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Thwomp!

A hydraulically driven metal gate slams onto compacted soil. Eager kids, some as young as 4, flail away on BMX bikes, pedaling madly toward the first jump on the new BMX track off Avenida Cesar Chavez, east of Isotopes Park.

Boosters screech racers' names, the public address system blurts a female voice calling the action, hard-rock music layered over her, the cacophony echoing under the enormous steel cover, like a Transformers-sized snare drum.

Thwomp!

The gate is down and the next half dozen or so racers are off before the preceding race is even finished.

It's a strange sound. Out of place even in a neighborhood of odd noises that waft through on any given weekend from Isotopes Stadium and tailgaters from the Lobo football stadium nearby.

But within the row of houses on Buena Vista Drive Southeast, across the street from the new BMX track, neighbors describe that "thwomp!" as an explosion. One that never ends.

Sunday was a gorgeous New Mexico day. Families were gathered and some interesting athletics were on display.

Across the street, standing on the sidewalk not 150 feet from the track, was Isabel Cabrera, president of the Clayton Heights/Lomas del Cielo Neighborhood Association, taking pictures with her digital camera.

She was documenting the latest day in a continuing nightmare for the neighborhood, which is bewildered and fighting mad over what residents view as a city planning bait and switch.

The BMX track was supposed to be next to the outfield fence abutting Isotopes Park, with a green belt between it and a planned enclosed velodrome-racing track. Between all those gears and screams and their homes was to be a tennis court, a neighborhood fixture for years, a buffer.

That's what the city's Environmental Planning Commission approved last February. And that's what the neighborhood signed off on, after receiving it under the city's required Neighborhood Recognition Ordinance.

It didn't happen. And they want to know why.

Mary Trujillo, who has lived on Buena Vista with her husband since 1949, would like to know. So would Sam Baldonado, who has lived on the block for 20 years. As would Reed Easterwood, a second-year law student at the University of New Mexico and the newest homeowner on the block. Danette Chavez and her neighbors a block east on Wilmoore Drive Southeast also want to know.

Thwomp!

"We never had any input here," Cabrera says, snapping pictures of cars and pickup trucks parked on the block. "It was a done deal."

Mary Trujillo, 80-plus years and razor sharp, is not happy.

"It's terrible. It's awful. If it's going to be that noisy, I don't know what's going to happen to us," she said, referring to the first big BMX event in early May, a statewide meet with up to 3,000 people attending.

"If you're young enough, you can move, but at our age, what can we do?" Trujillo said.

Inside the living room of Sam and Martha Baldonado, the monstrous metal cover, described by Cabrera as looking like a livestock auction barn, is perfectly framed in his west-facing window, filling it completely.

"We didn't think it would be that huge," he said. "Just the fact that it's there is real distressing. Who's going to buy my house now?"

He looked out the window in question. The looming gunship-gray behemoth offered no answer.

Thwomp!

You can hear it all in Easterwood's backyard - the metal gate, the screaming, the PA, the music. Everything. All that separates the track noise from the homes is a three-foot-high wall and a small building, slated to be for concessions. No trees. No buffer of any kind.

Easterwood has filed suit against the city, claiming the city has ignored the principles of the plan. The city legal office declined to comment on the suit. City Attorney Bob White plans to meet with the association on May 30.

"I'm not out for blood, but to look at what's been done," Easterwood said. "There's substantial evidence the notice to the neighborhood association that we signed off on was not followed.

"What's the point of a plan if they don't follow it?"