Built for speed (and cutting grass), lawn mower racers compete on dirt tracks for trophies, bragging rights

Meg Jones
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

FIFIELD - Rock music blared from speakers as spectators sat on bleachers or lawn chairs they brought from home to watch speedsters zoom around a track Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was a big day for racing: NASCAR fans watched the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and of course, racing aficionados tuned in to the Indy 500 at the Brickyard. And there were races in this northern Wisconsin community featuring machines a bit slower than Indy cars.

Lawn mowers.

To the uninitiated, it seems odd that folks actually race the loud machines built to trim grass. But while all vehicles must start their careers as actual riding lawn mowers, racers, as they’re wont to do, make a few adjustments.

Which results in a lawn mower that can travel as fast as 60 mph.

Lawn mower racers are gearheads who love to go fast but don’t want to drain their bank accounts. Sure, they would love to race stock cars or motorcycles or go-karts, but those cost a lot more cash. Lawn mower racers pay $20 or $25 annual dues, depending on which club they join, and can race in as many competitions as they want for free.

“This is a very economical form of racing. Once you have a machine, it’s pretty much showing up each weekend and buying gas,” said Scott Fischer of Spencer.

At Sunday’s races, which were a fundraiser for the Fifield Fire Department, 30 mowers competed in five classes on a one-eighth-mile dirt track. Blades are removed from racing lawn mowers and steel welded on the frame for stability. In some classes, machines must run on original lawn mower engines. All must have hydraulic brakes.

Racers are bunched up going into the first turn during the season-opening races of the Wisconsin Lawn Mower Racing Association Sunday in Fifield. Some of the extensively modified mowers can hit 50 mph in a straight line.

While the appeal is going really fast on a machine built to travel 2 to 3 mph, it’s also a gas to tinker and tweak machines to double or triple horsepower. There’s no prize money, only trophies and bragging rights among other gear heads.

“You have to build your own. It’s not something you can buy,” said Brandon Schug of Spencer, who built a single cylinder racing machine out of a Murray riding mower and a twin cylinder from a John Deere 120 mower.

Schug’s Murray can travel as fast as 50 mph while the John Deere can top out at 60 mph on a straightaway.

Schug got his parents, brothers, girlfriend and friends interested in lawn mower racing. His mother, Charity Schug, sometimes competes in the all-female powder puff races.

“When he started, we thought he was crazy,” Charity Schug said. “We were going to all of his races and finally I thought, ‘Hey, I can try this.’ ”

Initially, her husband and sons worried she would wreck one of the family’s racing lawn mowers. So Charity Schug got her own machine, a John Deere. If no other female racers show up, which happened on Sunday, “I’ll play with the boys,” she said.

Racers round the first turn during the season-opening races for the Wisconsin Lawn Mower Racing Association Sunday.

Organized lawn mower racing started in the early ’90s in the U.S. and has grown to 50 clubs in 36 states including two clubs in Wisconsin, Badger State Brothers of the Blade and the Wisconsin Lawn Mower Racing Association, said Kerry Evans, United States Lawn Mower Racing Association president.

Under the association’s rules, all vehicles must be originally sold to cut grass and, depending on the class, there are limits to the modifications done to put zip in the mower.

“We have some guys who change the mower up to race it and then change it to take it back home and cut the grass. They think they can cut the grass faster but it doesn’t work that way,” said Evans.

All racers must wear helmets, neck braces and chest protectors and kill switches around their wrists so if they tumble off, the machine will stop.

“A lot of people have the need for speed. A lot of them come (to races) to see the accidents and we do have some of those, unfortunately,” Evans said in a phone interview from Alabama. 

An hour before time trials Sunday, Nick Shotliff of Wisconsin Rapids sat on his lawn mower valiantly trying to start it. Each time he turned the key, the machine groaned. Smoke wafted up. The odor of oil filled Shotliff’s nostrils.

“C’mon, you pig,” Shotliff said as his racer balked. “It ran fine at the last race. It just don’t want to run today. That happens.”

After the Fifield Fire Department watered the track, racers competed in time trials before heats and finals. Some lawn mowers were painted in bright colors and sported racing numbers or nicknames like “Turf Man.”

A man waved green, yellow and checkered flags as racers zipped around turns, tiny wheels quivering as clods of dirt were kicked up, the sound was less of a “Vroom” and more of a “putt-putt-putt.” The fastest competitors completed laps in 14 to 15 seconds.

As Charity Schug raced by, someone in the crowd yelled “C’mon girl — Go!”

There were a few breakdowns, but a tow truck, which was actually a four-wheeler, quickly pulled them off the track. When a racer’s transmission blew on a turn, track announcer Roger Frischman watched a Fifield firefighter on a four-wheeler drag the mower away and joked, “Do you take AAA?”

At the end of the races, with heats of 10 laps and finals of 20 laps, it wasn’t clear just how much grass could have been cut had the racing lawn mowers sported their factory blades, but it probably would have been a lawn the size of Wauwatosa.

Contact Meg Jones at (414) 224-2064 or meg.jones@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @MegJonesJS