A quarter century of racing

Hodag BMX track operator Robbie Deede likes to joke that in the club’s early years its motto was “Got dirt?” as it looked high and low for donations of raw materials to construct a place for kids to ride.

Flash forward 25 years and the venue located in Rhinelander’s West Side Park has evolved into one of the top BMX venues not just in Wisconsin, but around the Midwest.

The club will celebrate its silver anniversary in grand fashion on Saturday, Aug. 17 with one of the biggest races in its history. Its 25th anniversary spectacular will feature a starting purse of more than $4,800 in cash and prizes.

“It’s a celebration. It’s going to be unlike any normal BMX race,” Deede recently told the River News looking ahead to the event. “It’s to be a spectacle, a benefit, a way to celebrate. Twenty-five years of BMX racing here in the Northwoods. We’re established now at this point and it’s something to celebrate.”

    Track operator Robbie Deede leads a field of riders during a Hodag BMX Club race at West Side Park in Rhinelander Monday, July 29. Deede raced at the track as a kid during its formative years and has served as the track operator for more than a decade. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Deede has seen the track develop from its infancy as it, and the sport of BMX racing as a whole, have grown in legitimacy over the past 25 years. That was on display late last week as the sport took center stage in the Paris Olympic Games. 

“The sport itself has evolved so much in the last 25 years. I’ve been able to see it grow from just kind of an outlaw sport, kids that were emulating motocross racers, to an Olympic sport with its own discipline,” Deede said. “It’s had it’s own evolution taking on a little bit of all of these sports, so being what it is today. The sport has gotten tremendously faster. The tracks have gotten much more complex. There are way more obstacles on them now.”

Much like the sport, the Hodag BMX track has evolved over the years. In 2016, the track was redesigned to its current main configuration, with three banked turns and a new starting gate. Those turns were paved in 2017 to make them faster and prevent wind and water erosion. 

The straightaways in between have been the club’s sandbox, so to speak, where different jumps and obstacles have been thrown in to keep the racing fresh and, more importantly, fun. Deede credits fellow racer JJ Wergin for helping design the track. In addition to racing BMX, the two have backgrounds in other racing disciplines — Wergin in motocross and Deede in off-road truck and buggy racing — that have occasionally served as inspiration for what goes into designing the track from year to year.

“What we’ve done is taken obstacles that we thought were challenging and the kids need to learn how to ride, from all over the country,” Deede said. “I can tell you that this obstacle came from this track, or this came from this track, to make Hodag BMX what it is. 

“It’s a rider’s track. You have riders from all over the country go, ‘this track is just fun to ride.’ That’s our goal. We want it to be a fun-to-ride tracks … This is one of the nicest tracks in the state, in the midwest, in the country. It’s something that’s here and it’s open. It’s available. You can just show up and ride here on a normal day.”

    Cole Biermeier (4) of Rhinelander, catches air as he chases Brennan Polaski of Crandon (19) in the 16 Expert class during a Hodag BMX Club race at West Side Park in Rhinelander Monday, July 29. Riders progress to expert classification after garnering a set amount of victories at the novice and intermediate levels. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

The club celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019 and then had to endure arguably its toughest year in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the entire racing season. The club got through that year and, if anything, has only gotten bigger since. It has not been uncommon this season to see 20 different classes of racing — based on age, experience, gender and bicycle type — compete with riders who range from just 2 years old to all the way into their 50s. 

“We’re raising kids through BMX, but I’m also gearing kids, if they want to go to the next level — to the regional, to the national level — we’re giving them a platform,” Deede said. “You see kids down here that have been dedicating themselves for a long time. You can tell that they’ve been committed. They’re riding on days off. They just truly enjoy riding their bike and enjoy being here at the track.”

A number of local riders will likely take advantage of another opportunity to get better just two days prior to the anniversary race. Pro riders Taylor Riedemann and Rylee France are hosting a clinic Aug. 15 at the track that will focus on warm-ups, gates, cornering and overall track speed. 

All of those attributes will likely come in handy for the big event, which will get underway at noon Aug. 17 with single-rider time trails that will determine seeds and starting draws for later in the evening. Deede said it will be a unique opportunity for riders to see who they stack up, mano a mano.  

“Time trialing is something we’ve always kind of dabbled with,” he said. “Some kids, we’re like, ‘you’re just as fast as (so-and-so),’ but then they get into a pack and they get me. But to see in the time trial, I’m just as fast as so-and-so.” 

After time trials, the top 16 in the Pro-Am division will throw down in two semifinal races at approximately 3:30 p.m. to determine to top eight who will race for the big money at the end of the night. 

Following the semifinals, the club will hold a dinner benefit from 4 to 6 p.m. That will be followed by a parade of bikes leading in to warmups for the big show, which will start at 7 p.m. There will be five different classes — 12 and under, girls’ 13 and over, 13 to 16, 17 to 35, 36 and over — competing for starting purses between $200 and $500 split among the top eight finishers. The main event will also feature the finals in the Pro-Am division, with at least $2,000 on the line. A fireworks display will follow the racing action. 

“It’s going to be an awesome, awesome weekend. We’re looking forward to it,” Deede said.

While admission is free, there’s one spectator neither Deede nor any of the riders want to see make an appearance — Mother Nature. A wet summer has caused headaches for a number of tracks around the Midwest. The Hodag BMX Club has seen four of its weekly races washed out already during the summer and were fortunate not to have their state qualifier race over Father’s Day weekend meet a similar fate. Despite heavy rain the morning of that race, the event got off after about a 90-minute delay. That race was saved by a glue-like sealer that the track applies every year to the dirt portions of the track. Once cured, the sealer turns the dirt into an impervious surface and vastly expedites the track-drying process.

“This track is built to handle weather really well,” Deede said. “Our state qualifier, it rained about an inch and a half the morning of the race. And we said, ‘OK, we’re going to delay here a little bit.’ We did that, got out the blowers and the squeegees and we built the track to be able to handle weather.” 

Deede said none of the club’s success would be possible without the volunteers, sponsors and donors who have supported the track and the sport over the years. The Hodag BMX Club is an all-volunteer group that oversees the operation over the venue and the races that take place once or twice a week from April through October.

“We’re very fortunate to have some really good volunteers. We have a lot of awesome donors and sponsors that help us out,” Deede said. “The past, present and future who have made this place so stinking awesome. It’s a labor of love and it’s something that we’re all very proud of, to make our community a better place, to give kids of all ages something to do.”

Depending on the success of the anniversary race, Deede said he would like to see it grow into an annual event to help promote Rhinelander and the Northwoods as a destination for not just BMX racers, but cycling enthusiasts in general.

“A lot of people don’t realize it, but bicycling in the Northwoods is huge — whether its mountain biking, BMX, road biking,” he said. “Bicycling, in general, is huge in our area and I think we need to put it on highlight more. It attracts people from all over the country to come ride and it’s really something I want us to lean into.”

That’s lofty aspirations for an organization that began from grassroots back at the turn of the century. As Hodag BMX celebrates its 25th anniversary, Deede said he can at least put the club’s old motto to bed.

“This is the first year I can actually say that I have enough dirt on the track,” he quipped.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].