note: in the early days of professional racing, 1976 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 early professionals like stu thomsen turning "pro" in 1975 at 16 years old racing for small amounts of money at track events when offered even before the nba, regarded as the first true national bmx sanctioning body, had a professional division. the nba started the first professional division in bmx in the 1977. 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.