November 7, 2025 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, across small-town America, fields that once grew corn and clover now host something unexpected: racing lawn mowers. The smell of fuel mixes with cut grass, and the sound of modified engines echoes across the open air.
For Julie Tynmann, these races aren’t about fame or money; they’re about community and the thrill of seeing how far a racing mower can go when you push it to its limit.
Julie shares how she found joy in this unlikely corner of motorsport, where every turn of the wheel reminds her that adventure can begin anywhere, even in your own backyard.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. The Lone Star
Mower Racing Association, and that's LSMRA for you fans, started
in nineteen ninety eight, but the sport of lawnmower racing
goes back the nineteen seventy three, when an irishman named
Jim Gavin and a few of his mates were fed
(00:31):
up with the hefty price tag that came with most
motor sports and wanted to create a sport that was
cheap and accessible to everyone. As the pints flowed, they
looked out the window and there was the groundsman mowing
the grass. It was then that they realized, hey, everyone
has a lawnmower. That's when they decided to have a race.
(00:52):
Eighty mowers showed up for the very first contest. Here's
Julie Tinman with her story about the greatest show on turf.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, I think I'm pretty much a unique unicorn. I
don't know anybody in my family who is into lawnmower racing.
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, on the southwest
side of town. My parents worked, each worked two full
time jobs, so they were hardly at home because they
were always working, you know, trying to provide for us,
(01:22):
and I didn't know it at the time, but we
were poor, which was the best kind of poor, right
You didn't know you were poor when you were a kid.
You only figured it out when you got older and
you're like, oh, yeah, I didn't get to do all
those things, but I kept so active that I didn't
let any of that really bother me very much, you know.
And after high school I did go off to college. Unfortunately,
(01:45):
I found myself in the same position my parents were in.
I had to work two jobs just to take care
of myself and pay for my apartment and where.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I lived and food and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I think what minimum wage was four bucks an hour
at the time, so I was working forty to sixty
hours a week. So it took me eight years to graduate,
but I did it. I kept my bachelors in accounting.
And after that, instead of going to Europe with my friends,
I decided to get married and we would go kayaking,
(02:19):
we would go fishing off the piers, and we also
started cycling because basically, you know, I took the stress
out of life because he and I both had full
time jobs that were very demanding and very stressful, so
We found great, great pleasure in doing these these activities together,
and it also you know, created a bond between us. Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So we were doing that, we were doing our thing.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And then I was blessed with some children and he
and I raised these two beautiful kids. So the kids
are grown at they're what twelve and fourteen now, and
he and I are watching YouTube and these lawnmower racing uh,
(03:07):
you know, men come up on the on the screen
and I'm looking at that and I am like, wow, Rob,
I think I would do that, And he's like you would,
and I'm like, yeah, I would. I would race the lawnmower.
And my husband, he is all into cars. Like, he
didn't do sports growing up. He built cars. That was
his thing. So I don't know what I.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Unlocked there, but.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I definitely unlock a piece of him. He has, you know,
a piece of his Uh. They hadn't been able to use,
you know, the skills that you needed to build something.
So he wanted to make sure that he and I
both knew what we were getting into. So we looked
up lawnmower racing in Texas, came across LSM Marie and
(03:53):
found they were racing at a track called Camp Sila
over Inhia, Texas. It's kind of to the right of
Fort Worth, and we visited the track and it was
just like I imagine everyone going fast to round a
track on a lawnmower. Some of the faster ones looked
like little go karts. So he basically what he had
(04:16):
to do is look up the roles for the US
Lawnmower Racing Association to see, like, what did he need
to do to build this lawnmower so I could race it.
So we bought our property about twelve years ago. And
when we bought our property, we had to buy a
writing lawnmower because it was too much to do, you know,
(04:37):
a push lawnmower.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
It's been retired ice.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's sitting in our graveyard of stuff out back, so
we decided to resurrect it. A fun fact about this
lawnmower that for me anyways, is that when we first
bought our property, my husband would have me sit in
the little trailer attachment the back of the writing lawnmower
and my kid ds were like one and.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Three at the time. That he would put the kids
in the.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Trailer with me and would do like little hay ride
around our property with the kid, and that's what we
did entertain them in the evening. So I just find
that it's just cute that we are now using this
lawnmower to, you know, go fast around a track. So
one of the questions that I'm always asked, the very
(05:27):
first question is about the blades.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Like everyone's really worried about the lawnmower blades.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And yeah, I'm here to reassure everybody that the blade
of the lawnmower are the first things that are that
it is removed, Like you don't race with lawnmower blades.
