The youths line up their bicycles atop
a dirt hill. Flags are raised. Legs muscles tense. The crowd gradually silences.
Finally, the flag drops and the racers
take off, shooting through dips, angling through banked turns, occasionally crashing on
the dirt track. But when the racer rises - be he or she 6 to 16 - there are rarely tears.
More likely a laugh or proud smile.
Parents border the track, screaming,
rooting for their children, mingling and exchanging smiles with other parents.
But across the street from the track at
E. 12th St. and S. Campbell Ave., nobody’s smiling - at least not the neighbors who
face the inconveniences the track creates.
"We’ve lived here for 48
years," said Mrs. Fred Dotson, 72. "We’ve always been very proud of our
yard, but after a race it looks like gray grass and shrubbery - and it gets the same way
inside the house."
"Those kids on the bicycles grind
up the dirt until it’s just like powder. It’s the dust and the traffic we
don’t like."
She said one morning the dust from the
races caused her sinuses to hemorrhage and had to be treated in a hospital emergency room.
"If I ever end up in the hospital again, I’ll sue him," she said.
"Him" is Stuart Kleinberg,
owner of the track, who operates an adjoining bicycle shop. "I could see her
complaint if we were racing motorcycles. These are bicycles and they don’t raise that
much dust," he says.
The 26-year-old bicycle buff, Kleinberg
began the weekly races in April of last year. "I knew in order to see the sport grow
I’d have to start promoting races," he said.
But Kleinberg, who runs the Spokesmen
Bicycle Shop, says he’s not promoting motocross in order to promote sales at his
shop, which deals strictly in bicycle moto-cross equipment. "It’s a good sport.
I like bicycles and I want to see the sport grow. It’s not just monetary
reasons," says Kleinberg.
For the nine months Kleinberg has been
running races, the neighbors have not shared his enthusiasm. And to avoid the battle, he
will begin holding his races - at the Sunshine Cycle Park, a motorcycle track on the
Hughes Access Rd. near Tucson International Airport.
On alternative weekends, however the
Campbell and 12th track - known as "Caliche Park" - will probably be used since
the bicyclists can’t race at the same time as the motorcycles Kleinberg said.
If Kleinberg does continue the races at
Caliche Park, said Laurel Decker of the city Planning Department he will have to install a
six foot high opaque fence around the track.
The Planning Department began
questioning Kleinberg after a formal complaint was filed by John Kelly, who lives directly
across from the track, who alleged the moto-cross "club" was operating as a
business enterprise.
Prior to last week, Kleinberg awarded
winners gift certificates redeemable at local shops. After Decker told him that was a
"questionable" practice, Kleinberg switched to handing out trophies.
Another violation, Decker said, was the
large number of cars parking on Kleinberg’s unpaved lot. Kleinberg arranged for
spectators to park their cars in a nearby parking lot, but the problem remains with
passerby who stop on the side of E. 12th St. to watch the races, according to neighbors.
"Where am I going to get the money
to put a fence?’ asked Kleinberg. "I don’t see why I should have to put one
up. We’ve been racing for two weeks and I haven’t heard any complaints. So I
don’t know."
"I never heard what happened to my
last complaint," said the 31-year-old Kelly, a student and part time worker. "If
the (the Planning Department) want a petition, I can get them one. All of the neighbor are
against this."
"They think they’re right and
I think I’m right," says Kelly. "It’s whoever squawks the loudest, and
right now I’m not squawking that loud."
On February 2 Kleinberg will begin
using the Sunshine track. And, as Kleinberg realizes, the nine-month battle will probably
continue with each race he holds at Caliche Park.
"Yeah," Kleinberg said,
"it appears Caliche Park’s days are numbered."