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".

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 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 racing: Mid 1974 at 14 years old. His father brought him a monoshock BMX bicycle and he tried out racing. 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. 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. *****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

Professional

"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.' ---BMX Plus! October 1982" *****As an active racer. After his retirement at the end of the 1983 season he took an office position with Murray. 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) American Bicycle Association (ABA) Fédération Internationale Amateur de Cyclisme (FIAC) International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF) Independent race series and invitationals: *****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.

Professional

National Bicycle Association (NBA) National Bicycle League (NBL) American Bicycle Association (ABA) United States Bicycle Motocross Association (USBA) International Bicycle Motocross Federation (IBMXF) Pro Series Championships

Notable accolades

BMX product lines

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!"

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):