For decades in Harlan County, economic development has arrived on a cavalcade of loud, smelly and dangerous machines. This is the heart of coal country, where in the boom years mining and timber companies brought thousands of workers to the hills and left behind rutted roads and flattened mountaintops.

While the boom has subsided for now, Harlan Judge Executive Joe Grieshop has no plans to let the mineral-stripped land lay wasted. Last year, the county began leasing 7,000 acres of abandoned coal property as the beginning of a strategy to convert the county into a haven for all-terrain vehicles and off-road enthusiasts.

Grieshop’s vision is part of a movement emerging across Kentucky to harness the economic potential of ATV tourism, a by-product of the rapid and controversial rise in the popularity of off-highway vehicles, or OHVs. In the last few years, off-road clubs with hundreds of members have sprouted up from Paducah to Lexington to Ashland. Some clubs cater to sport ATVs, and others to four-wheel-drive trucks and SUVs rigged with hulking, oversized tires designed for rock-crawling.

Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky’s most popular recreation area, offers a small glimpse of the swelling motorized presence. The Western Kentucky park hosts more than 30,000 off-road vehicles a year that bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the region. Because the land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, OHVs are only allowed on designated trails with the purchase of certain permits. The number of off-road permits issued has grown annually by three to ten percent in recent years.

“The sport’s growing and the resources are dwindling on places to ride,” said Kathryn Harper, a spokesperson for Land Between the Lakes.

Off-roading is a sport hungry for land, a burden and a blessing for communities with an abundance of it. As the number of riders climbs nationwide, so do the ranks of states and landowners fighting to keep them out.

But not in Eastern Kentucky, where communities have opened their arms to riders and the money they spend. They’re next door to West Virginia’s Hatfield-McCoy recreational area, one of the largest and most successful off-road parks in the country. The 500-mile trail system’s landscape is remarkably similar to Harlan County’s. Between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2004, the trail system sold more than 21,000 permits – and according to a study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the trails bring 600,000 visitors and $100 million into West Virginia’s economy each year. There are more than one million ATV and off-highway motorcycle riders within a one-day drive of Eastern Kentucky, according to a Hatfield-McCoy study.

The prospect of creating a similar trail system in Kentucky has fueled plenty of dreams for economic revival in struggling coal towns. Several Eastern Kentucky counties have banded together to form the Kentucky Mountain Trails Development Coalition, which has committed to extending the Hatfield-McCoy system into Kentucky and Virginia to create a three-state recreation area for hikers, horses and OHVs.

Grieshop has dreams for Harlan County, too – lines of gas-guzzlers filling up in town, muddy machines being hosed down at car washes, and weary riders packing local hotels.

“The wave is getting bigger and bigger. It’s going to come through every county in this state and we’ve got to get ahead of it,” Grieshop said. “People want to escape their humdrum world… They want to get out here and get fresh air and wear their bodies out and go home tired and have loved every minute of it.” He’s bracing for nearly 5,000 visitors to roll into Harlan this summer. That’s due in large part to publicity the county has received in newspapers and off-road publications around the country.

One fact doesn’t escape folks in this county of just over 30,000 with rampant unemployment: Poor tourists don’t buy sport ATVs. A typical machine can cost nearly $10,000 when proper safety equipment and a trailer for hauling it are thrown in. “These (visitors) are going to be people with pretty good incomes,” said Randy Fiveash, Kentucky’s tourism commissioner, who likened the sport to today’s motorcycle industry. “Who gets on a Harley? It’s not the Hell’s Angels image anymore. It’s doctors, lawyers, businessmen.”

Restraining a wild sport
Grieshop, who came to Eastern Kentucky from Ohio 23 years ago as a dietician, is struggling to control an animal that by its nature is untamed. He has worked for years to convince area landowners to lease their property by assuring them ATV riders would be carefully controlled. Grieshop claims the idea for the recreational area – which riders can use for no charge – as his own, and has formed a board to oversee the land’s development and operation. He hopes to add another 30,000 acres to the 130 miles of trails the county already runs.

