BMX track draws amateur and pro riders to east Manatee County

Jeremy Smith and Will Grant, best friends and champion BMX bicycle riders, had two goals outside of winning races. They wanted to buy “some acres,” and build something “rad.” 

Smith, 30, was an alternate athlete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and Grant, 32, won two national titles as a teenager and turned pro at 16 years old. 

Now, they’re the co-owners of Aker Brand Farms in Myakka City off State Road 64 in east Manatee County. The property is a nod to the land they had dreamed about buying for the last five years. 

The 15-acre BMX training facility features a track, a house that sleeps up to 10 riders and an outdoor gym. The property features 30 chickens and about 30 cattle.

Smith and Grant bought the initial 10 acres for $285,000 in 2021. The house was worthless, and the property was trashed. But the price and location were right. 

The farm is within an hour and a half of the only two Supercross tracks in Florida — in Sarasota and Oldsmar. 

Before renovations to the house were complete, the guys were moving dirt to build a track designed by Smith. 

Grant’s sponsor for over a decade, weather app MyRadar, paid to double the size of the original track and put a sign on it at the end of 2024. 

Full house

The track now takes up about an acre and is known as the MyRadar Track at Aker Brand Farms. After building the original track, Smith and Grant bought an adjacent parcel just under 5 acres.

The vision for the facility is for the house and farm to stay within 3 acres; 5 acres will be filled with “as much cool BMX stuff to ride as possible,” and 7 acres will be dedicated to a campground and private bunks.

Photo by Lesley Dwyer

Starting at 15 years old, riders can stay overnight at the facility. The house has two private rooms and one big bunk room, so Grant says separate housing for elite riders is a priority. 

But the housing is an aside — the track is the main draw. Nearly 20 pros were training at Aker leading up to the BMX Grand Nationals in November. 

“It’s a great track to train for Grands because it has a flat hill and a fast gate,” Grant says, ”So all of a sudden we had this influx of all these top pros. Two of the title contenders were here training.” 

Amateur riders under 15 can visit the farm with their parents for private training sessions or a weekly group session on Sundays. The facility also runs summer camps.

On Sundays, the yard is filled with parents sitting in lawn chairs as their kids learn to fly through the air and ride on one wheel. The guys slice up watermelon for the kids when they get hot and need a break.

Pretty soon, the fruit will be homegrown. A food forest is being planted on the perimeter of the property with a walking trail. There are bananas, papayas and more planted, but only the limes are ready to be picked. 

Some type of community center, where visitors can socialize and play games, is also on the horizon. 

The project has been a major undertaking that the guys say wouldn’t have been possible without Larry Smith, a jack of all trades and Smith’s father. 

He helped them save the house Grant describes as a place you would never bring your mother or girlfriend, and the land wasn’t much better. 

“Every 5 feet that we went with the bush hog, we’d run into either barbed wire or a pile of trash or a tire,” Grant says. 

Photo by Lesley Dwyer

After closing on the property in September 2021, Grant pitched a tent in the cow pasture. There were only three cattle then, but he’d wake up with them sleeping about 5 feet away. The experience made him want a larger herd. 

By November, Smith was living in his dad’s RV parked on the property. The house was livable by February, but Grant stayed in the tent until fire ants drove him inside in March. 

Family first

Smith and Grant are building more than just a tangible facility. They've created an experience and a family atmosphere.

Rayne Lankford, a 23-year-old pro rider from Texas, lives on site and is referred to as the “farm pony.” 

Lankford has been riding BMX since he was 6 years old. Now, he’s a factory rider for Send It Bikes. He’s not sponsored by Aker, but he’s part of the family. 

“It’s just a group of pretty much best friends who have this greater idea of building something really rad,” Grant says. “We don’t sponsor riders the way most teams would. We’re creating a family environment where we’re supporting these athletes in any way we can, and they’re supporting us in any way they can.”

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.