BEYOND THE BERM ROCK ISLAND INDOOR BMX & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY BMX RACEWAY

For this edition of Beyond the Berm, we’re taking you to two of the only tracks in the country that don’t have berms: Rock Island Indoor BMX in Illinois and the Mississippi Valley BMX Raceway in Iowa.

Both tracks will take you back to the early days of indoor BMX racing, from the sparks flying as pedals hit the concrete floor to the sounds of slick tires on the wooden jumps. Sometimes you can even smell the burnt rubber in the corners.

“The sound of the jumps, it’s in our heads from 40 years ago,” says Track Operator Paul DePauw, who runs both the Rock Island and Mississippi Valley indoors in addition to East Moline BMX in Illinois.

Paul started racing in Illinois in 1981, and when the weather got cold, he went to the concrete. “In our area, this is what we do,” he says.

Paul has raced indoors from Iowa to New Jersey. He raced the Jag World Championships on a concrete floor in Indianapolis, and he turned expert on a tile floor. Now, he says, “It’s part of my DNA.”

Paul is passionate about this style of racing, so when he found the perfect building in Rock Island, Illinois in 2011, he was holding races there less than a month later. Rock Island Indoor BMX started as an NBL track, and they would host double-headers a couple nights a week. Now, Rock Island holds seven races a year in just 11 days.

One of these races is an Illinois State Qualifier, held on New Year’s Day. This year, they hosted over 300 riders from nine states! It’s becoming a tradition for many families in the area.

So why are people flocking to Rock Island, Illinois on New Year’s Day?

“The racing is insane,” says Paul. “Every moto is packed with crazy stuff.”

And this is all by design.

“I know the magic formula. It’s about 550 feet. That keeps everybody in the entire race. It’s never a done deal.”

From the drop of the Pro Gate, it’s a 135-foot sprint to the first turn: No jumps. The inside riders have to brake a little harder than those on the outside, so everybody comes together.

Then they have to navigate a split-second straightaway. There’s a big Freshpark tabletop on the inside and a shorter tabletop on the outside, and both lines could be faster in different scenarios. That’s just one of the reasons that Paul calls racing here a high-speed BMX chess game.

After riders bunch up again in the second corner, they ride over two small tabletops on the third straightaway before the tight last turn. It’s make-or-break here, although everyone has to brake hard to get through.

Riders then have to get on the pedals (from basically a dead stop) to a gnarly little wooden double before they sprint to the finish line.

Paul thinks these might be the shortest tracks in the world, but they are action-packed the whole way through. “People are going crazy during these races. It’s like an MMA fight or something.”

The energy and excitement are what keep Paul in the sport, but what he takes in, he dishes it right back out.

Paul was going to guitar school in Hollywood before he came back home and started the track in East Moline, and he brings a bit of showmanship to BMX. Whether it’s the tracks he designs, his announcing, or his racing, it’s all awesome to watch (I highly recommend you watch his race against Mike Savage at Rock Island. It’s on East Moline’s Facebook page).

Paul’s now in his 32nd year as a TO, but even with all that experience and charisma, he can’t run three tracks alone.

“I’ve worked with hundreds of killer people over the years to do the crazy stuff we’ve done,” Paul says.

And the stuff they’re doing at these indoors is crazy. All the wooden jumps were hand-built by volunteers, and it only takes them a couple of hours to set it all up and tear it all down.

These races run like a well-oiled machine, so when they found another building at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Iowa, they booked it for three straight weekends after the season finished at Rock Island. And while you’d think that two buildings with concrete floors that are about the same size would ride the same, they don’t!

“That’s a different terrain over there, and we turn to the right in Iowa. Mississippi Valley has trickier concrete. It’s more stop-and-go.”

Talking about the differences between the two buildings got Paul reminiscing about all the surfaces he used to race on, from tile floors with chunks taken out in the corners to slippery concrete with Coke syrup spilled on it to make it grippier. In comparison, dirt is pretty reliable.

“The skillset at the indoor track is worth its weight in gold transferring to an outdoor track.” Paul says, and he hopes that more people catch on.

“I would love a flat turn series, or at least one more track. We would all go.”

Paul calls this style of racing “the most unique and underrated form of BMX in the Universe,” and I think you have to see it to believe it. You can check watch the entire New Year’s race on the East Moline BMX Speedway Youtube Page or experience it yourself at the Mississippi Valley BMX raceway on February 12th at the only flat-turn Gold Cup Qualifier on the calendar.