Hosting a Lawn Mower Race
If you need entertainment for a fund raiser or community event, contact the NDLMRA today. The North Dakota Lawn Mower Racing Association performs at fairs, festivals, fundraisers, and civic events of all nature. We are essentially a traveling circus intent on pleasing your crowd.
The NDLMRA has a number of packages available to suit your needs and fit your budget, prices vary dependent upon how big a show you would like us to put on. In that we are limited in our numbers the need to draw racers from other states plays heavily into the size of the show and the cost of travel becomes a factor for those joining us from far away places.
The NDLMRA will provide -
- Racers!
- Racing Mowers too!
- Flagmen
- Announcers - The Sound Equipment will cost you extra if we have to pack it along however!!
- Trophies for the Winners.
- Insurance - Up to $2 million dollars limit of liability for the event.
The Host Organization will provide -
- The Track - If you want a great show, it needs to be SMOOTH!
- Bales to line the track.
- Fencing around the track and pit area.
- A water truck - to keep the dust down.
- Ambulance
- Volunteers to take gate.
- Volunteers to assist with lap counting.
- Volunteers for crowd control
- Sound Equipment
- The CROWD! We don't bring our own!!
Essentially, we provide you with racers and mowers. We will do our own flagging as we've encountered too many problems with volunteers who are not familiar with proper flagging procedures. (Yeah, I know it looks easy enough, but it is a little more difficult than you might think!) We will announce the race, if you have a local announcer hired to work other events, by all means bring him along, we will assist. Knowledge of the machines, the rules, and the racers, while announcing, is instrumental in providing you with a great show. We will provide the trophies for each show. Insurance for each event is provided by NDLMRA through the US Lawn Mower Racing Association and NKA. The policy provides coverage for injury to the racers, as well as spectators should they be injured.
The host organization is responsible for locating a site for the race, and track preparation. Typically our tracks range in length from 650 - 750 feet. We can run tracks down to 500 feet, but that slows the race considerably! Likewise extremely tight corners slow our speeds, longer sweeping turns allow us to carry greater speed through the corner. And, I cannot emphasize enough that the track needs to be smooth. Typically first time venues have a tendency to underestimate the speeds we run on these mowchines, and don't consider the fact that we have NO suspension on them! Rough tracks slow our speeds, and often present us with unsafe conditions to race. It's impossible to stop for a downed racer if your mowchine is airborne!
We need enough square bales to line the track approximately 10 feet apart, both inside and outside of the track. We try not to damage them! And, as a rule we don't; bales are hard on mowers, and often harder on drivers!
If the location is not fenced, (i.e. local ball field or race track) you must install snow fence for crowd control purposes. Both the bales and snow fence are required by our insurance provider, there is no negotitation in these matters.
A water truck of some means to keep the dust down, is pretty much a must. The track will dry out with traffic and dust not only prevents your crowd from seeing the event, it presents the racers with unsafe track conditions. Typically a local contractor, or the local fire department can fill your needs. We will race in the worst of it, however we prefer to be able to see the guy in front of us.
Although our insurance requires only that you provide response time by the ambulance, it is in the host's best interest to have the ambulance on hand at these events. Having someone lying on the ground writhing in pain for a half hour while waiting on the ambulance to show up is not going to leave a good impression in your spectators' minds folks! Someone will suggest you were irresponsible in not having an ambulance on site, if you subject them to that.
If you charge entry you will of course need someone to take gate, we don't do that! Likewise, we'd appreciate some assistance with lap counting; if our wives and girlfriends are all along it's not a problem, otherwise one or two volunteers are needed to count laps off as the guys go flying by. And, you'll need someone to keep the crowd out of the pits, until the races are over. Again this is an insurance demand; for safety reasons, spectators are not allowed in the pits until the races are over. Once the races are over, we will be more than happy to accomodate anyone that wants to visit the pits, talk to the racers, ask for autographs, or look the mowchines over. But only after the race! Until that time we need someone to keep them out of the pits.
Again, we will provide or assist with announcing the event, but we do not provide the sound equipment. One of our members does have some sound equipment available, IF YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN'T FIND ANYONE ELSE. However, it is limited in size, and again, it takes up room that would be better utilized hauling his mowers and other equipment. If you elect to hire his equipment, that expense is in addition to the NDLMRA's fee for the race.
If you'd like more info on hosting a race, please click the contact link below or visit the Contact Page.
