Ask the Editors: Why Are Nerf Bars Required to Race?
You are going to find this requirement pretty standard at most ATV racing facilities the globe over and the reason for it is twofold- with both reasons benefiting the rider.
The first, and perhaps lesser important of the two reasons is that ATVs manufactured prior to the mid-1990s often lacked any sort of protection behind the foot-pegs. This meant that if a rider misplaced his foot while cornering or landing from impact, odds were very high that he would run over his own heel/ leg with the spinning rear wheels of his own machine. In the early years Nerfs were a rider’s only real protection against this threat.
Of course, these days all ATVs made offer some degree of protection from this risk in the form of plastic fender extensions that reach all the way to the peg, metal frame extensions or some combination of the two.
The second reason has to do with the space an ATV creates naturally between the back of the front fender and the front of the rear fender. When multiple ATVs occupy a track (especially in instances off the start where it isn’t uncommon for a pack of them to bunch tightly together), that space can become catastrophic if the wheel of another ATV were to end up inside. Because the metal frame of the Nerf Bar extends out past the width of your ATV’s wheels, that space surrounding your foot-peg is in essence filled in; meaning another ATV’s wheel would bounce harmlessly away from rather than end up trapped inside should you happen to bump.
