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Riding club lands tenure

Green River Riding Club hopes to one day bring motocross to Pemberton Chad Breitenstein is a happy guy. Tired, in over his head at the moment, but happy nevertheless.

Green River Riding Club hopes to one day bring motocross to Pemberton

Chad Breitenstein is a happy guy. Tired, in over his head at the moment, but happy nevertheless.

For over a year he has spent his free time in a bid to secure official tenure for a dirt motocross track outside of Pemberton. At the beginning of August, the Green Riving Riding Club, of which Breitenstein is president, received that tenure.

"People were pretty excited to hear the news," said Breitenstein. "Now everybody is jazzed about getting a lot of work done this year. A lot of the site has already been built, but now we can go a lot bigger."

Volunteers built the track up over a period of several years, largely by hand but with the help of donated machinery whenever they could get it. It is located on crown land, in an area that is regularly cleared of vegetation for hydro lines.

The site has grown in popularity and size as the course has improved. At the club’s weekly races, called Moto Wednesdays, they are getting up to 30 dirt bike riders. On the August long weekend, 50 riders were using the facility on one day, including dirt bikers from the Lillooet and Lytton area in the north and Squamish and the Lower Mainland in the south.

"That’s probably the busiest day the track has ever seen," said Breitenstein.

A year ago, the track regulars started to worry that one day the government would decide to close the area because of the liability risks or because they had another use in mind for it.

To protect their investment in time and money building the track, they formed the Green River Riding Club last summer and applied for tenure from Land and Water B.C.

Since then, the club’s activities have become more focused, according to Breitenstein.

"The one thing holding us back in the past was the fact that we didn’t own the land," he said. "Now we are in a position to build a real race track that’s up to the CMRC (Canadian Motocross Racing Club) standards."

The club has already gone a long way towards reaching that goal. "People who haven’t been there in a while remember it as a singletrack course. That’s not how it is now, it’s just massive," Breitenstein said.

The club now has until mid-September to make good on various tenure requirements, but has asked for an extension.

At the top of the list, the club also needs to come up with a one-time $3,000 security deposit for their tenure. Annual tenure fees and insurance will cost another $3,000 a year, beginning next season.

Through an earlier fundraiser, the club has already raised money to cover the cost of insurance and some equipment for the track. They are in the process of building a fence around the site, which has to be kept locked in the future for liability reasons. Members will be provided with a key to the lock.

Although many of the local riders didn’t want to go that route, the club realized that memberships were a necessary step for the club to get insurance and to cover the growing costs of maintaining the sandy course.

"When it’s dry, the course gets hammered pretty fast," said Breitenstein. "For the type of sandy soil we have, it’s really better to be a little wet. The regular guys who turn up to do maintenance are constantly rebuilding the jumps, instead of working on making the course better."

The club recently purchased a water pump, and a local sprinkler installation company is donating its expertise to create a system to keep the track damp and in one piece.

One day the club hopes to purchase a tractor to help with the maintenance and to enable the track to hold regional and provincial motocross races, although that goal is still likely a few years away from being realized. Bleachers, sheds, timing and other improvements will also appear as long as the people continue to turn up.

The annual cost of a track membership is $100, or $150 for a family, with unlimited access to the track. That’s significantly cheaper than tracks on the Lower Mainland that charge as much as $20 for a single one-hour session, said Breitenstein.

With that fee structure, the club will only need around 30 members to cover annual costs. Any extra funds raised from members, fundraisers, and possible drop-in fees would go towards track equipment, maintenance and upgrades.

The club already has a dozen members, and with another 80 to 90 riders in the Sea to Sky area that are already using the track, Breitenstein is optimistic that the club will meet its tenure commitments – providing that Land and Water B.C. agrees to an extension past mid-September.

"It’s a new tenure, and I understand they do offer extensions to new tenure holders that are just starting out. It would be easier if 30 members signed up by the deadline, so that’s what we’re shooting for," he said.

Memberships are available at Moto Wednesdays and soon will be available at shops in Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish said Breitenstein.

The Pemberton Dirt Track is located south of Pemberton on the east side of Highway 99. The track currently includes table top jumps, banked corners, flow sections, and other motocross features.