made him great in BMX served him well in the watercraft world, earning him a spot in the International Jet Sport Boating Association (IJSBA) Hall of Fame in 2006.
Today, Tim operates his company, Judge Motorsports, and lives in South Florida.
BMX Racer – Steve Veltman
Long before BMX racers were considered to be “Extreme” “X” or “Action Sports” athletes, there was a different kind of BMXer. Musclebound, and more suited for the gridiron or bodybuilding contest than a bicycle track. Then, there was Steve Veltman. Built like a linebacker, but with a skill set that left onlookers, and even his peers with their mouths agape. Steve was an early, and some would say “natural” athlete, playing soccer from five years of age. Just after his 10th birthday, he decided to change things up, and find a sport that was more based on individual accomplishment. Once he and his dad discussed his idea, a BMX career was born. Steve credits Charles Scott of World of Wheels Bike Shop in Conroe, Texas as being the one who showed him how things worked in BMX Racing, and gave him his first sponsorship. Steve raced well at the local level and on the national scene, and got picked up by the legendary Hutch BMX Products Factory Team after the 1981 ABA Grands.
On his Hutch, Steve went on to win the ABA National Number One Amateur and Cruiser titles in 1982 (the first time someone took both titles in the same year). He also racked up two Jag, and two IBMXF World Championship amateur titles. After the 1985 campaign, with the original Hutch closing its doors, Steve took a two-year break from BMX racing, returning in 1987 for the newly-formed McDonald’s Factory Team. He won the 1989 World Championship in Cruiser and turned pro after that season. He was an immediate threat to “The Firm” of the day, winning the Gold Cup title and Rookie of the Year honors by finishing number five overall. In 1993, he took pro racing to the most dominant level it had ever seen, winning 14 nationals, including 7 in a row and culminating with the ABA National Number One Pro title in a career defining come from behind win at the Grandnationals.
Steve’s joyride at the top was short-lived, as he discovered a degenerative disc in his back in February of 1994. He was sidelined for the better part of the next two seasons, but returned to his old form by 1997. That year, he won more ABA Pro Series races than anyone else, and entered the Grands as points leader, only to be injured and unable to retain his long lost crown. He came back a second time in late 1998. In 1999, he represented the US at the World Championships in Argentina, winning the bronze medal in Elite Cruiser. In 2000, he won AA Pro at the ABA Grands, and subsequently competed in three X Games. After Hutch and McDonald’s, Steve had a string of factory sponsors, including L&S, Vans, ODI, Boss, Torker, Answer/Kastan, NEXT and Magna. He retired from competitive racing in 2004 after 15 years in the top class.
Steve was as prolific off of the track as on, becoming the first cyclist, and only BMXer, to appear on a Wheaties box. He was featured in a McDonald’s ad campaign, a National Geographic article and holds US patents for products, both bicycle related and non. In 1985, he competed in Apartheid-ruled South Africa, an accomplishment for any BMX racer, a life-changing experience for an African American. In his career after racing, Steve became a Corrective and Performance Exercise Coach in the San Diego area. He uses his two-decades of experience in BMX racing to help keep his clients performing at the top of their abilities. “I keep people fast,” he said in a recent interview. Consistent with the maxim that “no exit from BMX is permanent,” Steve is developing a top performance training program to serve BMX athletes by blending both his professional skill sets.
BMX Industry – Craig “gOrk” Barrette
Few industries have a person so well known and respected, that one name suffices in identifying them. In music, it’s Madonna and Cher. In BMX, it’s “gOrk.” gOrk has played nearly all the positions on the proverbial BMX playing field. As a racer in the late 70′s, he and his brother, Scott, mounted up their sidehack and motored all over Northern California in the chase for the UBR national title (which they won three times, with gOrk as the “monkey”). As the infant sport of BMX Freestyle made its way North from the pools and parks of So. Cal, the “gOrk Trick Team” was formed, and he and Sacramento local, Dizz Hicks put on shows that wowed the crowds in the air and on the ground.
