"Look at those guys go -- they're too old to do this! What the heck are they doing here?"

The sound of announcer Andre Volkow's sarcastic words echo off the grandstand as dust fills the warm evening air.

It's race night at Action BMX, the track in Newton with a ceiling of high-voltage power lines. At the moment, the determined two-wheelers are doing their best to win and also electrify a small crowd, mostly family and friends, gathered to watch rubber tires grip asphalt and dirt when they're not flying through the air.

The action happens every Thursday night, plus Monday practise sessions -- and the age of some riders might surprise you.

Dale Murphy is 50, and he's dressed in BMX racing gear similar to that worn by his three teenaged sons.

Full-face helmet? Check.

Gloves for the best grip possible? Check.

Cool racing jersey with name on the back? Absolutely.

Before races start for the evening, Murphy quietly goes about his task of preparing the starting area, which he and others with the BMX club are rebuilding with concrete.

"It's all volunteer work, so it's just some extra hours down here," Murphy says with a shrug. "If I wasn't doing that over the past month, I'd be training a lot more. This will make the track a lot better, though."

Like "Superman Murphy," George "Old Dog" Kreuzkamp grew up in the 1960s, at least a decade before bicycle motocross -- aka BMX -- became something of a subculture in the dirt lots of California before spreading to the rest of the world.

For the past 11 years, Kreuzkamp has raced at the Action BMX track, a 20-minute drive from his home in Cloverdale. He was 38 at the time; now he's pedaling his way toward 50.

Back in the late 1990s, he and his kids, the oldest of whom was seven at the time, did a lot of moutainbiking.

"We'd be out on the trails and with people of different age, and it's different pacing out there," Kreuzkamp recalls. "So we started coming out here and he raced against his buddies and I got to race against my buddies, the older guys. So it's nice that we can share an activity like this and also be involved with our own group of friends."

On the local BMX scene, which includes tracks in Abbotsford, Pitt Meadows and North Van, Action BMX has grown from among the smallest clubs five years ago to one of the largest and most active, Murphy says. Two years ago, an average of around 60 riders would come out for race night. A year later, it was 80. Now the number is close to 100 every Thursday night during the season, which runs from March to October.

On race nights, would-be riders can sign up to get involved in one of five skill classifications and age/gender categories, with loaner bikes available. Insurance fees for the season need to be paid, plus a $5-a-race payment before 7 p.m. start time (one race consists of three "motos," or heats, on the snake-like track).

Larger "cruiser" bikes with 24-inch wheels are preferred by older riders such as Ruth Schmidt, a mother of two who lives in North Delta and in her second year of BMX racing. She just turned 46, and races against anywhere from three to seven women her age, and thereabouts.

"Some of them are closer to 30 (years old)," Schmidt says with a laugh.

"The first time out here, I thought I could do pretty well against some of these girls in a race, but looks can be deceiving. I ended up last, last, last and last, and I'm still close to last every race. But it's not whether you win or lose, it's the fun and friendship you have with others at the track."

Schmidt got involved after her then-preteen daughter, Tara, asked for a BMX bike. While surfing the internet, they viewed a race on Youtube, discovered the Action track and bought a racing bike for Tara, now 14.

"At first," Schmidt relates, "I had no inclination of racing, but then I met some of the ladies and other people here. They all wondered why I wasn't racing, and I thought I had the perfect excuse: 'I don't have a bike' -- until one of them said, 'Oh, my husband isn't using his, I'll bring it here next week.' And here I am."

Schmidt, a newlywed who works as an emergency-services operator in Surrey, crashed her bike during her first race.

"I got up and finished the race, figuring it couldn't get any worse than that.... The corners are a little scary, pretty intimidating, and it can be humbling. It's fun, though. At the end of the race, your heart is pounding and you can barely catch your breath, and if you get off your bike too fast you could fall down because sometimes the legs just give out. And then somebody will come over and ask, 'Well, how was that 45-second ride?' That puts it in perspective."

Murphy, who serves as president of Action BMX when not selling sunroom and patio covers for a living, goes to the gym to prepare for races in the 45-and-over category.

"It's a pretty good form of exercise," he says. "To be really fast, though, you have to do a lot of training. There are people who come here just to race, but if you want to be fast you gotta exercise three times a week to get in shape for that."

And no, he can't beat his three teen boys -- Cameron, 18, Ryan, 16 and Kyle, 14. "Once they hit 13, they just kind of started going by me," Murphy says with a laugh.

He's glad that one day eight years ago, he and his family explored the BMX action happening in Newton near a curved stretch of 75th/76th Avenue, a couple blocks west of 128th Street.

"It's a good sport for multiple families, because it all happens at one time at the same place. You can have little kids (as young as four years old), big kids and even parents racing at pretty much the same time. It's not like soccer or something, where you have one kid at practise one day, an older kid on the field two days later, that kind of thing. It's great that way."

This sentiment is echoed by transmission repairman Kreuzkamp who, despite a broken collarbone or two, gets a kick out the camaraderie of the BMX track.

"We're all here to help, too, with the new guys just starting out," he says. "There's always a new bunch of suckers... I mean, new riders, so we help them get started with everything. Every year we get some new competitors, so it's fun to see them progress and have fun and learn the ropes. It's a real fraternity that way."

tzillich@thenownewspaper.com