I guess he reinforced the frame, lowered the chassis. He
had to put a new steering system and any braking
system system in. Oh, a new lawnmower tires, right, he
(05:54):
had the darnedest time trying to put the tires on
the wheel with axel. He a new seven eight Predator
engine that gives like twenty two horse power. We can
go up to like thirty five miles per hour. It
can go pretty fast. I know, it kind of seems slow,
but when you're not wearing a seat belt, it's still
(06:17):
a little scary. So he had lots of fun doing that.
Like I said, when he was a kid, that's what
he did, and now he gets to use that skill
set to build his wife a lawnmower racing, and we
didn't have a trailer, so we just had our Nissan truck,
so he had to go buy some ramps, and we
(06:39):
pushed the lawnmower up the up the ramps into the trailer,
hoping to Jesus that it wouldn't follow the ride or
the left are on top of us. But that didn't happen,
you know, thank goodness. So now that I've been racing
for a while, my husband he's decided to get on
(07:00):
in on the action and he bought himself an FXT lawnmower,
and I actually have another lawnmower in FXS that I'm
still learning how to drive. So I'm really comfortable and
driving my GPT that goes about thirty five miles an
hour around the track, but I haven't become one hundred
(07:20):
percent comfortable in the FXS, which probably goes between forty
five to fifty miles an hour. It's definitely dangerous, but
that's my next goal, is to be one hundred percent
comfortable driving that the first time I ever raced, right,
my husband was taking pictures of me and he's like, Julie,
(07:41):
I can see the fear in your eyes, and I'm like, yep,
it was there.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The fear was there.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So I you know, I'm thinking to myself, have I'm
about to go out on the track?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Is you know I have to put what's that word?
Do you say?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You have to put your mouth where your foot is
or your foot where your mouth is.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I'm like, this is it? I am? I am,
I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So basically, you racing classes, they go from like JP
is for the young kids, but the highest classes AREX
S and FX T And basically when you see a
te at the end of any of our classes, that
just means you're racing an engine with twin twin cylinders.
It's supposed to go faster than a single cylinder engine.
(08:34):
So lawnmower racing is a co ed sport, right, it
doesn't matter if you're a boy or girl. And basically
the person who wins is the person who brings the
best writing lawnmower and has the best driving skills, because
at the end of the day, you can have the
best driving skills. But if you haven't worked on your lawnmower,
(08:54):
it's going to break, you know, two three laps in
and then you're out of the count. And I see
that happen a lot of times. People drive for hours
and then their lawnmowers aren't working the night. That's always disheartening, right,
But basically, the person with the best equipment and the
best driving skills wins because we're all racing on the
(09:14):
same track and we all should be following the same rules.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And you've been listening to Julie Tinman tell her story
about the greatest show on turf, and that of course
is lawnmower racing. And when we come back more of
her story and her husband's and millions of American hobbyists
who do all kinds of fun and silly things with
their time here on our American stories. And we continue
(10:10):
here with our American stories and lawnmower racer Julie Tinman
and her husband who is the let's just say pit boss,
crew engineer, and everything else in between. We continue with
this family story about a family hobby.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Here's Julie.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Everybody for the most part, is really nice and encouraging,
you know, we take tips from each other. Mainly the
senior guys are telling us youngins how it should be done.
I have on occasion been able to keep out ahead
of ahead of some of the gentlemen I race with,
and afterwards, you know, they talk about cutting the wires
(10:53):
on my engine or letting my gas out, you know,
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
But they take it.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Easy on me because I'm a girl, which I don't
know if I like or don't like, but I'll take it.
You know, we all have to pick out a three
digit code to put on our lawnmower. And like some
people race for Jesus, they race for cancer, they race
(11:20):
for a family name.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
On my personal one.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I we don't have a theme. We I just chose
the code forty five T because that meant a lot
to me. For it means it means. It's double meaning, right,
It's kind of like it's double meaning. But the first
meaning is for our forty fifth president, and the second
(11:48):
meaning is it's basically basically about my aide and T.
You know, the first initial of my last name. You know,
you have the inside track and you have the outside track.
And my first lawnmower race, I rode the outside track
(12:10):
the whole way through, and at the time there was
this wonderful lady, Jennifer, and she would just I'm like, oh,
there goes Jennifer. There it goes Jennifer. There goes Jennifer.
