BMX star Pat Casey dies in crash at Southern California motocross park

BMX professional rider Pat Casey died in an accident Tuesday at a motocross park in San Diego County, the county medical examiner’s office confirmed.

Casey, 29, crashed while riding a motorcycle at a private track known as the Slayground, in the hills above Ramona. Paramedics who were called to the park at 2:30 p.m. found him without a pulse. After resuscitation attempts failed, he was pronounced dead, the medical examiner’s report said.

A California Highway Patrol spokesman told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Casey was thrown while attempting to land a jump and that the motorcycle landed on top of him.

Casey, who lived in Riverside, had been a top bicycle motocross competitor since his teen years, going professional at age 16 and winning his first X Games medal at 18.

In 2021, the BMX competition for a pandemic-curtailed X Games was held literally in Casey’s backyard: on the course he called the Dreamyard that he had built behind his home. He won a gold medal in the BMX Dirt event.

Tributes to Casey from his sponsor Vans and the X Games remembered him as pioneering stunts including the decade backflip and the fakie cashroll.

Casey is survived by his wife of 10 years, Chase Benter Casey, and their two children.