Low riders: Pocket bike enthusiasts find home in a parking lot

Lynn Doan

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.

The winner was No. 16, a 34-year-old man whizzing past a makeshift finish line in an abandoned parking lot on a red motorbike no taller than his thighs, his knees bent close to either side of his shoulders.

A noisy mass of about 50 grown riders, all similarly crouched on too-small scooters, followed him in what sounded like a whole neighborhood of Green Valley homeowners firing up their lawn mowers simultaneously.

For most of them this was a night out with the boys and their toys: 20-inch "pocket bikes," miniature replicas of motorcycles that are the next big thing in small-motor transportation.

But for No. 16, last week's win was more significant. Bern Santos was racing on a bike a little smaller than the one his 5-year-old son, Tyler, was riding when he got into a fatal crash last year on a motocross track.

"This is for my son," Santos said into a microphone. "I did this all for my son."

Tyler Santos died in June 2003 of injuries he sustained after crashing his 50cc motorcycle into an embankment at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"Him riding just reminds him of Tyler," Bern Santos' wife, Jocelyn, said. "Riding keeps the remembrance of Tyler in his heart."

Last Thursday was Santos' first time at the pocket bike races, an unofficial sporting event that is just gaining speed. For the past six weeks, dozens of pocket bike riders have been meeting Thursday nights at an abandoned parking lot at Jones Boulevard and Fremont Village to test their skills on a track laid out by hosts Dallas Lewis, 22, and B.J. Hipskind, 25.

Lewis and Hipskind began the event after realizing that their 20-inch mini-motorcycles, which can reach speeds of up to 35 mph, were banned from practically everywhere in Las Vegas.

"(Pocket bikes) are absolutely positively not street legal," Metro Police Lt. Carlos Cordeiro said. "They can't be on sidewalks, they can't be on a roadway."

According to Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Kevin Malone, pocket bikes aren't allowed on streets because they aren't built with the necessary safety equipment required of motorcycles and mopeds, such as standard lights, horns and mirrors.

Malone said the restrictions put pocket bikes in the same category as snowmobiles, which do not require driver's licenses but can only be driven off road. Driving elsewhere is a misdemeanor offense.

In Henderson, there is virtually no place to ride a pocket bike, Henderson Police spokesman Shane Lewis said.

In addition to the street and sidewalk ban, Henderson municipal code doesn't allow such motorized scooters within 1,000 feet of a residential unit, public park or commercial building.

"They can ride basically nowhere," Lewis said.

Dallas Lewis learned the hard way. A Metro Police officer cited Lewis for riding his pocket bike on a sidewalk in Las Vegas. It cost him $95. Two weeks later Lewis and Hipskind started the parking lot races.

Discouraged by the price of track rentals at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the two asked property managers for permission to use the parking lot in front of a Smith's store that had shut down. Then they posted their event on Internet bulletin boards.

"The lot's abandoned, it's away from people, it's well lit and it's not illegal like it is on the roads, streets and parks," Lewis said. "It gives us somewhere to ride."

Regardless of where they are ridden, Cordiero said, the pocket bikes don't look safe.

"I'm not an engineer, but it'd seem to me that riding a pocket bike can't be much more comfortable than me getting on a tricycle and trying to operate at the speed those bikes go," Cordiero said. "It doesn't seem prudent for an adult person or a teenager to get on one of those and operate in a safe manner."

So far, Lewis said, they haven't received complaints from nearby residents or businesses. He said a Metro Police officer even stopped by one Thursday and used his radar gun to test their bikes' speeds.

Lewis and Hipskind drive to the lot about 7 p.m. on Thursdays to set up the racetrack with orange cones. The main race begins about 8 p.m., followed by a race for amateurs.

Winners don't receive cash rewards or trophies -- just bragging rights. "It's all for the pride," Lewis said.

Bikers don't have to pay for anything, unless they decide to buy snacks from Fat Daddy's Ice Cream Truck, owned by the father of a pocket bike rider.

"We want to support gopeds and pocket bikes," Fat Daddy's owner Al Davis said as he handed out bumper stickers that read "Lick Me."

"We fit the demographics of all these kids: They like the truck's hot rod look," he said, pointing to the flames painted on the sides of his truck.

Scooter shop owner Anthony Mattio said he, too, supports pocket bikes but fears the parking lot is too dangerous. Mattio said it is up to the city and private businesses to provide pocket bike riders a safe, helmet-required area to go.

"To be honest, (the races) are a great idea, but they need a place where EMTs (emergency workers) are out there on the sidelines," Mattio said. "These riders are a danger to themselves."

After taking a spill himself and scraping one knee, Hipskind said he agreed that pocket bike riders needed a more organized place to ride. But so far nobody has offered a place at an affordable price, and that worries him.

"It's only a matter time before we get kicked out of this parking lot and are looking for another place," he said. "Then there will be nowhere to race."