(Apologies if you got this one twice. I killed my webserver earlier and had to recover this one from the cache.)
Look — if you’re going to live in Oklahoma you can do one of two things: deny it, or embrace it. Me, I’m all about embracing and experiencing things, which is how my family and I ended up for a second time at the El Reno GRASCAR Races.
My dad, Mason and I have attended the races once before. I told my wife it was “three or four years ago” but after finding this old blog entry I guess it’s been eight. Time flies, and all that. Despite that, little has changed. Races are held in El Reno every other week during the spring and summer. Attendance is free and attendees can sit outside the fence on chairs or go inside and sit on the metal bleachers.
We arrived as the different vehicles were doing hot laps, testing and tuning their rides. This bored the kids to tears as they had no interest in watching things zoom around the track whatsoever.
Roughly an hour after the scheduled time, races began. According to the GRASCAR website they race karts, yard karts, power puff flat karts, and riding lawnmowers. I couldn’t tell you which was which, but the general rule seemed to be they began racing smaller, slower karts and worked their way up to bigger, faster things.
All the karts were loud and many of them slung dirt on to us as they whizzed by, even though we were behind two fences and not next to a corner. When the races began things got a lot more competitive and it wasn’t long before we saw our first crash of the evening.
The kid was alright, even though his kart was dead and had to be hauled off by a 4-wheeler. I was actually less worried about the kid (who was wearing a helmet) than I was for his mother who ran out on the field carrying a new born baby, although I must admit I’ve been out on the basketball court a time or two whenever my kids go down.
As bigger and faster karts took the track the action got louder and faster which eventually won the kids over. The highlight for me however is always the riding lawnmowers.
According to the website, all lawnmowers must have started life as a real riding lawnmower. There are a ton of rules on the website regulating the height, bumpers, and engines of these mowers (it specifically prohibits nitrous oxide, for example) and warns drivers that any mower can be inspected to ensure that they have brakes, which is amazing to me to think that anyone driving a 35mph lawnmower would not want brakes installed on it.
Our favorite driver of the night, whom we dubbed “Satan” (for his all-red outfit and red waving bandanna in the rear) easily smoked the competition and won his heat. His “8 Ball” helmet (with two GoPro camera mounted to the top of it) was a crowd favorite.
We left during intermission — two hours of kart racing madness was enough for this group. Being completely free and only 20 minutes from my house I can’t believe I don’t go to these races more. The next time I’m going I will announce it online to see if anyone else wants to join me.
Below are three Vine videos (6 second loops) I recorded while at the races. You can click the speaker icon in the upper left hand corner to un-mute the sound.
Mini Sprint Cars
500cc Sprint Cars
And finally, the riding lawnmowers!
Oklahoma. Is this a great state or what?
EDIT: I found some POV footage from our favorite racer. Tell me again you wouldn’t want brakes on this thing!!
There’s just nothing that I don’t absolutely love about this.
The owner of the first PC shop I worked for was into mini-sprints big time. A substantial portion of the shop’s profits went directly into his car. Fun stuff.