AULT — When the cornstalks reach past the chin under a blazing northern Colorado sky, when the breezes hint of fall and the dust clouds stretch to the heavens, a grown boy’s thoughts naturally turn to open-stock lawn-mower racing.
Chris Hutchins, Lancelot of lawn care, gladiator of the grass clippings, the Cupholder Charioteer, throws the drive lever forward on his Lawn King and stomps the gas at the gravel track in back of the truck repair shop.
He promptly hits 70 mph.
You see, Hutchins, like any other red-blooded American who has ever crammed a 70-horsepower Harley engine in the space where lesser minds imagined only 8 horsepower, is tuning up for his big moment. Today is the sixth annual showcase for the Rocky Mountain Lawn Mower Racing Association in Ault — sanctioned, it goes without saying — by the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association.
Hutchins is heck-bent on winning the Outlaw Classification trophy back for his boss, Steve Brant.
Brant has recently traded titles with one Dale Janssen, who owns Continental Supply just up the road, and who no doubt would have been accused of cheating in past victories except that in Outlaw Class, pretty much anything goes.
The one rule in the Outlaw, or open-stock, class is “if you can fit it under the hood.”
Four other classes will also run lawn-mower races today, on the eighth-of-a-mile oval behind the new fire station. Just head east from Fort Collins on Colorado 14, look for dust and bring ear protection.
A parts customer wanders in to Ault Truck & Equipment and asks Brant if the racing starts at 11 a.m.
“The races are at 1 p.m.,” Brant says. “They start drinking beer at 11.”
“It’s three days away and I’m already getting nervous,” Hutchins said, earlier in the week. He’s what Brant, a longtime amateur stock-car racer, calls the “new shoe” on the accelerator of the garage’s flame-painted mowing machine.
Hutchins souped up the mower for his boss four years ago but has never raced. Brant stands around and gives him dubiously helpful tips, such as not letting his foot slide off the accelerator and under the super- sized back wheels.
“We haven’t had any bad wrecks, except for in the second year a guy got his foot caught under a wheel and broke his ankle,” Brant said.
He paused.
“Stock-car racing’s a lot safer,” he added, seeing as how the cars have a cage around the driver. “Next year we’re going to set more rules for the open class because it’s getting a little out of control.”
“It’s already way out of control,” Hutchins concludes, shaking his head. Helmets and jackets are required. Army combat helmets are optional, but apparently are a popular fashion statement in the unmodified classes.
Pure Stock racers have to bring lawn mowers unchanged from their factory settings. (All classes remove the mowing blades for racing, for safety, but perhaps more importantly, speed. Why waste engine power on something functional?)
Early on, organizers shortened the unmodified races to half a lap.
“They go so slow,” Brant said. “Nobody wanted to watch that.”
Late word has it some Wyoming mower jockeys will bring a half-dozen machines to the modified classes today. Ault usually attracts a half-dozen to 15 riders in each class.
“And there’s a club that races up in Nebraska, they didn’t make it last year but maybe they’ll make it this year,” Brant said.
As Hutchins took ear-splitting practice runs near the garage, a Colorado Department of Transportation ditch-mowing crew crawled by in its sensibly painted orange tractor. The state tractor paused inside a choking plume of Hutchins’ high-speed dust, its warning lights flashing forlornly, like a pony watching the Kentucky Derby.
Brant and Hutchins will win no money should they beat Janssen and the Wyoming interlopers. Rather, they do it only for the glory, the bragging rights, the deep sense of accomplishment a porch-sitter will never know.
Plus, Brant admitted, “It’s hard to find a lawn-mower trophy.”
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
Start your engines
Rocky Mountain Lawn Mower Racing Association’s sixth annual showcase, part of the Ault Fall Festival this weekend
When: Today, 1-4 p.m.; $5
Where: East of the Ault Fire House, 16680 Colorado 14, Ault.
Info:
