Jeff Bottema

Jeffery Bottema (April 14, 1960 – September 19, 2025) was an American professional "Old School" Bicycle Motocross (BMX) racer whose prime competitive years were from 1976 to 1981. He had the nickname of "Battling". Bottema died on September 19, 2025, at the age of 65.

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 firsts 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.