[6] While BMX racing is an individual sport, teams are often formed from racers in different classifications for camaraderie and for business exposure of a sponsoring organization or company.

In the Bicycle Motocross context, sanctioning bodies are chiefly responsible for providing insurance coverage and other "back office" services to local tracks.

As part of their administrative "service provider" role, BMX sanctioning bodies also determine the rules of competition, such as clothing requirements, age and gender divisions (or "classes"), as well as the rules and protocol for advancement in proficiency classes (Novice, Intermediate, Expert, Girl Expert, Cruiser, Girl Cruiser, Vet Pro, Men/Women Junior, and Men/Women Pro.)

BMX Racing has had many sanctioning bodies over its 40-year history as an organized sport, the first being Scot Breithaupt's Bicycle United Motocross Society (BUMS), created in the early 1970s (see below).

In the United States, USA BMX is the main sanctioning body which was formed in 2011 from the merger of the two largest organizations, the ABA and NBL.

He open the first BMX track in Australia on May 17, 1975, on the Gold Coast in Tallebudgera, Queensland adjacent to the Tally Valley Golf Club.

[17] The first sanctioning body in the Netherlands was called the Stichting Fietscross Nederland (SFN) (in English the Dutch Bicycle Motocross Foundation (DBMXF)) and was co-founded on October 19, 1978, by Gerrit Does and Louis Vrijdag.

Operating for a while independently, they formed another sanctioning body in 1987, the Nederlandse Fietscross Federatie (NFF), (in English the Dutch Bicycle Motocross Federation (DBMXF)).

The EBA merged with the British Cycling Federation (BCF) which had represented all other aspects and disciplines of English bicycle racing other than BMX.

[20] On July 10, 1969, a group of boys riding their Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles in Palms Park in West Los Angeles wanted to race.

The first BMX proto sanctioning body was the Bicycle United Motocross Society (BUMS) founded by Scot Breithaupt in Long Beach, California on November 14, 1970, when he was fourteen years old.

It was more akin to what the professionals race on in special Pro sections of track at large events today, including water holes and high dropoffs.

With the aforementioned exception of pro sections, today's tracks for the most part are pretty tame by comparison due to insurance concerns by the sanctioning bodies.

What was needed was a governing body that would standardize and give direction and purpose to the grab bag of these amateur-run (in that these operators did not have this enterprise as the main concern of their lives) tracks.

He was also a former Hollywood stunt man who promoted races at the famous Indian Dunes, built and managed by Walt James, where many movies and TV shows were filmed.

It tried to reorganize in 1981, starting new tracks and by most accounts had a spark of new energy and enthusiasm, but still suffered lack of ridership (racers were committed to other point races with the other sanctioning bodies).

Mr. Alexander did try at least one more foray into the sport he helped to pioneer: he started the World Wide Bicycle Motocross Association (WWBMXA) in Chatsworth, California in 1981.

Like Ernie Alexander and Scot Breithaupt before him, he was a promoter who created the NBL as the BMX auxiliary to the National Motorcycle League (NML), now-defunct, when he became dissatisfied with how the races were run.

The NBL expanded rapidly on the East Coast of the United States and for most of its early history it had only a few tracks west of the Mississippi River.

That changed in 1982 when it inherited the membership and tracks of the defunct National Bicycle Association (NBA) which had ceased sanctioning its own races and went into partnership with the NBL.

That day was the first time in more than 35 years that the sport of BMX Racing was run under a single sanctioning body in North America.

The American Bicycle Association (ABA), created by Gene Roden and Merl Mennenga in 1977, originated in Chandler, Arizona, USA.

It was the largest sanctioning body in the world (a position it won as early as 1979 when it surpassed the NBL and the old NBA in numbers) with an estimated 60,000 members and 272 affiliated tracks in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

The ABA brand was retired at the close of the 2011 season, becoming USA BMX as part of its merger with the rival National Bicycle League (NBL).

He also started the first European BMX sanctioning body the Stichting Fietscross Nederland (SFN) (the Dutch Bicycle Motocross Foundation (DBMXF) in English) in the Netherlands in 1978.

The IBMXF was a Waalre, the Netherlands-based body that conducted international events including its own World Championship event until its formal merger with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) amateur cycling division the Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme (FIAC) in 1996 to form the largest international sanctioning body.

However, for the first few years the IBMXF while there was a pro class, the professionals did not race for money but trophies just like the amateurs and the prestige of being declared World Champions with its associate side benefits in marketing.

On January 1, 1993, the IBMXF and the Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme (FIAC), the amateur governing branch of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) which handled Olympic Cycling, merged formally after having held joint World Championships since July 22, 1991 in Sandness, Norway (FIAC had been holding its own separate BMX World Championships starting 1986).

Riders are awarded points depending on their respective finish in the race, which are added to their cumulative totals, and ultimately determining district rankings at the end of the calendar year.

Between 1985 and 1987 a girl's pro class was established but that division was discontinued between 1988 and 1996 due to lack of participants and those National No.1 women titles were again amateurs.