A'roarin' in the hayfield!

A hayfield is usually a quiet, placid place. One doesn't expect a lot of commotion out there. But on Saturday evening, July 26, Bill Patterson's hayfield on Lee Town Road had a lot of roarin' goin' on. The Pea Ridge Lions Club's fourth annual Lawnmower Race, otherwise known as the Race For Sight, was held Saturday evening for the third year at the Patterson Farm on Pea Ridge's east side.

The races feature modified lawn tractors, one-cylinder and two-cylinder units of 25 horsepower and less. A few run quietly, but most make lots of noise as they charge around the oval track at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. All the mowers run with modified transmissions adapted to gear them up for speed, while retaining their basic belt-driven nature. Most racers have fuel system modifications to help increase power and RPMs, and to help stabilize the engine's performance during the bumps and rough maneuvering on the race track. Some units have been lowered and may use smaller wheels to give them a low-to-the-ground profile. Being less top-heavy, these may be able to corner with less risk of tipping over. I didn't see anyone tipping over during Saturday evening's races, but several racers made the curves on two wheels, obviously having to baby their mowers to maintain themselves upright in high speed cornering.

Most of the races begin with the competitors taking a preliminary run together around the track, lining up as a compact bunch as they approach the starting line. If all is well, and the flagger gives them the Go, they come blasting past the crowd at full throttle down the stretch, maneuvering for advantage as they negotiate the curve around the end of the track, and accelerate like a mad fury down the far side. Usually during the first round, a leader or two with the fastest mowers will establish their positions, and the race is on. But quite often a challenger or two who got off to a slower start will begin to catch up to the leaders. Sometimes the challenger will actually take the lead on the back straight-a-way, but fall back on the turns. It is quite a sight to see the contenders slidding around the turns and into full-throttle acceleration on the home stretch, engines roaring.

The Lions Club members are known for doing a bit of roarin' themselves. The Lions Club is a community service club, known especially for sight conservation services, helping individuals with eye exams and eyeglasses, and supporting various community betterment projects. The Lions enjoy putting on a novel family entertainment event such as the Lawnmower Races, and when the crowd roars to spur on the racers, the Lions roar, too. The Lawnmower Races are a major fundraisers for the Pea Ridge Lion's Club, enabling their sight services and family aid, as well as providing a fun summer event for area families. Racers and fans this year came from all over northwest Arkansas, especially Benton and Carroll counties, as well as from southwest Missouri and northeast Oklahoma. The crowd seemed larger than in past years, but obtaining a precise count has proved difficult to do.

When I was a boy on the farm, being in the hayfield usually meant work, hard work, hay leaves down your shirt, stickers in your socks, salty sweat in your eyes, and load after load of hay to bring in to the barn. I do remember a few exciting times when young Jersey bulls would try to bluff each other by bellowing and pawing the dirt. They might not be really big in size, but they could make that deep, throaty, big-sounding bellow that said I'm tough, and I'm here to be a contender! Lawn tractors likewise may not be that big in size, and may not have the thousand horsepower engines of the monster truck shows, but the lawnmower racers put on a really exciting show, and great fun is had by all, out roarin' in the hayfield!

The Lions Club extends a thank you to all the participants and supporters from the Pea Ridge community and the numerous surrounding communities for helping make this year's Lawnmower Races successful and fun. Thanks also goes to the Cannonball 4-H Club members for their help with the parking and with special intermission activities for the younger kids. Thanks, too, to the business sponsors who helped make the event possible. Everyone was also grateful for the shade of the trees, the cooling west wind, and for the fact that the rains stayed away. Thanks everyone for a rip-roarin' good time.

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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Editorial on 07/30/2014