Jim Gavin had raced cars all over the world but by 1973 the Irishman had become disillusioned with the prohibitive cost of the sport. So that year he and a few locals gathered at the Cricketers Arms in Wisborough Green, West Sussex, to try and devise a cheap form of motor sport that was accessible to all. While downing their pints in search of inspiration, they gazed out across the village green and saw a groundsman mowing the cricket pitch. In a Eureka-like moment, they decided that lawn mower racing was the answer, reasoning that everyone had a lawn mower in their garden shed. Soon afterwards, around eighty competitors turned up for the inaugural lawn mower race in a local farmer’s field. A new variation of motor sport had arrived on the scene.
The British Lawn Mower Racing Association now boasts some 250 members. The 12-date race calendar starts in May and ends in October and includes the British Grand Prix as well as the jewel in the crown of lawn mower racing, the 12-Hour Endurance Race. Although for many competitors the social drinking is as important as the racing (actor Oliver Reed, who lived nearby and was the possessor of a legendary thirst, regularly entered a team), lawn mower racing has also attracted more conventional racers. Stirling Moss has won both the British Grand Prix and the 12-Hour Race while five times Le Mans winner Derek Bell has won the 12-Hour Race twice, once in tandem with Moss. Discovering that they were up against a team of Stirling Moss and Derek Bell, it is little wonder that the other entrants needed a stiff drink.
The competing mowers are split into four classes according to design and the degree of modification. There used to be a fifth class until hand-mowers, with the driver running along behind, were wisely banned on safety grounds. Original mower engines are retained on all of the ride-on machines but the blades are removed for obvious reasons.
Since the mid-1980s the 12-Hour Endurance Race has been held in a huge field at Brinsbury College near Pulborough. The bumpy circuit measures ⅘ mile (1.3km) in length and the fastest speeds – of up to 40mph (64.4km/h) – are reached on the 500 yard (457m) long pit straight. The race starts at 8p.m. on the Saturday with the drivers making a Le Mans-style dash across the track and finishes at 8a.m. on the Sunday. Each team is allowed up to three drivers (all competitors must be over 18), who tend to operate in 30-minute shifts. Basic floodlights illuminate the main straight during the hours of darkness but the rest of the track is lit only by mower headlamps. Not surprisingly, in the dead of the Sussex night driver error is commonplace.
Forty-one teams, including one from Luxembourg, lined up for the 2006 event, fielding names such as Pain in the Grass Racing, Crash Test Dummies and The 24-Inch Boys. Among them were three all-women teams – Mower Maids, The Boozy Birds and Bad Girls. While a number of competitors fell by the wayside on the hard, unforgiving ground (six mowers sustained broken axles), Accident Prone, under the tutorship of local mechanic Jeremy Eldridge, powered to victory, completing 366 laps to finish 26 ahead of their nearest rivals, Northerners Kick Grass. The result was scarcely a surprise. Accident Prone’s mower was the same machine that had triumphed in 2005. This was clearly the Arkle of lawn mowers. It had travelled nearly 300 miles (483km) at an average speed of 31⅕mph (50.2km/h), compared to The Boozy Birds (winners of the unmodified Class 1) who pottered around at a more sedate 9mph (14.5km/h).
The for-lawn competitors soon adjourned to the pub to recount and embellish their tales of derring-do. By the time the alcohol had dulled their aches and pains, most were vowing that nothing would stop them coming back to mow next year.