I think she lapped me like three times. I'm so embarrassed.
I was so embarrassed that that I wasn't more brave.
(12:31):
I didn't have, you know, additional courage. But everybody was
very complimentary and encouraging.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
After I did the race, and every time I went
out there, I just got faster and faster. And now
my life's mission is to never get lapped.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's my life's mission.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I really I want to win, you know, I want
to place first, second, third, But at the end of
the day, if I didn't get lapped, I am doing good.
So one of the things that I always wondered is
does it hurt when I see these you know guys
fall over. I kept wondering that, and finally, you know,
(13:15):
God answered my question because there I guess it was
a couple of months in I was going too fast
and I got caught on the high side and I
flew off my lawnmower and ran over.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
My foot landed on my back, but I was fine.
It was fine.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It was a little like you go in slow motion
as you're kind of flying through the air and has
you fill the lawnmower kind of going over your racing shoes.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
That's why you wear racing shoes.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So what I go out there in is a motorcycle
racing jacket that has you know, the paddings on the
elbows and the shoulders and the back, and you have
to wear long blue jeans or any jeans. It's good
if you in the upper classes, if you wear fire
resistant pants because sometimes you were engine does catch on fire,
(14:06):
and you wear a neck brace and a helmet. One
of the things that I find helpful for me as
a racer to mentally prepare for.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
This race so that I.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Am competitive, because I can't go out there like, you know,
happy go lucky, right, happy go lucky. It's not going
to win the race, so I kind of have to
change my thought processes a little bit. And Curtis O'Brien,
he's one of our one of our guys actually president
(14:45):
of the Camp Shela Racing Association. He says, you know,
just get angry, you know, just pretend like you're you know,
actually I can't really say what he said.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
But at the end of the day, at the end
of the day, the thought is just to just to
row yourself up, to get angry, to pretend like you're
you're driving like.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
A bat out of hell to get get out of
a place you don't want to be.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So there I am. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm angry.
I needed, you know, drive super fast and just do
all the things I told you earlier that you shouldn't do. Right.
You think about the safety of others when you do,
but at the same time you have to make yourself
a little bit angry so that it's a different part
(15:35):
of your brain you use. I guess the number one
injury and lawnmower RAF scene is a broken collar bone.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
So I always want to go fast. But at the
end of the day.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
One of the things that our track Stewart always says
is we all have jobs to go home to on Monday.
All right, we have jobs and we have families. So
you're out there, you'd be safe and and if you
can't pass someone safely, then.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You're not passing them.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So we all try to remember that when we're out there,
but when you're trying to win, sometimes it's hard.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But we have been very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We have have not had any racing injuries that you
couldn't recuperate from the next day, So we've been very fortunate.
But those things happen. But I don't let that fear
take over me so much. I mean, it is there,
it does exist. I mean, if you're not afraid when
you're out there, at least a little bit, then there
(16:36):
may be something wrong there.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's good to be afraid for your life and afraid
for somebody else's life. And we race for trophies. We
don't race for money most of the time. Sometimes they'll
have special events and they'll put up some money, but
at the end of the days for fun, to hang
out with your friends, your family. I keep telling my
husband that my dream is that one day that we're
(17:01):
we're retired, we both can retire and all we do
is drive around the United States racing at the different events.
Because there's events in Louisiana and Alabama and Georgia and.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Missouri and Illinois.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They're everywhere, and I would love love to to go
out and race race everybody because normally you just race
with your same group of people who have lawnmower racing
unless they come out of town. So it's great to
race with other guys because you learn, I don't know,
they kind of push you a little bit, you know,
especially if they're faster.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You kind of just want to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Keep up, so you can you push yourself even more.
Now I have to learn you if you do start
lawn more racing, one leads to two, two leads to four,
four leads to eight. So it is very addicting because
you do have so much fun driving them. You just
want to drive them more, more and more, and you
(18:00):
see all these coolawn mowers setups and you just want
to try it out. So there is my word of caution.
So in a nutshell, that is what lawnmower racing is about.
Really is giving you adventure for the weekend and while
you're hanging out with your friends and your family and
allowing you to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Life and a great job. As always by Greg Hangler
on the storytelling and a special thanks to Julie Tinman
with sharing her story, her passion, her family passion, and
that's racing lawnmowers my life's mission. She said, never get left.
