Robbie Miranda plucks the magazine off the picnic table and shows you there, right on the front cover, is Neal Wood.

The same Neal Wood, who, sitting at a nearby picnic table, signs autograph after autograph for several of the 20 or so young boys on this last sunsoaked day of June.

And just who are Neal Wood and Robbie Miranda, you ask.

Miranda, 19, and Wood, 26, are professional athletes who are visiting Warsaw until Thursday. If they aren't household names, it's because their sport isn't mainstream.

They are BMX racers. Winona Lake's Jerry Landrum is running a Pro BMX Training Camp here at Hire Park, and they are two of his featured instructors.

Make no mistake about it, BMX followers know them. Forty to 50 BMX racers race at the professional level, the highest level of BMX competition.

Wood and Miranda are two of those 40 or 50.

"ESPN shows our races, but it's usually at 3 in the morning," Miranda says.

The going purse for first in a BMX race is usually $1,000.

"You can pull down $5,000 in a weekend," Miranda says.

After competing in a race in Indianapolis last weekend, they came up to Warsaw to help run this camp. A lot of the boys here also raced in Indianapolis, but at different levels.

Very few of the campers are from Warsaw or the surrounding area. Ask the boys where they're from and you hear Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania, just to name a few states.

"Every race is like a traveling circus," Miranda says. "The same people are always there."

Most of the boys found out about the Warsaw camp by either the Internet or magazine advertisements.

Free and weekend usually don't go into the same sentence for Miranda and Wood, who have been traveling together the last three months. Wood has had two weekends off since February and won't have another until September.

Neither has returned home during that time. Wood, originally from England, lives in California. Miranda lives in the Washington D.C. area.

"You don't have time for another job," Miranda says. "This is your job. This is what I do. I'd be lost if I didn't have this."

The same goes for Wood.

"I've been an engineeer and made $30,000 a year," he says. "But I wasn't having fun. Now I'm having fun."

When they aren't racing, they help conduct clinics. Miranda will be involved with 32 clinics/summer camps this year.

"These kids are the future of this sport," he explains. "We want to teach them the right things. They'll be in my position when they're older. Hopefully, they'll keep the sport going in the right direction."

ESPN and ESPN 2 carried the Extreme Games last week. BMX racing is not the same thing.

"They're jumpers," Miranda says. "We're racers."

But some do compete in both the Extreme Games and BMX racing. And BMX racing may be the closest thing resembling Extreme Games that Warsaw offers. Two or three guys just back from the Extreme Games are helping Landrum, Miranda and Wood with the camp.

But Warsaw does have a connection with BMX racing, a big connection. Sun Metal Products Inc., located on N. Detroit St., makes Sun Rims. Both Miranda and Wood use them on their bikes. Wood says there are two big names in rims these days. Sun Rims are one of them.

The camp will run 9 a.m.-5 p.m. today and Wednesday and 9-11 a.m. Thursday. Landrum invites all local kids to stop by to check the sport out and chat with its stars. No cost is involved. [[In-content Ad]]