Jeff Bottema

Last updated
Jeff Bottema
Personal information
Full nameJeffery Bottema
Nickname"Battling"
Born (1960-04-14) April 14, 1960 (age 63)
Norwalk, California, United States
Height5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight162 lb (73 kg)
Team information
Current teamRetired
DisciplineBicycle Motocross (BMX)
RoleRacer/Manufacturer/Team Manager
Rider typeOff Road
Amateur teams
1974–1975Two Wheeler's BMX
1975–1976Webco Inc.
1976–1977D.G. Performance Specialist
Professional teams
1977–1979D.G. Performance Specialist
1979–1981Raleigh Cycle Company
1981Mountain Dew
1981–1983Murray of Ohio Corporation

Jeffery Bottema (born April 14, 1960, from Norwalk, California United States) is an American former professional "Old School" Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer whose prime competitive years were from 1976 to 1981. He had the nickname of "Battling". [1]

Contents

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 [2] 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.

Started bacing: Mid 1974 at 14 years old. His father brought him a monoshock BMX bicycle and he tried out racing. [3]

Sanctioning body:

First race result:

First win (local):

Sanctioning body district(s): National Bicycle Association (NBA) District "X" (Southern California/Los Angeles) 1973–1981.

First sponsor: Two Wheeler's BMX 1974.

First national win: In 14-17 Novice Class at the National Pedal Sport Association (NPSA) Eastern Nationals in Atlanta on September 7, 1975. [4]

Turned Professional:

First Professional race* result:

First Professional* win:

Retired: At the end of the 1983 season. During the last two years of his career he mostly raced 24" Cruiser Class.

Height & weight at height of his career: (1983) Ht:5'11 Wt:165 lbs. [5]

*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. The ABA and the NBL followed suit a year later.

Career factory and major bike shop sponsors

Note: This listing only denotes the racer's primary sponsors. At any given time a racer could have numerous ever-changing co-sponsors. Primary sponsorships can be verified by BMX press coverage and sponsor company advertisements at the time in question. When possible exact dates are given.

Amateur

  • Two Wheeler's BMX: 1974-May 1975
  • Webco Inc.: May 1975-March 1976. Webco disbanded its team in March 1976. [6]
  • D.G. Performance Specialist (The initials stood for Dan Hangsleben, Gary Harlow): [7] Late April 1976-July 1979. In April 1977 Bottema supposedly briefly "retired" to race motorcycle motocross (MX) for D.G., [8] much like how David Clinton briefly "retired" from BMX to race MX in early 1976 for his then sponsor Kawasaki Motors. [9] However, Bottema totally retiring from BMX was an incorrect announcement. [10] He concentrated on MX while racing some BMX. Bottema started racing BMX full-time again in early 1978. [11]

Professional

  • D.G. Performance Specialist: Late April 1976-July 1979.
  • Raleigh Cycle Company of America: July 1979-Mid January 1981. Raleigh dropped its racing team in January 1981. [12] According to teammate Toby Henderson Raleigh allegedly strung himself and Jeff Bottema along with false promises of a new contract for the 1982 season only to abruptly dropped by Raleigh:

Toby Henderson: "...I was getting a couple of good contracts coming up, and I turned them all down, because I kept calling Raleigh, and saying, "Well, are we going to do something next year?" "Oh yeah, oh yeah, we're really going to be full force next year." [Raleigh's alleged response-ed.] So I turned some good contracts down, and I let it all slide, until the middle of January, when I called them up and said, "Well, where's the contracts? Let's get some contracts going", and they said, Well, we decided we're going to go TV advertisement", and that's all they said, like "Click." [imitating a phone hang up-ed.] And we [Henderson and Bottema-ed.] said, "Huh?" Here we turned down like three or four good contracts in October, when all the other teams were setting their budgets up and looking for their riders for the next year." [13] ---BMX Plus! October 1982

Ironically, Raleigh would restart its BMX sponsoring program a year later.
  • Mountain Dew: Late 1980-Mid 1981. During the early spring and summer of 1981 he was part of the Mountain Dew exhibition team that toured the US demonstrating BMX racing, freestyle and BMX safety. His teammates included Perry Kramer, Harry Leary, Stu Thomsen, Brent Patterson, Bob Haro and R. L. Osborn (this was concurrent and in addition to their primary sponsor at the time).
  • Murray of Ohio Corporation: August 1981-December 1983* Jeff Bottema became road team manager as well as a racer in May 1982. [14] Scott Clark succeeded him in that position after Bottema retired from racing. [15]

*As an active racer. After his retirement at the end of the 1983 season he took an office position with Murray. [16] He later became the Murray Road Racing Team Manager.

Career bicycle motocross titles

Note: Listed are District, State/Provincial/Department, Regional, National, and International titles in italics. "Defunct" refers to the fact of that sanctioning body in question no longer existing at the start of the racer's career or at that stage of his/her career. Depending on point totals of individual racers, winners of Grand Nationals do not necessarily win National titles. Series and one off Championships are also listed in block.