I want to win, get second, even third, but I
(18:42):
don't want to get left. You gotta love it. We
race for trophy, she said. It's for fun and to
hang out with friends and family. The professionalization of sport
can actually ruin all the fun, and that's what lawnmower
racing brings to these folks who pursue the sport and
so many other hobbies across this great country. Julie Tinman's story,
(19:05):
her husband's and her families here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. The Lone Star
Mower Racing Association, and that's LSMRA for you fans, started
in nineteen ninety eight, but the sport of lawnmower racing
goes back the nineteen seventy three, when an irishman named
Jim Gavin and a few of his mates were fed
(00:31):
up with the hefty price tag that came with most
motor sports and wanted to create a sport that was
cheap and accessible to everyone. As the pints flowed, they
looked out the window and there was the groundsman mowing
the grass. It was then that they realized, hey, everyone
has a lawnmower. That's when they decided to have a race.
(00:52):
Eighty mowers showed up for the very first contest. Here's
Julie Tinman with her story about the greatest show on turf.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, I think I'm pretty much a unique unicorn. I
don't know anybody in my family who is into lawnmower racing.
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, on the southwest
side of town. My parents worked, each worked two full
time jobs, so they were hardly at home because they
were always working, you know, trying to provide for us,
(01:22):
and I didn't know it at the time, but we
were poor, which was the best kind of poor, right
You didn't know you were poor when you were a kid.
You only figured it out when you got older and
you're like, oh, yeah, I didn't get to do all
those things, but I kept so active that I didn't
let any of that really bother me very much, you know.
And after high school I did go off to college. Unfortunately,
(01:45):
I found myself in the same position my parents were in.
I had to work two jobs just to take care
of myself and pay for my apartment and where.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I lived and food and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I think what minimum wage was four bucks an hour
at the time, so I was working forty to sixty
hours a week. So it took me eight years to graduate,
but I did it. I kept my bachelors in accounting.
And after that, instead of going to Europe with my friends,
I decided to get married and we would go kayaking,
(02:19):
we would go fishing off the piers, and we also
started cycling because basically, you know, I took the stress
out of life because he and I both had full
time jobs that were very demanding and very stressful, so
We found great, great pleasure in doing these these activities together,
and it also you know, created a bond between us. Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So we were doing that, we were doing our thing.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And then I was blessed with some children and he
and I raised these two beautiful kids. So the kids
are grown at they're what twelve and fourteen now, and
he and I are watching YouTube and these lawnmower racing uh,
(03:07):
you know, men come up on the on the screen
and I'm looking at that and I am like, wow, Rob,
I think I would do that, And he's like you would,
and I'm like, yeah, I would. I would race the lawnmower.
And my husband, he is all into cars. Like, he
didn't do sports growing up. He built cars. That was
his thing. So I don't know what I.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Unlocked there, but.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I definitely unlock a piece of him. He has, you know,
a piece of his Uh. They hadn't been able to use,
you know, the skills that you needed to build something.
So he wanted to make sure that he and I
both knew what we were getting into. So we looked
up lawnmower racing in Texas, came across LSM Marie and
(03:53):
found they were racing at a track called Camp Sila
over Inhia, Texas. It's kind of to the right of
Fort Worth, and we visited the track and it was
just like I imagine everyone going fast to round a
track on a lawnmower. Some of the faster ones looked
like little go karts. So he basically what he had
(04:16):
to do is look up the roles for the US
Lawnmower Racing Association to see, like, what did he need
to do to build this lawnmower so I could race it.
So we bought our property about twelve years ago. And
when we bought our property, we had to buy a
writing lawnmower because it was too much to do, you know,
(04:37):
a push lawnmower.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
It's been retired ice.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It's sitting in our graveyard of stuff out back, so
we decided to resurrect it. A fun fact about this
lawnmower that for me anyways, is that when we first
bought our property, my husband would have me sit in
the little trailer attachment the back of the writing lawnmower
and my kid ds were like one and.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Three at the time. That he would put the kids
in the.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Trailer with me and would do like little hay ride
around our property with the kid, and that's what we
did entertain them in the evening. So I just find
that it's just cute that we are now using this
lawnmower to, you know, go fast around a track. So
one of the questions that I'm always asked, the very
(05:27):
first question is about the blades.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Like everyone's really worried about the lawnmower blades.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And yeah, I'm here to reassure everybody that the blade
of the lawnmower are the first things that are that
it is removed, Like you don't race with lawnmower blades.
