Mike Devitt Sharpie drawing

The first rider-owned BMX bike company was SE Racing, founded by Scot Breithaupt in the late 1970's.  Scot, the "Old Man" of BMX, was a great racer, and a great promoter.  But the day to days, nuts and bolts business work was not his strong suit.  In came businessman Mike Devitt, who had already sold bikes under the brands Dirt Master, and Dan Gurney All American, licensed from the champion auto racer.  For around 30 years, Mike Devitt was in the office, behind the scenes, building SE Racing, and helping design and sell some of the classic bikes that helped build BMX itself.  That's Scot Breithaupt in the racing pic in the drawing.  Old School racer, Sean Ewing asked me to draw this tribute to Mike, who died in 2020. #sharpiescribblestyle

If you've seen Mark Eaton's great documenatry about BMX, Joe Kid on a Stingray, then you know that BMX racing started way back in 1970, in Southern California.  Nobody is sure exactly which track held races first, but two or three started that year, and the number of kids racing on Schwinn Stingray's and similar 20 inch bikes began to multiply.  Mike Devitt was there in the really early days.  He ran a business called Bikette, which made bike racks.  His kids heard about BMX, and they started seeking out these bicycle motocross races in places like Long Beach and Malibu.  Seeing business potential in this brand new sport, in the early 1970's, Mike sold bikes under the name Dirt Master, and later licensed the name Dan Gurney American Eagle from the champion race car driver's business in Santa Ana.  He made those BMX bikes while spending weekends driving his kids and their friends to races all over SoCal.  

Early on, he met former motocross rider turned BMX racer, and young entrepreneur, Scot Berithaupt.  This video below, a tribute to Scot from Joe Kid on a Stingray, after his tragic death a few years ago, tells a quick history of SE Racing.

Around the same time, Mike was also running Makaha skateboards, selling tens of thousands of skateboards through mainstream stores, while also being a BMX dad, and running BMX businesses.  Mike was one of the skilled businessmen who was getting bikes built, sold, and shipped, day after day, to help build and progress the actual BMX bikes, and the components themselves, starting in the early 1970's.  

When Scot Breithaupt decided to put out a bike under his promotional business, Scot Enterprises, Mike soon saw the chance to really build something big.  Scot was already well known as a rider and racing tour promoter, and was immediately back ordered after the launch of the now legendary PK Ripper model, which was the Perry Kramer por model.  It's now about 45 years later, and the current SE Bikes company (different owners) still sells multiple new versions of the PK Ripper.  Mike came in as business manager, and used his considerably business expertise to get the day to day operations under control, and running as smooth as possible.  BMX racing was blowing up in its first big wave of popularity in the late 1970's, and with the PK Ripper, the weird but cool Quadangle, Landing Gear forks, and the Floval Flyer and OM (Old Man) Flyer cruisers, SE Racing blasted off as a leader in the industry.  

As you hear in the clip above,  Scot Breithaupt was a force of nature, full of energy and ideas, and an incredible promoter and salesman.  But with the hard racing and hard work, Scot was also prone to hard partying, and in the early 80's, veered off track into the dark side, taking much of SE's success with him.  Mike hung in there, keeping SE Racing going through the hard times, as other companies like Redline, GT, and a few more rose to prominence.  

As luck would have it, my original BMX freestyle teammate in Idaho, Justin Bickel, got co-sponsored by SE Racing.  When his parents brought us down in the summer of 1985 to the Venice Beach AFA contest, our first stop was at SE the day before the contest.  Mike Devitt was the first BMX industry guy I ever met, followed by Scot Breithaupt and Perry Kramer.  I had no idea who they were at the time, but Justin and I got to ride the two, big, 8 foot quarterpipes they built in the back of the warehouse for ramp rider Todd Anderson.  They also sponsored Craig Grasso, and pro roller skater turned flatland rider, Fred Blood.  They were really cool to us, and it was a great way to start out my journey into the real BMX world.  

As a business manager, Mike Devitt was one of those men who was there behind the scenes, from the earliest days, and did a huge amount to help build the foundation of this thing that BMX has become in 52+ years.  But most riders knew little about him.  Luckily for us, Mark Eaton did a big long interview with him for Joe Kid on a Stingray, and put it up on his YouTube channel.  So here's Mike himself, in the raw footage of that one hour interview, talking about his whole path through the BMX business, from Bikette and the first races, to working with Gary Turner on Alliant Bikes in the early 2000's.  

Mike Devitt interview for Joe Kid on a Stingray, with Mark Eaton, in 2004. 

 

While I knew who Mike was when Sean Ewing asked me to draw him a a couple of months ago, I knew very little about his whole career.  Sean sent me the link for this interview above, and also for a written interview by BMX Products in 2001.   My large Sharpie scribble style drawings take me 40 to 45 hours each to draw, on average.  When I do them, I dive into the life of the person I'm drawing, as much as possible.  I've drawn mostly musicians, so there are usually interviews, their music, and documentaries I can listen to while drawing, which helps me get a feel for their life and thoughts, and sometimes leads to ideas while I'm drawing.  I listened to the "Joe Kid" interview two or three times while I was drawing this picture.  I always learn things in the process of my drawings, and it was really cool to hear more background on the earliest days of BMX racing, while doing this drawing.  

I've done four drawings for Sean now, and he is donating three of those to different groups of people, related to the person in the drawing.  We recently found out that the Malcom Smith drawing I did was actually taken home by Malcom, and is on a wall of his house, to the best of our knowledge.  That was mind blowing for me, as an artist.  The Dan Gurney drawing I did is heading to Dan's shop.  He, too, has passed away, but it will hopefullt wind up in a cool spot in their collection.  Sean has really cool plans for this drawing of Mike Devitt, but I'm going to keep those quiet until the drawing gets to its final destination.  I want to thank Sean for hiring me to draw these drawings, they've all been really interesting projects from my perspective, and I'm even more stoked he's donating them as a tribute to people who have really inspired him in his life.  Thanks again Sean for leading me into some great new territory artistically.