The team landed a sponsorship by CW in late 1984 and soon after, gOrk found himself movin on down to Southern California to get closer to the epicenter of the emerging freestyle world. With a few other leads for work in the industry, he ended up in Placentia running the warehouse for CW owner, Roger Worsham. The warehouse gig lasted until he got an unexpected call from BMX Action founder, Bob Osborn, who asked him to come to Torrance for an improptu job interview. Steve Giberson was in the process of moving on, and by the September issue, he was on the masthead at “Mighty BMXA” as Assistant Editor. His stint as assistant lasted less than a month, as Gibey saw the book was in capable hands, and left Kashiwa Street for good. gOrk was bumped up the masthead, and assumed the title of Editor with the October 1985 issue. Four years later, BMX Action and Freestylin’ were folded together, and gOrk was on the move, after covering the 1989 worlds in Australia in July, 1989 (December 1989 “combined” issue, two issues before the magazine changed to “Go”).
The day he found out that his position was being eliminated due to the consolidation of titles, he mused that “The ABA will always be around…and the (American) BMXer could use some sprucing up…” So he put in a call to ABA President Clayton John from home the next morning. By the time he got to Wizard, a message from Clayton was on his desk. Funny thing was that Clayton had not received gOrk’s earlier message, but was calling for the same reason–to offer him a job. He was in Chandler within a week or two, and stayed at ABA for 10 years, where he made good on sprucing up the BMXer and acted as steward to this very Hall Of Fame for several years, among many other notable accomplishments.
As the 20th century came to a close, he made the move to the manufacturer side of the industry, and headed to Seattle to join Seattle Bike Supply as Marketing Manager of it’s flagship brand, Redline. Eleven years later, he has his hands in everything the public sees with the Redline brand on it, and still works closely with his former co-workers at the ABA via the Redline Cup. gOrk lives in Seattle with his wife and family and still rides when he gets the time.
BMX Freestyler – Woody Itson
The son of a sea captain, Woody Itson would find himself peering out over a sea of another kind in his formative years–a sea of screaming fans at freestyle shows all over the world. But it was at the Orange Y BMX Track that Woody would first find fun and passion for riding his bike. As a competitive racer on the local scene for several years, Woody would entertain the crowds by doing what we would, today, call “dirt jumping” on the first straight. Enthusiastic kids would command him to “do a trick” (a phrase that later became a “pants motto” in his freestyle days).
Local bike shop owner and BMX mad scientist, Brian Scura caught wind of Woody’s antics down at the “Y” and invited him to do freestyle shows outside his shop. It wasn’t long until he got hooked up with legendary Vans marketing man, Everett Rosecrans, and hit the road with Mike Dominguez, Brian Blyther and Martin Aparijo for a national tour. During a swing through Baltimore, bad weather boded well for Woody, when Rich Hutchins invited the team to do their show for a local TV crew in the warehouse of Hutch BMX Products. Soon after, the call came from Hutch, asking Woody to join the newly-formed Hutch Factory Freestyle Team. That call, and the events that followed, would prove to be the most profound in Woody’s career, as it catapulted him into the international limelight. At Hutch, Woody was given a free hand in designing the bike of his dreams. The resulting Hutch Trick Star, remains one of the classic rides of freestyle’s heady heyday.
The mid 80s were also a time when the competition scene was taking form in freestyle–first with the AFA’s contests, and then with the NFA. Naysayers spouted that pro riders should not compete, and others chided that they were too scared to compete. Woody thumbed his nose at both opinions and ended up winning the 1985 AFA Summer Freestyle Championships, and the 1986 NFA Grand Nationals. But the sport really was more about performing than competing.
In the late summer of 1986, Hutch declared bankruptcy and Woody’s ride abruptly ended. He joined former Hutch Teammate Mike Dominguez in a two-year deal with Diamond Back soon after, and ended his professional riding career riding for Vision Street Wear in 1989.
