Posts
684
Joined
10/15/2009
Location
East, TN, USA
Need some guidance guys... I've got a half a dozen or so riders here in East Tennessee looking to have a place to ride. Mostly woods racers and a few MX guys. What were looking to do is find a tract of land that is 50% woods, $50 percent fields. All we have here are cramped MX tracks with poor surfaces and we are looking for something a bit safer and more consistent. Not looking to put in many man made features, more interested in grass track, gp style and let it rough up itself. Really just a natural terrain turn track. I guess my biggest questions are about the legalities, upkeep and coming to the best agreement with landowners.
I have read on here before about setting up a club and making everyone that rides become members (cant sue yourself approach). Is that a realistic way to go about it?
As far as upkeep, were wanting to keep the surface naturally rutted grasstrack and plan on rotating lines periodically to let it heal. What other methods are we overlooking to maintain a natural terrain coarse?
Still haven't located land but I know its out there. It is very common in this are for people to lease land for hunting and farming. Would an agreement for riding on land not be very similar as far as liabilities and responsibility? I considered seeking out owners who currently let people mow for hay just for the upkeep, offer them the price of their property taxes plus a percentage and also upkeep. What I am I overlooking?
I have read on here before about setting up a club and making everyone that rides become members (cant sue yourself approach). Is that a realistic way to go about it?
As far as upkeep, were wanting to keep the surface naturally rutted grasstrack and plan on rotating lines periodically to let it heal. What other methods are we overlooking to maintain a natural terrain coarse?
Still haven't located land but I know its out there. It is very common in this are for people to lease land for hunting and farming. Would an agreement for riding on land not be very similar as far as liabilities and responsibility? I considered seeking out owners who currently let people mow for hay just for the upkeep, offer them the price of their property taxes plus a percentage and also upkeep. What I am I overlooking?
Renting a tractor is a cheap expense to maintain a off road track. Just my $.02 on the issue.
If you and all your friends are on the lease agreement, I believe the liability will be spread evenly across you guys unless you're wanting to farm it out to non participating members of the lease.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
As far as upkeep, were wanting to keep the surface naturally rutted grasstrack and plan on rotating lines periodically to let it heal. What other methods are we overlooking to maintain a natural terrain coarse?
You are missing a lot here. If you want a grasstrack in the pasture you have to think about how you cut it in and maintain it. If the pasture is mature and grown, you are going to need a small tractor and field mower to mow it down short. After that, you can just ride it to wear it in. For maintenance, you are also going to need a small 3 point disc/harrow/drag. Soil erosion on a cambered pastured will be your worst enemy. Once you destroy the vegetation base, the soil will erode and be deposited in all of the low spots. It doesn’t take more than a couple years for deep rain ruts and washes to occur without maintenance. There is a lot of thinking that has to be done to figure out how to control the watersheds and minimize soil erosion.
Rotating lines is a good idea, but you need to think bigger picture. Established pasture is a fairly complex ecosystem. If you turn up the dirt from riding, and leave it to re-cover itself you are going to have a mess. Typically, all of the invasive species to the pasture (WEEDS) are always the first to germinate in bare soil. If you do not have the ability and equipment to replant the grass track with a “pasture” seed mix, the farmer is going to have useless pasture that is full of weeds. It is extremely hard to maintain pasture around a track, we have had one for many years so I am speaking from firsthand experience here.
It is very common in this are for people to lease land for hunting and farming. Would an agreement for riding on land not be very similar as far as liabilities and responsibility? My concern and past experience is that if you are upfront with the leaser and they know the primary use of the grounds will be for motorsports, it is extremely difficult to convince a farmer to let you lease the grounds. Their land is their income and most won’t even give you the time of day if they know it’s going to be turned into a track. Farmers that lease the ground have land management experience as well as the equipment to conserve the land as it should be. You do not. Hunters pay fees to walk or sit in the timber to shoot things. Almost zero impact to the land and small liability.
I considered seeking out owners who currently let people mow for hay just for the upkeep, offer them the price of their property taxes plus a percentage and also upkeep. What I am I overlooking? This might work, but again, the re-seeding thing and how would you return the ground to its current state when done? You have to figure out a way to sell the farmer. How much money are you going to put back in his pocket for leasing?
I have a friend that farms who recently just added a 40 acre lease this year. It was a combination of pasture and timber, almost exactly what you would need. I believe he settled at $7,500 per year. This was in Illinois but TN is probably very similar, cost wise.
I am afraid you are going to find it very hard to find a farmer to lease you ground if you tell them what it’s going to be used for. Farmers will have the impression that you are going to tear up the land and return it in poor condition. Most farmers will have a primary interest to protect their land to keep it most productive for farming applications.
Are you prepared to obtain the equipment you will need? Even for what you are doing, you are probably going to need a small tractor that can pull a 3 point disc/harrow/drag and a field mower. You will need this to keep a grass track maintained to prevent soil erosion. You have to remember that you will have to upkeep all of the land you lease, not just the portion you are riding on.
The scale you are talking is difficult. You might not find any leasers who want to deal with the small acreages you are talking – most of the time they are used to leasing hundreds if not thousands of acres at a time. All of this would be a piece of cake if you could get hooked up with someone that already owns the land.
I commend you for trying and taking this seriously, but be prepared for a long battle to secure this project and get it off the ground. It can be done, but it’s going to talk a lot of leg work.
(Recreational use statute) i'm sure they have one.here is a link to Arizona's http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/51leg/2r/laws/0071.pdf
http://www.prm.nau.edu/prm426/rec-use-horse.pdf
As long as you do not charge a fee you cannot be sued by anyone for anything.
