The Grass and the Furious: Ladies... Start Your (Lawnmower) Engines!
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, across small-town America, fields that once grew corn and clover now host something unexpected: racing lawn mowers. The smell of fuel mixes with cut grass, and the sound of modified engines echoes across the open air.
For Julie Tynmann, these races aren’t about fame or money; they’re about community and the thrill of seeing how far a racing mower can go when you push it to its limit.
Julie shares how she found joy in this unlikely corner of motorsport, where every turn of the wheel reminds her that adventure can begin anywhere, even in your own backyard.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.4 | To beat the champ, you got to knock him out. |
| 0:08.0 | The Dodgers stand tall and win back-to-back titles. |
| 0:12.7 | I'm Richard Parks the third. |
| 0:14.4 | My show Dodger Blue Dream captures all the drama, tension, and ecstasy of the best world series win of all time in our new episode, Game 7. |
| 0:26.0 | No way! |
| 0:27.3 | Out now. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Dodger Blue Dream on the Ihard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:33.7 | Music And we continue with our American Stories. |
| 0:47.8 | The Lone Star Mower Racing Association, and that's L-S-M-R-A for you fans, started in 1998, but the sport of lawnmower racing goes back to |
| 0:59.8 | 1973 when an Irishman named Jim Gavin and a few of his mates were fed up with the hefty price |
| 1:07.2 | tag that came with most motorsports and wanted to create a sport that was cheap and accessible |
| 1:13.0 | to everyone. As the pints flowed, they looked out the window and there was the groundsman |
| 1:18.5 | mowing the grass. It was then that they realized, hey, everyone has a lawnmower. That's when they |
| 1:24.9 | decided to have a race. 80 mowers showed up for the very first contest. |
| 1:30.6 | Here's Julie Tinman with her story about the greatest show on turf. |
| 1:36.7 | Well, I think I'm pretty much a unique unicorn. I don't know anybody in my family who is into |
| 1:43.1 | lawnmower racing. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, on the southwest side of town. |
| 1:49.0 | My parents worked, each worked two full-time jobs, so they were hardly at home |
| 1:53.0 | because they were always working, you know, trying to provide for us. |
| 1:57.0 | And I didn't know it at the time, but we were poor, which was the best kind of poor, right? |
| 2:02.6 | You didn't know you were poor when you were a kid. You only figured it out when you got older |
... |
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