Chris Wade lives in a home adjacent to the newly opened Cross Creek Raceway on Wolf Creek Road in Windsor Township. And he is not too happy about it.

He was one of several residents at Tuesday's Lawrence County Commission meeting begging the Commission to do something, anything about the noise and dust generated by the motocross racetrack.

"We can't sit in our house, in our living room and watch TV with those people practicing," Wade said. "We have our kids sitting there in the front yard, and the dust comes right down on us and you can't even see anything."

Wade said he doesn't understand why his neighbors had been informed that they couldn't dump dirt in their backyard because the area is designated as a floodplain, yet Cross Creek Raceway can gather large amounts of dirt to make the jumps for the track.

Ronnie Napier also lives

next door to the track. He said that it has not only interrupted the flow of the creek, but also kept him from getting his daily nap.

"This used to be a good neighborhood," Napier said. "I didn't move over here to listen to a bunch of loud noise, I moved here to get away from noise."

Napier said he knew that the young racers need an outlet, but doesn't understand why they can't relocate to the nearby Wolf Cross Motocross to have their racing fun.

Farmer responds

Ronnie Farmer, Cross Creek Raceway's owner,

seemed blindsided by the complaints, and said he had not been contacted by anyone who had problems with his track.

"I'm totally unaware of it," Farmer said. "I've talked to most all of my neighbors that are around through there. I'd say our house is as close as any of them, but if you come over and sit on my couch the next time that we have 20 or 30 bikes out there, you can't even hear them.

"We try to be respectful about it," Farmer said. "We're not out there at night, we're not out there every day."

Ronnie Farmer owns the land that the track is on, and helped build it with other parents and motocross racers over the past year. The track was originally constructed as a practice area for his son Camron, but has grown into a full-blown raceway, which is set to play host to several racing events this year.

The Commission takes sides

For their part, the commission seemed to sympathize with the residents and their problems with the Cross Creek Raceway.

"I'd hate to think out where I live if someone put a racetrack outside of my house, or just across the road." Commission President George Patterson said.

The commission could not directly intercede in the matter, as zoning issues are the jurisdiction of individual townships in Lawrence County.

The commission voted to send a letter to the Prosecutor's Office to inquire as to what could be done, and to the Environmental Protection Agency to make sure that the track isn't violating any regulations.

No compromise

Though Farmer said he had not heard from anyone who had issue with the raceway, he said he welcomes them to speak to him about their concerns.

"I would love for someone who had a complaint about it to ask me, I would love to talk to them about it," Farmer said. "I'd like to see what their complaint is. I've talked to probably a dozen of our neighbors that live in that area and everybody seemed to be fine with it, nobody had a problem."

Chris Wade is certainly not amongst those who have no problem with Farmer's track, and Wade said that he doesn't see any way that a compromise between the two parties can be reached.

"I want it stopped, period, done," Wade said. "If they can make legislation on cigarette smoke, there's no reason I have to sit in my house and breathe that dust."