Donations are allowed however so this is how i run my private track.
If you are just looking for a place to ride and not looking to turn it into a business for profit this is the way to go no Insurance to buy no waivers to print no lawyers to retain no law suits to fret over.
Simply put if you stay out of the legal system (law of the water) and keep to the natural law (law of the Land)
you cannot be pursued by the legal system. I know most do not know there are two systems of law there are.
That is absolutely 100% incorrect. Ask any lawyer out there, and that is why my insurance is so high, it's all liability and death coverage.
All states have different legislation so it is very important to check what your states legislation is regarding this issue.
Don't ask a lawyer they are members of the legal system and will only provide solutions recognized within the legal system. Check your states statutes on private land use by the public and go from there.
One of the partners owns his own business, has built full scale mx tracks
and has almost every implement needed. My question in that regard was more to the nature of techniques, how often to rotate and resow. I understand that even a natural style layout will destroy land quicker than realized but you also need to take in consideration that I had planned on having a very narrow footprint. We are all enduro racers and are very used to handlebar width trail and I was hoping to keep the grass portions as narrow as possible. I remember seeing something on Windham one time and it showed his mx track almost completely grown over except for one line. I understand that it would take skill like his to keep it that tidy but at the same time we're only talking 6 or 8 bikes at a time, 4 or 5 days a month. We also have a guy that is interested who has a lawyer for a brother so its very unlikely that I will have to fork out 5K for a contract.
Also, you have to think outside of farmers. Most of the land that I expect to come across is most likely not going to be a farm. In this part of the state big tracts of land is scarce and we mostly have small old farms and mountain land that was inherited or the owner lives out of state or away from the property. As long as the land was kept up to a certain standard, a lot of these type of people would be glad to have some kind of income from it. Lets face, days of small scale farms are over, the reason I even mentioned "a farm" is the fact that most of the old pasture you see is grown over and the barns are falling in. Even if fields were out of the question, I would maybe consider wooded land only since this is primarily going to be a practice grounds for offroad guys anyway. I know that you have the same problem with erosion in the woods but maybe the trails could be turned back over to heal.
Keep the suggestions coming, I have a million thoughts going through my head and I know that this can be done...
The issue with tracks is that the building a track introduces the issue of whether the changes you've made created unwarranted risk-the single-to-tabletop issue for old timers. Once you make improvements and invite people on your land to ride it, it's a new ballpark.
My personal perspective is that it should be done right and the people who use it should pay enough to cover costs, a lot of which will be insurance. I think I saw that lift tickets at some Tahoe area resorts is over $100 now. They charge what it costs to do business. Tracks should be run the same way. $5K seems steep for a release, but not I guess if one is doing it from scratch for the first time. Releases also are an item that a good broker can and should be able to help with.
Like you said, all donations go to upkeep and we get to have a local training grounds. I've been looking at all of the Tennessee statutes and it seems like they have landowners covered fairly well. Like FTE stated, avoiding man made obstacles would have to be one big hurdle out of the way.
Pit Row
Lawyers will not tell you about this or will scare you with the loophole dialog because they are officers of the court which interpret the laws of and govern the legal system and can only provide remedies provided within the legal system controlled by the UCC The Uniform Commercial Code which dictates how business is done in these United States and operates via contract.
When a track charges you a fee they have just contracted with you and are now bound by the legal system and the UCC weather they are aware of it or not..this is why they are told to get a lawyer, Insurance, waivers,etc... as this makes the legal system money which is what the law of water the UCC is all about commerce the money flow.
If a fee is not charged no contract is made thus no fears from the UCC. You choose to enter the legal system and you can choose not to and still be protected if the legislation (law of the land) of your stare provides you protection in this particular matter as i am fortunate AZ does.
My experience
To build:
40 acres of land 32k
2004 Tractor with attachments 20k
1968 dozer 10k
Fuel guestament 1k maybe more
Did all the design layout and building of the track myself no cash just time, more time and hard work.
Professional track builder 5.5k Hired a pro to come in and build the obstacles so they would be done properly and safe.
Water pumps 1k
Water to build free
Time to completion 2 years for a 1.2 mile AMA National quality natural terrain track with Glen Helen'ish elevation
Total cost almost 70k to ride a lap.
First year maintenance (estimate i'm not keeping records)
Fuel probably 500.00
Maintenance for tractors and equipment 4 to 5k
I would figure this will be less this year had some expensive repairs to the tractors last year.
Yearly cost probably 3 to 6k going forward.
Paw Paw
& or occupant of premises".
So there must be a way without entering the legal system. I do not know what additional steps may need be taken for someone leasing from an owner but i would assume it would be much the same.
If a farmer leased some land to another farmer to raise crops and an employee of the lessee falls off a tractor and gets hurt i don't think he would be able to sue the landowner as the farmer who leased the land has accepted responsibility for what happens on that leased land.
If a landowner could still get sued for incidents happening on leased land i don't think there would be much leasing of land going on what landowner would risk it?
I don't do a club or anything i accept donations from those who donate (some don't) and remind riders that they are riding at their own risk and to ride within their limits.
Mine is a practice track not a race track most who come to ride here are vet riders who know where their limit is and just have fun. I also have a few pros who come to put in some serious laps but they completely understand they are on their own. If there is a mixed attendance i will give the pros some time to themselves as they are more fun to watch than ride with anyway.
The donations all get put right back into the track without lawyers and Ins. Co's siphoning off most of what comes in.
With the few riders i get and i want to keep it small i couldn't afford to even have a track if i had to retain a lawyer and buy insurance as well as maintain equipment.
Post a reply to: leasing land for private practice