Chase BMX and Tioga Step Up For Jr. Devo
USA Cycling released a statement a week or so ago celebrating the signing of Chase BMX and Tioga as marquee sponsors of the USA Cycling BMX Jr. Development program for 2012 and 2013.
The program is entering its third year of organized camps, and has fostered some impressive talent in its time. The ABA (now USA BMX) gave a major boost to the program in July of 2009, when it added a dedicated series-within-a-series expressly for 15 and 16 year olds (using UCI Birthday criteria) to compete alongside the Elite classes in the national program.
As we look past London 2012, and on to Rio 2016, the Jr. Development program will take on added importance and prestige, with 1997 birth-year riders getting prepared to show what they have on the big track.
Pete Dylewski has been up close and personal with the Jr. Devo program since its inception. As the Marketing Manager for VSI products in 2009, it was his magic touch that brought Intense BMX to the table as a sponsor of the program in the early years. With Pete currently in a “strategic partner” capacity in Christophe Leveque’s BMX Racing Group, and as a marketing and team consultany to Tioga BMX, he has buddied up with USAC again, bringing Chase BMX and Tioga to the table as sponsors of the program for the next two years.
And while USAC’s press release on the subject (linked below) provides great surface detail on the partnership, BMX News is always interested in a deeper-dive on the backstory, and perspective of the movers, shakers and news makers behind the headlines (if you’ll allow the shameless plug on our own behalf).
In this, the 50th episode of BMX News “Announcers Tower,” Pete gives us some great insight into the history of the program, what happens when riders attend one of the four annual camps, and the longview on talent development. We also took this opportunity to get some scoop on how things are developing at BMX Racing Group, in general.
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USA Cycling Junior Development Page
Editors Note: Our side of the interview had some sound difficulties, due to a software update on our Skype application. Apologies for any “tin can” effect.
