Pits were awesome except for all the pit bikes, golf carts & side by sides.... oh and all the unsupervised kids messing with campers in the middle of the night.
My suggestion here is to actually have visible security and enforce the track rules they preach about before the races. This doesn’t just go for Chillitown, this is for 90% of the tracks I go to...
Let's just quit talking about pit bikes for now on please. Nothing is ever gonna change in regards to that.
I am absolutely all for pit bikes. It helps me quite a bit when I am going up to the gate with my kid and I am carrying extra large starting blocks, occasionally a tool bag, bottle of water and sometimes phone. It also helps me to get out of the starting area and to a good viewing spot quicker.
With that being said, I hit a small child on a pit bike with my truck at Briarcliff at the King of the Cliff race.
I had just filled our water barrel at the hose area, had my son riding in the back with the barrel, and was driving about three miles an hour. Just trying to make it back to our campsite, I have two eight year old girls riding double on a pit bike on my left, flying through the pits, a have a late comer truck with camper approaching me on the left, I also have two eight year old boys on my right pounding a wooden pit marker into the ground with a hatchet, just waiting for it to come out of their hands and hit my truck. So yes, I really was going three miles an hour.
I just made it past the oncoming camper when a three year old on a Staycyc comes flying out from behind a Porta-Jon and right in front of my truck. He was wearing a bike helmet, which proceeded to bounce off of my front bumper. He was knocked to the ground and jumped up. I jumped out to check on him, rather then my own son who was thrown forward into my back window. Me and a few bystanders attempted to ask him if he was alright and where his parents were. He wouldn't talk. His mom showed up about a minute later and the boy seemed to be alright. My truck has two new scratches and a scuff mark on the bumper.
If I had been going even 10 miles an hour I would say this boy would have been seriously injured and underneath the truck. His mom didn't seem all that fazed. Luckily I had plenty of witnesses if the scene would have went south.
Either enforce the pit riding rule or prepare for something bad to happen eventually. I'm tired of discussing it year after year. This ended up being the same kid that was throwing sticks at my dog earlier in the day too. Yeah, F you parents that let your kids run wild and expect the track to babysit them.
