Ladies and gentlemen ... start your all-terrain-vehicle engines.

If all goes well, by Memorial Day weekend, ATV enthusiasts could be tearing it up on a new plot of land, dubbed Riley Ranch, in Coos County - the first county park built from the ground up since Powers Park was created in 1974.

At first, however, the revving and ripping will be limited.

To date, the park is only about 20 percent complete. There won't be access to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area for more than a year, but the Coos County Parks Department is hoping to have some primitive campsites, and a small area for ATV use open by Memorial Day.

While future plans call for a 100-site RV park with electrical and water hookups, for now, the camping will be primitive - nearly Neanderthal-like. If Cro-Magnon man would have possessed the Yankee ingenuity to come up with a way to bring potable water to his campsite - this first phase of Riley Ranch likely would be it.

But a mere whiff of the long awaited opening of Riley Ranch, is bringing a bright smile to Coos County Parks Director Larry Robison. His crews have been chiseling the landscape into shape since March 2005, peeling back the salal and huckleberry bushes, and chopping down Port Orford cedar, spruce, shore pine and Douglas fir to make room for the ATV paradise.

Aside from generating a little revenue for the county, the limited opening may soak up a barrage of inquiries county park staffers have been fielding from people throughout the Pacific Northwest in recent months.

ATV fanatics are finding it increasingly difficult to find places where they're welcome. Robison said ATV parks are few and far between and are more of an endangered species because states like California and Washington, are shutting them down, not opening them up.

Not so in Coos County, where the future plans at Riley Ranch are grand.

Last week, on a jouncy two-hour tour of the budding 135-acre site, tucked back off of U.S. Highway 101 five miles south of Lakeside, Robison, operating a Jeep Cherokee, described what ATV freaks have been seeking for years - a park unto themselves.

When fully complete, about two years from now, the park will have been built with nearly $1 million in grants from Oregon's Parks and Recreation Committee, funded, in part by an ATV gas tax and the stickers ATVers have to buy - making it mainly their playground.

However, the land, previously owned by George and Susan Riley, also was home to horseback riders, Boy Scout of America troops and rendez-vous points for the Coos County Sheriff's Office mounted posse. The county plans to make room for all those users, among others, again at Riley Ranch - unlocking a pristine piece of Coos County to the public.

“Most of the people that are going to come out here and use this - they're playthings are on four wheels,” Robison said.

Trails - some just for day hikers - and Butterfield Lake, also are expected to draw in the curious, albeit perhaps earplugged hiker, birdwatcher or angler. The lake and trails also will serve as a spot of respite for the trail-weary rider.

“If you get tired of riding your quad, or you're all beat up or something, you can come down here and fish,” Robison said.

While he's reluctant to call this latest addition the Coos County Park family - currently 31 parks strong - the brightest jewel in the treasure chest, he does hope it shines with “the Coos County experience.”

He knows that most people come to the county because of the 60-mile long Pacific coastline. But, maybe, he said, the spotlight on Riley Ranch will draw tourists to other, local points of interest including LaVerne Park, the thousands of acres of state and federal forests and the rugged areas enveloping Agness in Curry County.

He admits he's not very objective in expressing his love for the county.

“I've lived here all my life - so I feel pretty prejudiced to what we got,” he said.

Butterfield Lake is about the size of Powers Pond, around 30 acres, Robison said, and will be for non-motorized boats like canoes, kayaks, paddleboats and floats. While, lifeguards won't be on duty, there is talk of pushing some sand down near the lake to make a swim-at-your-own-risk swimming hole.

Parkgoers can expect to run into some wildlife, too. The climate and geography make the land home to deer, elk, bear, the occasional bobcat and other small mammals.

The County has yet to broker a deal with the U.S. Forest Service to gain access to the dunes via a westerly 50-foot wide-by-half-mile-long easement. Robison said he is 100-percent confident that will happen. It's just a matter of where and when.

Existing access sites to the dunes are only available by heading north to Spinreel, or south to the Hauser Depot or Horsfall Beach - a long haul for some.

“With this you are in the center of the dunes,” Robison said.

The current design of the park calls for about 100 RV sites with water and electrical hookups. Robison said county work crews will start cutting in the first 50 sites after July 1. In addition, about 75 campsites, outfitted with picnic tables and firepits will be developed, along with six, 12-foot-by-16-foot white cedar cabins with heat and lights and a prime view of Butterfield Lake.

Because some locals have expressed frustration with the reservation systems that already exist at other campgrounds - catering to folks from out of state who reserve sites for the following year the day they leave - Robison said a healthy chunk of the Riley Ranch sites will be first-come first-serve.

A county park workshop and permanent caretaker home also will grace the property. The main staging area will comprise of 100 parking spaces. Just to the south of the staging area will be about three miles of riding loops, with areas set aside for youths and adults.

“If the parents don't want them out riding by themselves in the sand they can ride here,” Robison said. “And there will be trails on it. Lots of trails and ‘whoopty-dos.'”

The brunt of the work at the park has been carried out by Robison, his 12 county park employees and occasionally crews from Shutter Creek Correctional Institution. The county's highway department and a sawmill operator have been the only private contracts outside the department to work the project.

Robison said the goal is that when a new 45-site campground at Tenmile in Lakeside and Riley Ranch are finished, the two campgrounds will generate enough revenue - about $400,000 a year - to yank the entire parks department out of the county's general fund. Robison said that's a conservative estimate and that many believe the new parks will take in between $550,000 and $750,000, or more because the electrical hookups could bring tourists in annually.