Woody has been described by friends as “the level-headed one,” and exhibited those qualities when he left BMX in 1989 to attend college at Cal State Long Beach. His parents had always been uneasy about his career choice in BMX, and were pleased when Woody’s pursuit of an accounting degree brought a steady stream of President’s List letters and other academic accolades. With a diploma on the wall, Woody made his way back in to the bike business, this time as the guy calling the shots, rather than pulling tricks. His stint as Freestyle Program director at GT Bicycles spanned nine years (1993-2001), including the era that saw the tragic loss of company co-founder, Richard Long, in 1996.
As 2001 was ending, Woody and some of his coworkers at GT teamed up with SKip Hess at Giant Bicycles to create a company to manage a BMX racing and freestyle program, and make Giant the exclusive sponsor of that program. As Woody put it in a recent interview “We had a great five year run with Giant. And when it was done, everyone parted friends, and we kept going…doing what we loved to do. And we’re still doing it.”
Today, that company, Satellite Sports Group, performs at over 500 venues each year (featuring BMX and skateboard talent), and keeps Woody neck-deep in BMX on a daily basis. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two children. He says his son, though only five years old, is bound to show up with dad at the Orange Y someday soon, bringing the story full-circle and into a new generation.
Special Recognition – Linda Dorsey
In honoring someone for whom the sharpest wit and cleverest turn of phrase was as natural as green on grass, words are difficult to wrangle when talking about legendary announcer, Linda Dorsey. Her son, Bryan, probably summed it up as well as any of us could, saying, simply, “BMX was her life.” Starting, as many a parent did–with a checkbook opened on the counter of the local bike shop, buying a Mongoose Motomag complete for her only son, Linda would soon volunteer as a scorer at her local track in Azuza, CA. Bryan doesn’t remember when, exactly, Linda announced her first race, but it was likely to fill in for Azuza announcer/Track Operator, Richard Long (who also co-founded GT Bicycles). Linda took her place in the announcers tower at Azuza, and talked to us for nearly 30 years, non-stop. And we loved every second of it.
During her three-decades on the mic, Linda was a fixture on the NBL National circuit, served on the NBL Board of Directors, and brought her voice to France and Japan, among other places motos were posted and crowds were gathered. Sadly, Linda passed away from cancer in 2008, but announced BMX races with the same fire and passion until three months before the end of her life. She is survived by Bryan, who will be in San Diego to accept this posthumous honor.
Special Recognition – Al Fritz, father of the Schwinn Sting-Ray
Starting on the welding line of Schwinn’s landmark Kostner Avenue plant in Chicago, Al Fritz worked his way up from the factory floor in 1945, to become the number-two man, and a member of the Board of Directors at Schwinn Bicycle Company.
In 1963, Mr. Fritz, then Schwinn’s design director, had a chance weekend conversation with a West Coast sales rep, who told him of a “goofy” fad out there, where kids were “buying used 20″ bikes and equipping them with Texas Longhorn handlebars.”
That Saturday morning phone call planted the seed for a project Mr. Fritz would rapidly prototype, and ride through a gauntlet of skeptics, including Frank V. Schwinn, himself, to launch as the Schwinn Sting-Ray. The Sting-Ray went on to sell more than a million units, and every BMX bike on today’s track and trails can trace its roots directly to that first Sting-Ray, built by Al Fritz in the winter of 1963.
BE A PART OF HISTORY!
A select number of tickets are being offered to the public for the 26th Annual induction ceremony at the San Diego Hall Of Champions (San Diego, CA) on Thursday, September 16, 2010. Visit the link below for more information and to purchase tickets.
http://2010bmxhof.eventbrite.com/
ABOUT THE NATIONAL BMX HALL OF FAME
The National BMX Hall Of Fame, founded in 1985 as the “ABA BMX Hall of Fame,” has established a mission to further the sport of BMX by helping future generations remember the champions, heroes and thought-leaders who shaped the sport over its history. The Hall Of Fame currently has 90 inductees for the years 1985-2009, and is honored to welcome the six in the class of 2010.
Visit the Hall Of Fame Website at http://www.bmxhof.org to check out the inductees from 1985-2009
We’re talking about the Hall Of Fame Class of 2010 over on VintageBMX.com, come join the discussion