I guess he reinforced the frame, lowered the chassis. He
had to put a new steering system and any braking
system system in. Oh, a new lawnmower tires, right, he
(05:54):
had the darnedest time trying to put the tires on
the wheel with axel. He a new seven eight Predator
engine that gives like twenty two horse power. We can
go up to like thirty five miles per hour. It
can go pretty fast. I know, it kind of seems slow,
but when you're not wearing a seat belt, it's still
(06:17):
a little scary. So he had lots of fun doing that.
Like I said, when he was a kid, that's what
he did, and now he gets to use that skill
set to build his wife a lawnmower racing, and we
didn't have a trailer, so we just had our Nissan truck,
so he had to go buy some ramps, and we
(06:39):
pushed the lawnmower up the up the ramps into the trailer,
hoping to Jesus that it wouldn't follow the ride or
the left are on top of us. But that didn't happen,
you know, thank goodness. So now that I've been racing
for a while, my husband he's decided to get on
(07:00):
in on the action and he bought himself an FXT lawnmower,
and I actually have another lawnmower in FXS that I'm
still learning how to drive. So I'm really comfortable and
driving my GPT that goes about thirty five miles an
hour around the track, but I haven't become one hundred
(07:20):
percent comfortable in the FXS, which probably goes between forty
five to fifty miles an hour. It's definitely dangerous, but
that's my next goal, is to be one hundred percent
comfortable driving that the first time I ever raced, right,
my husband was taking pictures of me and he's like, Julie,
(07:41):
I can see the fear in your eyes, and I'm like, yep,
it was there.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The fear was there.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So I you know, I'm thinking to myself, have I'm
about to go out on the track?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Is you know I have to put what's that word?
Do you say?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
You have to put your mouth where your foot is
or your foot where your mouth is.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I'm like, this is it? I am? I am,
I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So basically, you racing classes, they go from like JP
is for the young kids, but the highest classes AREX
S and FX T And basically when you see a
te at the end of any of our classes, that
just means you're racing an engine with twin twin cylinders.
It's supposed to go faster than a single cylinder engine.
(08:34):
So lawnmower racing is a co ed sport, right, it
doesn't matter if you're a boy or girl. And basically
the person who wins is the person who brings the
best writing lawnmower and has the best driving skills, because
at the end of the day, you can have the
best driving skills. But if you haven't worked on your lawnmower,
(08:54):
it's going to break, you know, two three laps in
and then you're out of the count. And I see
that happen a lot of times. People drive for hours
and then their lawnmowers aren't working the night. That's always disheartening, right,
But basically, the person with the best equipment and the
best driving skills wins because we're all racing on the
(09:14):
same track and we all should be following the same rules.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And you've been listening to Julie Tinman tell her story
about the greatest show on turf, and that of course
is lawnmower racing. And when we come back more of
her story and her husband's and millions of American hobbyists
who do all kinds of fun and silly things with
their time here on our American stories. And we continue
(10:10):
here with our American stories and lawnmower racer Julie Tinman
and her husband who is the let's just say pit boss,
crew engineer, and everything else in between. We continue with
this family story about a family hobby.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Here's Julie.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Everybody for the most part, is really nice and encouraging,
you know, we take tips from each other. Mainly the
senior guys are telling us youngins how it should be done.
I have on occasion been able to keep out ahead
of ahead of some of the gentlemen I race with,
and afterwards, you know, they talk about cutting the wires
(10:53):
on my engine or letting my gas out, you know,
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
But they take it.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Easy on me because I'm a girl, which I don't
know if I like or don't like, but I'll take it.
You know, we all have to pick out a three
digit code to put on our lawnmower. And like some
people race for Jesus, they race for cancer, they race
(11:20):
for a family name.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
On my personal one.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I we don't have a theme. We I just chose
the code forty five T because that meant a lot
to me. For it means it means. It's double meaning, right,
It's kind of like it's double meaning. But the first
meaning is for our forty fifth president, and the second
(11:48):
meaning is it's basically basically about my aide and T.
You know, the first initial of my last name. You know,
you have the inside track and you have the outside track.
And my first lawnmower race, I rode the outside track
(12:10):
the whole way through, and at the time there was
this wonderful lady, Jennifer, and she would just I'm like, oh,
there goes Jennifer. There it goes Jennifer. There goes Jennifer.
I think she lapped me like three times. I'm so embarrassed.
I was so embarrassed that that I wasn't more brave.
