MARK TWAIN - The noon sun was hot and, every time a shovelful of dirt was lifted, dust puffed up to stick to sweaty arms and necks.
But Mike Piazza, Ed Rains and a half-dozen teenage boys from this high desert community kept at it Saturday, using hand tools and muscles to begin carving a BMX track in the patch of sagebrush called Mark Twain Park.
In a few weeks, Mike's 10-year-old son Vinnie will be among the bikers hopping the double jumps that his dad's shovel was forming this weekend.
"Carl Williams of Dayton Material came in this morning with three loads of dirt," Rains said. "He'll be back this afternoon with a tractor, which will make things go a lot quicker."
Until then, the men and boys were chopping a path through the sage with hand tools and building the first of those double jumps. Williams' 15-year-old son, C.J., and Dustin Tuggle, also 15, were among the youths alternating between shovel work and paying out the track in their minds.
"Even with the tractor, it will take a couple weeks," Piazza said. "What we really need out here is a water truck, to help the dirt settle and pack down."
The track project is entirely a volunteer effort, with no budget and only the whisper of a formal design. That's in the grand tradition of such tracks, which, in general, are born in fortuitous encounters between kids on bikes and piles of dirt.
The difference here is that it's OK to have the track and no one will be plowing it flat to make room for some development project. The flattening of a popular informal BMX area near Mills Park in Carson City prompted the Mark Twain project, according to Piazza.
Piazza and Rains live a short distance south of the park and their young crew Saturday was kids who need someplace to ride.
"I'm kidless, but Mike and I used to ride mountain bikes together and we work together at Carson City Toyota," Rains said.
The track sits next to the first of several ball fields planned at the park. But the acre or so planned for the bike track will remain dedicated to that activity. The Lyon County Parks and Recreation Department will post signs marking it off and prohibiting motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles from using it, which could damage it.
"We're not going to clear all the sagebrush off - just for the actual track," Piazza explained. The actual routes through the acre will evolve over time, though, as the users want variety. "That's the beauty of this type of track - it can be changed easily."
Forming the track with hand tools is not the quickest way to go about it. Later in the afternoon, though, Williams and his tractor showed up and the team recruited a water truck, making the project go quicker and with a lot less dust.
