Tinker Juarez - BMX Racing Career Milestones

BMX Racing Career Milestones

Note: In the early days of professional racing, 1977 and prior, many tracks offered small purse prize money to the older racers of an event, even before the official sanctioning bodies offered prize money in formal divisions themselves. Hence some early "professionals" like Stu Thomsen turning "pro" in 1975 at 16 years old where racing for small amounts of money at track events when offered even before the NBA, regarded as the first true national BMX sanctioning body, had a professional division. For the sake of consistency and standardization noted professional first are for the first pro races for prize money offered by official BMX sanctioning bodies and not independent track events. Professional first are also on the national level unless otherwise indicated.

Milestone	Event Details
Started racing:	1974 at 13 years of age.
Sanctioning body:	Independent track.
Home sanctioning body district(s):	National Bicycle Association (NBA) District "X" (Southern California/Los Angeles County) 1973-1981; American Bicycle Association (ABA) California District 22 (CA-22) (1982)
First race bike:
First race result:
First win (local):
First sponsor:
First national win:	In 14 & Over Intermediate at the first annual National Bicycle Association (NBA) Grandnational Championship in Newhall, California on November 23, 1975.). This was the first ever BMX Grandnational Championship.
Turned Professional:	1977 Age 16.
First Professional race result:
First Professional win:
Height and weight at height of his career:	Ht:5'8" Wt:~140 lb.
Retired:	1986 at age 25. His possible last race was the NBL War of the Stars IX National in Montclair, California on April 27, 1986. He came in third in Pro Cruiser. His name apparently drops off the national results listing permanently after this race. He transitions to mountain biking during the summer of 1986. Unlike most BMXers who "retire", he never looked back and dedicated the rest of his cycling career to Mountain Biking and later endurance Road Racing.

*At the time there was no separate pro class for pros due to the relatively small number of pros. They raced with the 16 Experts, making it a Pro/Am class essentially. This is why during the early years of the pro division the national number one racer of a sanctioning body could be either an amateur or professional. This practice continued until the NBA's 1979 season in which the pros earned separate pro points and a separate pro plate from the amateurs.