Another man, however, is largely responsible for the county’s sudden thrust into the national limelight. Preston McLain is president of the Harlan County Ridge Runners, a recently formed ATV group that hosts local rides nearly every weekend. They guide hundreds of tourists from as far away as Texas and Michigan along the trails. They built a picnic shelter at one of the trailheads and gave the project the Internet presence that has drawn so many curious visitors.

It is at times hard to tell who’s in charge of the project – the Ridge Runners or the county. Indeed, the recreational area has already outgrown the county in some ways. Officials are only now finishing trail maps for visitors and posting rules for riders. And while Grieshop says the rules will be enforced by county workers, it’s not clear yet how that will be done. “I’m squirming a little bit,” he said. “We’re not prepared.”

More than 300 miles west at Land Between the Lakes, administrators also feel the struggle to stay prepared.

The park is clear about the rules riders must follow – helmets are non-negotiable, and riders under age 16 must use smaller-sized machines. But even the safest of riders tear up trails.

A favorite for OHV drivers is “mud holing,” where drivers charge into muddy pits hoping not to get stuck. Such practices may be thrilling, but they take their toll on the environment by spurring erosion and dumping oil and gas into the lake. And while the park already prohibits driving in the lake or riding on trails after a hard rain, Forest Service officials are meeting this year to map out a more comprehensive plan for controlling OHV use on federal land.

“OHV riding is a valid outdoor recreational activity, but the challenge is trying to make it sustainable with the resources,” Land Between the Lakes’ Harper said. Staff at the park occasionally ride along with OHV groups to keep up on off-road trends and decide how best to manage them.

One proposal under consideration is limiting the types of OHVs that people can ride in the forests. Thirty years ago, most off-road vehicles in the park were small ATVs and dirt bikes. Now it faces an onslaught of rock-crawling Jeeps, trucks for mudding and pumped-up “quads.”

The Tri Moto, the ATV introduced by Yamaha Motor Corp. in 1980, had a 123-cc engine; Kawasaki’s 2004 Brute Force packs a 749-cc engine. Those massive engines have triggered safety concerns around the country. Since 1984, 326 people have died in ATV-related crashed in Kentucky, and 105 of them were children, according to a report released in February by Kentucky Youth Advocates. Those numbers are up – way up – from previous years. In the past five years alone, 41 children under the age of 18 have died.

Given the destructive reputation of ATVs, it’s not surprising that the subject is touchy in tourism circles. Even some of the activity’s staunchest supporters have a personal stake in fighting for the safety of the sport. Ironically, Judge Grieshop’s daughter, Tara Grieshop-Goodwin, coauthored the KYA study that also called for the state to enact tougher ATV laws.

In Frankfort, the Department of Tourism and Kentucky Sports Authority have been paying special attention to ATV use. The state awarded Harlan County a $50,000 federal highway grant in March to develop an RV park and trailhead on the former coal land. A large chunk of $1 million in coal severance taxes has been promised to outdoor tourism development in Eastern Kentucky, Grieshop said.

“We’re pretty unique in that we’ve got the ability to have these trails without having to construct new roads. We’ve already got them,” Tourism Commissioner Fiveash said. He’s convinced riders would drive here from surrounding states if they had the trails to do so.

But Department of Tourism officials are approaching the issue cautiously. How to appropriately promote ATV tourism is likely to come up in KSA meetings this year, said Terry Johnson, deputy commissioner of tourism.

“It’s a booming area,” but the state will be careful in how it pushes the activity, Johnson said. And a bill passed in this year’s legislative session created an off-road and ATV commission under the Transportation Cabinet to study policies and issues surrounding the vehicles.

Safety and liability
Kentucky’s Legislature has proposed bills prohibiting children from riding any ATV, though manufacturers already warn parents about allowing children to ride machines with engines larger than 66 cc. And while other states have passed much more stringent ATV laws, devoted riders have successfully urged against such legislation in Kentucky.

Harlan County’s Preston McLain thinks there’s no need to crack down on ATV use in the state. “How can that be where there’s no law requiring helmets on motorcycles?” he said. Kentucky only requires helmets on motorcyclists under age 21 or who have had their license for less than a year.

