In the United States, ATV Racing has a 20 year history and is a sport that is exciting to many people. The ATV was developed and designed in Japan for use in town to farm type of transportation, where there are many different types of mountain roads and steep trails. During the rainy season and sometimes at times of thaws, some of these trails and roads were impossible to navigate using traditional vehicles.
The ATV as we know it today first was brought and introduced to the USA sometime in the 1970’s and it was first sold mainly as a recreational vehicle. While this is for the most part still its main usage, it is used in some parts of America as a work vehicle. The use of ATV’s quickly became divided into two areas – Work and recreation, with one of the main recreational uses being the racing of ATV’s.
Three wheeled ATV vehicles were present in the 1970s and 1980s, but eventually they were found by many to be fairly unstable, and easy to tip over. To respond to this, the major ATV manufacturers introduced the Four wheel ATV’s in the mid 1980s, and they quickly became some of the more popular ATV’s in usage in the USA and internationally.
The history of ATV Racing is one that has been supported largely by the major ATV and motorcycle manufacturers, Honda, Yamaha, and others. By their innovations, slowly the four wheel ATV has become the instrument of choice for various types of ATV Racing. It has also been the most popular selection for recreational use in the USA also.
In the 1980s there were a lot of accidents that got the attention of the public, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission began a series of investigations. While no direct flaws in design were discovered, the Commission began to work with ATV manufacturers, addressing training, rider safety, and safety equipment. While the CPSC didn’t require the banning of three wheel ATV’s, because of the focus on safety and the view that Four wheel ATV’s were safer and harder to tip over the Four wheel ATV began to slowly take over the marketplace.
There was a national safety campaign across the USA and in 1988 the manufacturers of ATV’s entered into a voluntary agreement called the Final Consent Decree, where the industry introduced new safety programs, and pumped in about $100 million dollars into making and using ATV’s safer. They also agreed to not market three wheeled ATV’s in 1988, moving completely to four wheel ATV’s.
There are over 35 countries around the world that are known to have ATV vehicles working in them, and many of them are the stalwart four wheeled ATV type. ATV Racing is a sport that is growing in the USA, and it continues to stir the imagination and thrill the observer.
Many people that would not watch a motorcycle race find ATV Racing fascinating, and the fan base and viewship of ATV Racing events rises each year making it one of the fastest growing events in the sports world.
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