Grassroots Movement

After first responders rushed over to Bobby Lechinger, who was face down on the dirt track after flipping his lawn mower, they tended to his injuries, including a fractured foot.

But Lechinger still had his eyes on a prize.

“Please don’t cut my racing pant leg,” the mower racer from Madisonville told the ambulance crew. “I have to race tomorrow.”

Lawn mower racing may sound like a joke, but the drivers are seriously dedicated to their sport.

With four wheels (mostly on the ground), cutting blades removed and a low center of gravity, lawn mower racing doesn’t make for many crashes, but it can still be dangerous. On this hot June morning in Gun Barrel City, southeast of Dallas, Lechinger was among a dozen drivers hurtling around a small dirt oval track tucked between baseball fields and a Baptist church. This is the home track for the Lone Star Mower Racing Association and for an unexpected blend of grassroots engineering, adrenaline-fueled competition, light-hearted humor and Texas grit.

The competitors don full-body motocross-style racing suits and safety gear and push their minuscule home-built machines to the edge. With the temperature pushing into the mid-90s before racing even starts, everyone is sweating but smiling. A small but curious crowd has filled the bleachers, some huddling under umbrellas for relief from the intense sunshine. As the green flag waves, the competitors roar across the starting line, and the dirt flies.

Lawn mower racing traces its origins, as you might expect, to a laugh in a bar.

In 1973, Irishman Jim Gavin and a group of his mates from West Sussex, in England, were bemoaning the increasing cost of motor sports, with sponsorships and professional drivers pushing out everyday enthusiasts. But they realized they all owned lawn mowers and decided to race them. Eighty competitors showed up for that first gathering of the British Lawn Mower Racing Association.

In the U.S., there’s an annual lawn mower race in Indiana that started in 1963, and there had been a few one-off races over the years at county fairs and rodeo sideshows. But nothing was formalized until 1992, when STA-BIL, an engine fuel additives brand, announced a publicity stunt on April Fool’s Day: the first U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association competition.

The promotion was a surprising success and 32 years on, lawn mower racing is still finding new fans and competitors, attracting racers from other motor sports drawn to the affordability and do-it-yourself engineering.

The Texas chapter—the Lone Star Mower Racing Association—formed in 1998, with a racing season that runs from roughly Labor Day to Memorial Day, skipping the hottest months when engine (and driver) performance suffers. Boerne, Bonham, Bulverde, Caldwell, Madisonville, Whitesboro and Wortham also host races and exhibitions. The rules are fairly simple: remove the cutting blades, build your mower to regulation rules and go faster than everyone else.

At its core, lawn mower racing is a celebration of ingenuity and resourcefulness. With strict regulations governing engine size and modifications, racers must get creative to gain a competitive edge. Each mower is a testament to its owner’s craftsmanship and dedication.

There are eight classes of competition based on engine size, horsepower, wheelbase and other specs. Kids as young as 6 can compete with stock mowers (6.5 horsepower or less) and top speeds around 20 mph. The fastest classes are the factory experimental classes—the Formula 1 of mowers—with FXS (single cylinder) and FXT (twin cylinder) machines that can exceed 100 mph.

Kevin Counsil, president of the LSMRA and a member of Houston County Electric Cooperative, competes in the fastest FXT class. Dressed in a red, white and blue NASCAR-style suit, Counsil greets me in front of his travel trailer, home to four mowers. He spent 20 years racing dirt bikes before retiring from the sport.

He saw his first LSMRA race in 2021, and “before the race was even over, I was on the internet looking for a mower. Two weeks later we drove to Michigan to pick it up, and that was four lawn mowers ago,” Counsil says with a laugh. “I’m a horsepower junkie at heart, and there’s nothing more redneck than going lawn mower racing.”

He jokes that his racing number, 12K, is the start-up cost for his new racing habit but is quick to point out how accessible and affordable lawn mowers are compared to other motor sports. “This is really one of the cheapest sports you can get into horsepowerwise. The entry level is probably $1,000–$1,500.”

Lawn mower racing thrives on the participation of everyday Texans who have formed and foster a tightly knit community of gearheads. There’s more camaraderie than cutthroat competition. Sure, racers are eager to win, but they’re just as likely to lend a helping hand to a fellow competitor. In the pits, racers swap tips, share tools and forge lasting friendships. There are no cash prizes in the sport—just trophies and bragging rights.

Back on the track, competitors have started the feature races, which have been shortened to 15 laps instead of the usual 20 due to the heat.

Brandi Vercher from Highlands is one of three women racing today and takes her first checkered flag after years of coming in second and third place in the GPT class.

Annsley Howard, 17, from New Ulm, takes first in the FXS class on her machine painted black and green. Howard, the 2023 state champion in the FXS class, has been racing since she was 9. “It’s just fun. It’s an adrenaline rush,” she says with a smile.

Her father, John Howard, got involved with racing when a friend asked for help from his welding shop. “Two and a half weeks later, I built a mower that I couldn’t even fit on,” John says. “I had to get someone else to drive it. And then it just snowballed from there.”

Lots of drivers have a story like this, in which a friend or family member enticed them into the sport. Sammie Neel, LSMRA secretary-treasurer and a customer of Bryan Texas Utilities, also races in the FXS class. “I like to say we’ve been ruining lawns since 1992!”

Neel’s husband got into the sport first, then warmed her onto the track.

“Whenever I finally got out there, I was going slow,” she says, drawing out the word “slow.” “I got lapped like five times, and I was so mad when I got off the track, I said, ‘You make that sucker go. If I’m going to be out here, I’m racing.’ ”

Then she couldn’t stop. “You think you’re just going to go out there and putt around, but once—and I mean once—somebody passes you, you’re like, ‘Ahh, I’m ready to go!’ ”

The timekeeper and scoring judge today is Kerry Evans, the USLMRA president, who drove in from Alabama. He’s been in the sport since 1998 and has two national championships.

“When we started in the ’90s, we had 30- and 40-mph lawn mowers,” Evans says. “People started experimenting and tinkering, and in September of 2010, a group of us went to the Bonneville Salt Flats and set the land-speed record on the lawn mower at 96½ miles an hour.”

Today’s FXT mowers can surpass 100 mph. “It’s just been rock and mow ever since,” Evans says.

The spirit of the sport’s April Fool’s origin has never left, and many early racers had punny monikers: Sir Lawns A Lot, the Lawn Ranger, Blade Runner, Prograsstinator. These days everyone runs under their actual names, but the sport still gets chuckles.

“We tell people, hey, we race lawn mowers, and they’ll just start laughing,” Neel says. “And we’re like, seriously, you know, laugh if you want, but come out to the races because they go fast.

“And then once they come out, they get excited. They’re a fan after that.”

Lawn mower racing embodies the spirit of Texas itself: bold, resilient and unapologetically fun. As long as there are lawns to mow and racers with a need for speed, the roar of mowers will continue to remind us that, sometimes, the most extraordinary adventures can be found in the most unexpected places.

“The mow, the merrier,” Evans says.