Mower racers make the cut
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Lawn mower drag racers roll down a 200-foot track last week on opening night of the Graham Street Fair. Mower racing has gone big time in parts of both England and the United States, but the Graham event was mostly about bragging rights, town pride and having a little fun on a hot summer evening.
All the expected sights and sounds of a drag strip were there: the bleachers full of summertime spectators dressed in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts, the red-yellow-green Christmas tree starting light, the razor-straight dirt track, and the roar of finely tuned engines rumbling inside custom-painted sheet metal bodies sporting sugar-candy colors and stylized flames.
After nearly an hour of building anticipation, the announcer’s voice came over the PA — which had been blasting Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1974 hit “Let It Ride” — “Drivers, please assemble at the east side of the track.”
So about 20 guys wearing long pants, jackets and motorcycle helmets in the 90-degree heat shifted their machines into gear and rolled over to the track on their racing lawn mowers.
That’s right, lawn mowers.
Once merely mechanized status symbols for suburban homeowners nursing a passion for perfectly manicured yards, riding mowers have been adopted by a burgeoning number of gearheads in both the United States and Great Britain who ride them in pursuit of checkered-flag glory.
And on Thursday night, lawn mower drag racing came to the Graham Street Fair.
It may not be NASCAR, but these guys don’t much care. Lawn mower racing is inexpensive, creates an excuse for spending hours in the garage, and feeds the need for speed — as long as speed is defined as burning along at 40 mph or so.
For John Allen of Maryville, lawn mower racing is also a family affair. John and his wife, Jeanette, showed up at the racetrack just west of Graham with their two sons, Keaton, 10, and Trustin, 12. In the bed of the family’s pickup was John’s racing mower, a sleek silver-and-black machine with a three-speed transmission and a customized chassis that John extended himself.
“If you’ve got a torch and a welder you can do a lot,” he said, “that and a lot of hand tools.”
Allen, a driver for Porter Trash Service, is no stranger to motorsports and used to race open-wheel dirt-track cars on the IMCA circuit. But he’s a family man now, and lawn mower racing is a little easier on the budget.
“Money money money,” he said when asked why he races mowers. That, and the fact that it’s a hobby he can share with his sons, both of whom are already into four-wheelers and dirt bikes.
In addition to the mostly stock machine Allen raced Thursday, the family garage is already home to two other mowers that Allen is readying for his boys when they turn 14, the minimum sanctioned racing age.
Allen said he has about $100 in his current mower. He gleans parts along his trash route and from people he knows who have scrap machinery sitting around.
Except for a couple of safety add-ons like a kill switch and a wheelie bar, Allen said his racer is actually pretty tame beneath the painted flames applied to the battered cowling. Top speed is around 30 mph, and mechanically “there’s not much on it that isn’t all lawn mower.”
But he has still put a considerable amount of work into getting the pint-sized tractor track ready.
“I’d hate to guess, but I’ve probably spent 25 hours working on it over the last three weeks,” he said
Not far away from where Allen and his sons applied some last minute touches to their machines the guys from “Poor Boys Racing” were doing much the same thing.
A spoof on big-time racing outfits like Michael Waltrip Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports, Poor Boys consists of Nick Rosenbohm, his brother Matt and their friends Justin Stiens and Roy Peltz. The team hung a printed sign on the trailer they used to haul their mowers to the track and gave each of their machines a name.
One of the little tractors, painted in John Deere green, is called “4440+,” an ironic nod to the 130-horsepower John Deere 4440 field tractor.
The other Poor Boy racers are named “Barely Legal,” “Gunna Whiz” and “Midnight Screamer.”
“It’s cheap,” said Nick when asked why he races lawn mowers. “That and you don’t see too many lawn mowers doing 40 mph.”
As far as the “Poor Boys” racing team goes, he added, “It’s just a big ruse, that’s what it is. We tell people we’re going to race at the Phoenix Lawnmower Open and the Indianapolis 500.”
The Graham Street Fair mower race is organized by local resident Jacob Rauch, a former tractor pull competitor whose father, Kevin Rauch, used to put on a similar event, a garden tractor pull, during the annual festival, which typically draws about 2,000 people to the tiny southwest Nodaway County town.
With Thursday night attendance at the three-day Street Fair diminishing, Jacob Rauch thought mower racing might spice things up a bit.
He seems to have thought right. A good-sized crowd showed up for the weeknight competition, with all gate proceeds going to the Street Fair. Contestant entry fees were used to pay cash prizes to the drivers.
And that’s good enough for the Poor Boys, who have no plans to take their mowers out on the road.
Asked how many times a year the team races, Matt Rosenbohm had a quick answer: “Once,” he said. “This is it.”
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Lawn mower racer John Allen attaches a wheelie bar to his machine in Graham Thursday while sons Keaton, left, and Trustin, center, look on. Also pictured is family friend Weston Redden.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Members of “Poor Boys Racing” a Graham-based lawn mower “syndicate” pose with their modified track machines. Pictured from left: Justin Stiens, Matt Rosenbohm, Roy Peltz and Nick Rosenbohm.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Sheet metal flames grace the wheelie bar of this customized racing mower, which competed during a lawn tractor drag racing event Thursday at the Graham Street Fair.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
William Holmes, 2, stands beside a bright red racing lawn mower Thursday at the Graham Street Fair. William is the son of Jacob and Kaitlynn Holmes of College Springs, Iowa.
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
On a dirt track this modified lawn mower owned and driven by “Poor Boy” racer Roy Peltz is “Barely Legal.” Other machines raced by the for-fun-only team include “Gunna Whiz,” “Midnight Screamer” and “4440+”