(12:31):
I didn't have, you know, additional courage. But everybody was
very complimentary and encouraging.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
After I did the race, and every time I went
out there, I just got faster and faster. And now
my life's mission is to never get lapped.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's my life's mission.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I really I want to win, you know, I want
to place first, second, third, But at the end of
the day, if I didn't get lapped, I am doing good.
So one of the things that I always wondered is
does it hurt when I see these you know guys
fall over. I kept wondering that, and finally, you know,
(13:15):
God answered my question because there I guess it was
a couple of months in I was going too fast
and I got caught on the high side and I
flew off my lawnmower and ran over.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
My foot landed on my back, but I was fine.
It was fine.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It was a little like you go in slow motion
as you're kind of flying through the air and has
you fill the lawnmower kind of going over your racing shoes.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
That's why you wear racing shoes.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So what I go out there in is a motorcycle
racing jacket that has you know, the paddings on the
elbows and the shoulders and the back, and you have
to wear long blue jeans or any jeans. It's good
if you in the upper classes, if you wear fire
resistant pants because sometimes you were engine does catch on fire,
(14:06):
and you wear a neck brace and a helmet. One
of the things that I find helpful for me as
a racer to mentally prepare for.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
This race so that I.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Am competitive, because I can't go out there like, you know,
happy go lucky, right, happy go lucky. It's not going
to win the race, so I kind of have to
change my thought processes a little bit. And Curtis O'Brien,
he's one of our one of our guys actually president
(14:45):
of the Camp Shela Racing Association. He says, you know,
just get angry, you know, just pretend like you're you know,
actually I can't really say what he said.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
But at the end of the day, at the end
of the day, the thought is just to just to
row yourself up, to get angry, to pretend like you're
you're driving like.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
A bat out of hell to get get out of
a place you don't want to be.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So there I am. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm angry.
I needed, you know, drive super fast and just do
all the things I told you earlier that you shouldn't do. Right.
You think about the safety of others when you do,
but at the same time you have to make yourself
a little bit angry so that it's a different part
(15:35):
of your brain you use. I guess the number one
injury and lawnmower RAF scene is a broken collar bone.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
So I always want to go fast. But at the
end of the day.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
One of the things that our track Stewart always says
is we all have jobs to go home to on Monday.
All right, we have jobs and we have families. So
you're out there, you'd be safe and and if you
can't pass someone safely, then.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You're not passing them.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So we all try to remember that when we're out there,
but when you're trying to win, sometimes it's hard.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But we have been very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We have have not had any racing injuries that you
couldn't recuperate from the next day, So we've been very fortunate.
But those things happen. But I don't let that fear
take over me so much. I mean, it is there,
it does exist. I mean, if you're not afraid when
you're out there, at least a little bit, then there
(16:36):
may be something wrong there.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's good to be afraid for your life and afraid
for somebody else's life. And we race for trophies. We
don't race for money most of the time. Sometimes they'll
have special events and they'll put up some money, but
at the end of the days for fun, to hang
out with your friends, your family. I keep telling my
husband that my dream is that one day that we're
(17:01):
we're retired, we both can retire and all we do
is drive around the United States racing at the different events.
Because there's events in Louisiana and Alabama and Georgia and.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Missouri and Illinois.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They're everywhere, and I would love love to to go
out and race race everybody because normally you just race
with your same group of people who have lawnmower racing
unless they come out of town. So it's great to
race with other guys because you learn, I don't know,
they kind of push you a little bit, you know,
especially if they're faster.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You kind of just want to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Keep up, so you can you push yourself even more.
Now I have to learn you if you do start
lawn more racing, one leads to two, two leads to four,
four leads to eight. So it is very addicting because
you do have so much fun driving them. You just
want to drive them more, more and more, and you
(18:00):
see all these coolawn mowers setups and you just want
to try it out. So there is my word of caution.
So in a nutshell, that is what lawnmower racing is about.
Really is giving you adventure for the weekend and while
you're hanging out with your friends and your family and
allowing you to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Life and a great job. As always by Greg Hangler
on the storytelling and a special thanks to Julie Tinman
with sharing her story, her passion, her family passion, and
that's racing lawnmowers my life's mission. She said, never get left.
I want to win, get second, even third, but I
(18:42):
don't want to get left. You gotta love it. We
race for trophy, she said. It's for fun and to
hang out with friends and family. The professionalization of sport
can actually ruin all the fun, and that's what lawnmower
racing brings to these folks who pursue the sport and
so many other hobbies across this great country. Julie Tinman's story,
(19:05):
her husband's and her families here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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