RACE WEEKEND RECAP: The 2016 STA-BIL National Lawn Mower Racing Series Opens in Florida

Wow, what an incredible ride at the Avon Park Mower Plex was this year! If you didn’t make it down to sunny Florida for the 3rd Annual STA-BIL Snow Bird Nationals hosted by NASGRASS, you missed a good one! You also missed an important announcement about the 2016 STA-BIL 360 Performance Finals, but I can’t tell you about that right now. MOW info will be coming real soon.

The USLMRA staff, drivers, and crews from around the country descended upon Avon Park, Florida on Friday March 11 for an action packed weekend of fast, clean racing! Drivers came in from as far away as Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland to participate in the weekend racing events. It was an all-star kind of event, though. Many of your coveted 2015 National Award Winners were in attendance. The Mace Mullins Crew Chief award recipient, Mr. Pat Sullivan, the Dave Hertel MOWtivation award winner, Andy Clabough, the JP Rookie of the Year, Drew Clabough, the Most Improved Driver, Mariah Peeler, and your 2015 Driver of the Year, Derrick Robinson were all in attendance for the first race of 2016. It was a fantastic show!

 
There were also some other special guests that were at the track to greet us; Mr. Lee Liebernez and his family were with us all weekend! Many of you who are new to the organization may not know who Mr. Lee is; he is an icon within USLMRA! He was one of the “first!” From back in 1992, when the organization began. One of the “Original 27!” I was able to spend a good bit of time talking to him over the weekend. I must say, he has some stories to tell! I think my favorite story of all was listening to him talk about Bruce asking all of the drivers to participate in a costume contest one time. Needless to say, Mr. Lee won the costume contest by sporting around a pair of boxer shorts with hearts on them! This gentleman has many wonderful stories, and it was a true pleasure to be able to spend some one-on-one time with him. If you ever see him at a racetrack, stop him, talk to him! I promise you will walk away with a smile on your face from listening to any one of his amazing memories of the old days at the track!

Let’s get down to business. I know that many drivers have had questions or concerns about safety, flagging, calls, etc. since all of the mess about the bumpers started earlier this year. Let me just put all of your worries to rest right now! The USLMRA staff were all on their “A” game! They were ready and prepared for anything! It seemed as though our drivers were not, though. It started at Registration; there were many drivers who showed up late to Registration. This was not the first national event for some, they know how things go. There is a schedule posted ahead of time to inform you all of important times, please be mindful of that in the future. Manny also made the comment that he has never turned so many mowers away in tech. The rules were posted for all to see; a warning also came with the rules stating that you wouldn’t race if your mower wasn’t right! Some of the offenders were new members, but again, some were veterans. My advice to you all is to read the rulebook, read it multiple times. If you don’t understand something, ASK! Manny is on his “A” game this year, there is no more “fix it by the next race.” It is now, “fix it, or you don’t race today!” I appreciate that Manny, thank you!

 
Thankfully everyone was able to get their issues fixed and make the race. USLMRA also is doing something new with flagging this year. In an effort to make the playing field equal at each track, they are taking a flagman with them this year. This weekend, we had the wonderful Mr. Alan Elder on hand. He did a great job! Manny and two of the awesome Avon Park crewmembers manned the infield. No stone was left unturned there either. When they saw potential rough driving going on, they had a talk with the offenders! Way to MOW, USLMRA! I’m proud to be part of such an outstanding organization!

Ok now enough of that, y’all want to hear about racing! Friday was a beautiful day in Florida, it was not hot, thankfully; but it was windy! With that being said, the wind dried the track out as soon as water was dispensed on to it. That proved for some wild racing; the track was slick, but there were still no major accidents. There was close racing in every class. Personally, I feel the AP class put on some of the best racing all weekend, though. Rocket Man Racing had 4 mowers on the track in this class and they were putting on a fantastic show. All were having fun, trading positions back and forth, and it was great! The GP class was still insane! Although there weren’t as many mowers in that class this year as there were last, it was still a hold on to your seat kind of race. There were mowers dividing the pack up the middle, mowers going from the back to the front, they were three wide, sometimes even four wide! There were a few times that I honestly closed my eyes and prayed, especially since my brother, Tommy Hartness is one of the newest racers in the GP class. The faster classes had a pretty hard time with handling on the track Friday, but they all still put on a great show that was a lot of fun to watch.

 
On to Saturday; it was pretty warm, but still not hot, there was no wind, and the racetrack looked good! Let me not forget to tell you though, that Wes Pyburn and his fantastic crew worked on the track throughout the night, into the early morning to perfect the track for Saturday’s events. Doc Kuhfeldt was amazing as our Track Announcer all weekend, both in the race play-by-play and in working the crowd to pump up the 50-50 raffle. Well done, DOC!. Way to MOW, NASGRASS crew, you all were top notch all weekend! We had a great early morning trophy ceremony, the trophies were amazing! Fab Werks did a fantastic job on them. The spirit and spark trophy was my favorite though. It was around 3 feet tall, they had a wine bottle (spirit) and a spark plug (spark) on them, they were amazing! Congrats to everyone who received one, and thank you for all of your hard work and dedication. We then had a fantastic drivers meeting, and registration and tech were a success! Before we knew it, day two of racing was underway. It was loud, it was fast, and it was clean! Each class put on a spectacular, action packed show for the record-breaking crowd in Avon Park! And, the FXT guys made it through an entire race without one single caution!

I would like to thank each and every person who had a hand in making NASGRASS such a wonderful organization! These people all pitched in the help make this race go smoothly. I saw many of the drivers wives cooking meals for everyone to enjoy, I saw the wives running back and forth stocking the facilities with supplies as they were needed, everyone was gathering up trash, keeping things nice, it was wonderful to witness the team that they all are! If you personally want to do something to help grow the sport of lawn mower racing, please go volunteer at your local mower track!

I hope to see you all out on the road soon! The next stop on the calendar will be Sacramento, CA on April 23 and 24, we hope to see you all there!