In fact, almost none of the Ridge Runners who accompanied state tourism officials on a recent trail ride in Harlan County were wearing helmets, though state law requires it on public land. Even ATV clubs disagree with each other on how much regulation is appropriate for the sport. Josh Ingram, a member of the Georgetown-based Bluegrass ATV Club, said laws prohibiting children from riding “don’t make any sense.” But he has little respect for riders who refuse to wear helmets. “They’re hurting the sport,” another member of the club uttered on a recent ride in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Until tougher legislation is passed, ATV safety will rest on a combination of self-regulation for parks and safety training for ATV users. Land Between the Lakes offers periodic ATV safety courses for riders in Western Kentucky. Dale Dobson, farm safety coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, travels throughout the state offering ATV safety clinics. He envisions someday launching a statewide safety program with partners in every county.

“We don’t need laws to penalize someone for coming into Kentucky and having a good time,” Dobson said. Let’s “get them to come and drive safely.”

Entrepreneurs are also cashing in on the growth of off-road sports. In Northern and Southeastern Kentucky especially, some private landowners are opening their property up for pay-for-play four-wheeling. Most post a standard set of rules that include requiring proper equipment and banning alcohol.

If the sport is growing more organized, it’s because unbridled off-road recreation areas have failed in the past. In 2003, authorities all but shut down a long-time four-wheeling hotspot in Laurel County after numerous complaints about traffic jams, rowdiness and accidents. Authorities have said the riders were trespassing.

The danger associated with ATV riding is a large part of the reason many landowners don’t want to deal with it. Private parks that charge for permits, like the Hatfield-McCoy trail system, pay hefty premiums in liability insurance. Kentucky law largely exempts landowners from any recreation-related liability if they open their property to the public for free, as in Harlan County. Judge Grieshop is counting on that law to protect them if an accident happens. “We’re being gutsy about it,” he said.

But it could be hard to maintain a recreational area with no income. For now, Grieshop hopes local zeal and the revenues from a recently passed one percent state hotel tax will be enough to support his county’s fledgling trail system. And for the record, like the Hatfield-McCoy trails, the land in Harlan County is also open to hikers and horseback riding. A group of mountain bikers even visited on a recent weekend to size up the land. Still, Grieshop admits ATV groups will probably rule the hills.

“They will dominate,” he said. “They will absolutely dominate.”

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-Sidebar
Tire Balls
A Louisville company cashes in on off-road tires

An off-road racing enthusiast for over 35 years, Wade Summers spent hours on the road with his son, Scott, as they traveled to and from motorcycle races. Scott often raced and, like most amateurs, he sometimes lost. But those losses triggered some ideas.

“Typically, if you don’t win, there’s a reason you don’t win,” Wade said. “You talk about those and how to improve on them.”

It’s a long story, but eventually Summers stumbled upon a way to build a nearly flat-proof tire: Fill it with multiple, individually inflated rubber cells. He called the idea “tire balls,” and the father-son duo launched a company.

Actually, Wade Summers was already doing pretty well as the owner of Summers’ Racing Components, a supplier of aftermarket parts for off-road vehicles. But the couple was convinced of their tire idea they sold the racing company and in 2003 started Tire Ball Development Company, LLC – TBDC for short.

The Crestwood company has been selling tires for nearly a year now and had revenues just around $275,000 in 2004. But the fledgling company came in second place for Greater Louisville Inc.’s Vogt invention contest in 2004 – an award that came with $75,000 to spur further inventive entrepreneurship.

For now, Summers’ tires are finding a home among some of the top off-road races in both the ATV and motorcycle worlds. They’re endorsed by racers like William Yokely, the winner of last year’s Grand National Cross Country event, one of the country’s biggest ATV races. The Tompkinsville native is sort of the Jeff Gordon (NASCAR) of ATV racing.

But the off-road market is booming, and the company hopes to expand its product line to offer cheaper tires for consumer ATV and motorcycle riders. Summers is also flirting with the military, which has already tested and approved his tires for military use. “The military probably has upwards of three- or 4,000 ATV-type vehicles in service in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Summers said. “We’re hoping to outfit those this year.”

This year, Summers plans to begin expanding its in-house manufacturing facilities and experimenting with nationwide marketing. If all goes well, sales could grow 15-fold, Summers said. “Hold on to your hat,” he said.



Andy Olsen is managing editor of The Lane Report
editorial@lanereport.com