Dirt bike champion Chad Reed agreed to give up two hours of practice time on Saturdays, and the Pasco County Commission agreed to let him have a new permit for his dirt bike training compound on Duck Lake Canal Road.
The Saturday restrictions are part of a negotiated agreement that also requires Reed to maintain recording equipment for time-stamped videos of racetrack activities. He must keep the videos for 30 days for potential county review. Other rules spell out additional riding hours during the week, the number of riders at any given time, and a ban on any public uses for the tracks.
Reed and neighbors on the rural road in east Pasco have been battling for several years over the use of motorcycle racing tracks that Reed says are essential to his professional career as a racer in Motocross and Supercross competitions. The Australian native is a multiple American Motorcyclist Association Supercross champion.
Some of his neighbors say Reed’s dirt bikes roaring around and around the tracks create excessive noise at all hours.
“We’d prefer to have crickets and cows …. but we understand property rights,” said Dade City attorney Len Johnson. He represents the Larkin family — neighbors to the Reeds — and supported the compromise. “We’ve been working diligently to come up with something that works on all sides.”
The county sued Reed in 2013 and won an injunction to block use of most of the racetracks. One track approved in 2004 was excluded from the ban. The lawsuit alleged that Reed built additional tracks that didn’t have county approval.
The commission voted on April 8 to approve a new permit as well as a settlement agreement to end the litigation. A special magistrate will have authority to mediate future disputes between Reed and his neighbors.
“We think this is a great solution, so we won’t keep having these problems,” said attorney Barbara Wilhite, who represents Reed and his wife Ellie Jo Reed. The Reeds are trustees for the Reed Children Trust, the property’s owner of record.
The total property is about 63 acres, with about 24 acres developed as a racing compound. All tracks are outdoors but include two replicas of indoor tracks as well as two buildings and a go-kart track.
Not every neighbor is happy with the outcome.
Karol Klein brought a petition with 150 signatures of people asking commissioners to deny the permit. He said about 40 of those people lived in proximity to the Reed’s property.
Daniel Cox, the attorney for Klein and his wife, told commissioners the tracks are not compatible with the “little gentleman farms” within the rural setting.
Duck Lake Canal resident Ken Keith is among those who opposed the permit. “He (Reed) just comes there to cause a loud disturbance with his motorcycles,” he said.
But Darwin Croft said he lives within 800 feet of the Reeds and has no problem with the couple. A property owner should be able to do most anything he wants on his property, Croft said.
“If I stop and think about motorcycles…I can hear them,” he said. “It’s not an obnoxious sound. It’s motorcycles.”
Published April 15, 2015
