Awards

Any BMXer, young or old, can relate to the memory of that first race - that first trophy, or first win, that moment that changed our lives forever.  That is how the Life story of tonight’s Racer Inductee begins. 

It all started in 1983, at Sunol BMX in Northern California - when 8 year old Greg Romero experienced the thrill of winning for the very first time. With the constant support of his parents and his two biggest fans - his sisters, Greg chased that BMX dream as far as it would take him. By the 90’s, he’d become a top amateur, and while factory sponsored by Boss Racing, Nor Cal legend and Hall of Famer Cecil Johns took Greg under his wing - as his pet project, and molded him into a BMX warrior. 

Romero proudly upheld that raucous Nor Cal rep, winning several Nationals in both ABA and NBL, and finally earned that elusive ABA Number One Age Group title in 1994 - and along with it, a factory ride with Auburn Bikes!

By 1995, the time had finally come. Greg Romero made one of the most fluid transitions into the Pro ranks, quickly turning Double-A after the first three nationals of the year. In his rookie season, Romero won the ABA World Cup, along with two more double-A wins, helped earn him enough votes to become 1995’s Golden Crank Rookie Pro of the Year.

Over the next decade, Greg spent seven of those years riding for The Firm - working his way up from Auburn, to Robinson and finally GT.  He won the first-ever ABA Monster-Cross series in ‘97, which awarded him the overall prize of a Honda motorcycle and won a second ABA World Cup that same year. Always in the hunt for a No.1 Pro title, Greg is owner of one of the most impressive Grands records;  winning the ABA Grands in ‘96 and making seven Grands mains out of his 12 attempts.

Along with the turn of the century, came big changes in the sponsorship world. After The Firm floundered, Romero moved to Oklahoma, bought some land to build his own practice track, and fired up his own BMX brand - named RevTec. The 2000’s also brought about the gnarly downhill BMX class, as part of the X-Games, and Romero saw some success in 2001 and 2002. While living in Oklahoma, he hosted and ran a pre-Grands Pros-Only four man race, on his backyard BMX track. Utilizing the arrival and popularity of this new thing called the Internet, Romero created Primo Productions and marketed his first VHS video - the controversial I’m Not Mad At’cha.  

By the time he retired from professional racing - in 2007, “Primo” had made 174 double-A mains … half of the time being on the podium, and 30 times standing on the top rung as victor. But despite retirement, the BMX World had not heard the last of Greg Romero. For seven years, he wrote his own column “Coach’s Corner” in ABA’s BMXer magazine. Owning the domain BMXtraining.com, he authored five BMX instructional How-To DVDs - including the BMX Racing Skills, RaceDay and Faster First Straight.

But more importantly, building off of his successful BMX career, Greg became a respected BMX coach. And once BMX was named an Olympic sport, he worked closely with some of Team USA's OG Olympians - such as silver medalist Mike Day, bronze medalist Jill Kintner, David Herman and Corben Sharrah.

The impact he made in BMX - both as a racer and coach, will long linger in our sport.