Amateur

National Bicycle Association (NBA)

National Bicycle League (NBL)

  • 1976 Class F (15 Expert) NML/Schwinn Gold Cup winner††
††In 1976 the National Motocross League (NML) (the motorcycle motorcross racing parent organization of the NBL) with the sponsorship of the Schwinn Bicycle Company held the final Gold Cup mains races (after having two qualifying events several days before) as an exhibition during the halftime period in a pre-season NFL football game between the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings in the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida on July 31, 1976 in front of and estimated 50,000 spectators. [19]

American Bicycle Association (ABA)

  • None

Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme (FIAC)

  • None

International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF)

  • None

Independent race series and invitationals:

  • 1975 Heavyweight* Intermediate Nevada State Champion

*Classifications of the racers were based largely on the physical size of the racers at the Independent i.e. non sanctioned track the Championship race was held at. [20]

  • 1976 16 Expert California Cup winner.
The California Cup was a non sanctioned series of three qualifying races held at three tracks (for a total of nine separate races) in three different regions of Northern California. Then the finals were held. The series was sponsored and promoted by BX-Weekly Magazine, a BMX newspaper and Rick Varner (R&R) Racing Products. The finals were held at the famous Corona Raceway on September 5, 1976.

Professional

National Bicycle Association (NBA)

  • None

National Bicycle League (NBL)

  • None

American Bicycle Association (ABA)

  • None

United States Bicycle Motocross Association (USBA)

  • None

International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF)

  • None

Pro Series Championships

[3] Notable accolades

The order of finish for this proto Veterans Pro Class were:
  1. Jeff Bottema
  2. Dennis Dain
  3. Scot Breithaupt
  4. Bryan Webb
  5. Jumpin' John Wells
  6. Pete Harrigan
  7. Friendly Fred Thomas
  8. Mark Parerria [25]
This race was the forerunner of the Veterans and Masters classes which started in the early 1990s by the ABA and NBL (respectively).

BMX product lines

Product Evaluations:
Bicycle Motocross Action February 1982 Vol.7 No.2 pg.80
Product Evaluations:
Product Evaluations:

Significant injuries

Racing habits and traits

Team Webco recently added a new member to their already sizzling set up; Jeff Bottema a slick racer with a real Colgate smile! [29]

Colgate was a well known tooth paste manufacture. He would later correct his teeth with braces beginning around 1982.

Miscellaneous and trivia

Post BMX career

BMX press magazine interviews and articles

BMX magazine covers

Bicycle Motocross News:

Minicycle/BMX Action & Super BMX:

Bicycle Motocross Action & Go:

BMX Plus!:

*The publisher skipped an issue during 1979.

Total BMX:

Bicycles and Dirt:

NBA World & NBmxA World (The official NBA/NBmxA membership publication):

Bicycles Today & BMX Today (The official NBL membership publication under two names):

ABA Action, American BMXer, BMXer (The official ABA membership publication under three names):

USBA Racer (The official USBA membership publication):

Notes

  1. Bicycle Motocross News March 1975 Vol.2 No.2 pg.15
  2. Bicycle Motocross News January/February 1978 Vol.4 No.1 pg.22
  3. 1 2 BMX Weekly October 1, 1976 Vol.2 No.4 pg.13
  4. Bicycle Motocross News October 1975 Vol.2 No.9 pg.24 (results)
  5. Murray Dunruss BMX Trading card No.23
  6. Bicycle Motocross News May 1976 Vol.3 No.5 pg.9
  7. BMX Plus! July 1988 Vol.11 No.7 pg.26
  8. Bicycle Motocross News May 1977 Vol.4 No.5 pg.4
  9. Bicycle Motocross Action January/February 1979 Vol.4 No.1 pg.40
  10. Bicycle Motocross News June 1977 Vol.4 No.6 pg.4
  11. Bicycle Motocross Action September/October 1978 Vol.3 No.5 pg.45
  12. 1 2 Bicycle Motocross Action February 1982 Vol.7 No.2 pg.80
  13. BMX Plus! October 1982 Vol.5 No.10 pg.54
  14. BMX Action August 1982 Vol.7 No.8 pg.76
  15. 1 2 3 BMX Action May 1984 Vol.12 No.5 pg.20
  16. 1 2 BMX Plus! May 1984 Vol.7 No.5 pg.14
  17. Bicycle Motocross News January 1976 Vol.3 No.1 pg.16
  18. Bicycle Motocross News October 1976 Vol.3 No.10 pg.12
  19. Bicycle Motocross News September 1976 Vol.3 No.9 pg.10
  20. Bicycle Motocross News August 1975 Vol.2 No.7 pg.23 (results page)
  21. BMX Action December 1986 Vol.11 No.12 pg.30
  22. Old fatbmx.com site on the history of European BMX by Gerrit Does (UPDATE NOVEMBER 2000 The history of European BMX - Part VI (1981)).
  23. American BMXer March 1987 Vol.9 No.3 pg.26
  24. BMX Action May 1987 Vol.12 No.5 pg.11
  25. Super BMX-Freestyle May 1987 Vol.14 No.5 pg.62
  26. BMX Plus! July 1984 Vol.7 No.7 pg.9
  27. Super BMX June 1984 Vol.11 No.6 pg.5
  28. BMX Plus! December 1984 Vol.7 No.12 pg.16
  29. Bicycle Motocross News July 1976 Vol.2 No.6 pg.6
  30. The 1984 BMX Action Calendar (September)
  31. BMX Plus! November 1982 Vol. 5 No. 11 pg. 79
  32. BMX Action October 1986 Vol.11 No.10 pg.78
  33. BMX Action December 1986 Vol.11 No.12 pg.22

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