It’s 4 p.m. on a Saturday in Ellerbe, North Carolina, and though the races are not scheduled to start for another two hours, a lively tailgating scene has already formed. William English, a regular, is with his little boy, who timidly approaches some of the drivers for autographs. William says, “That boy only likes three things in this world: school lunches, dinosaurs, and the lawn-mower races.”

Down the hill in the pits, the drivers are revving up their mowers and puttering to the track. William announces, “That’s a Crouch coming!” William claims he can recognize specific drivers by the sound of their motors. “Some mowers have different tones. It all depends on the exhaust pipes, the carburetion. Everybody works on their mower and the changes give them a unique sound. I guess I have a tuned ear.” I strain but can’t hear anything distinctive in the roiling sonic storm. William shakes his head and says, “These machines are doing something they were never meant to do.” There’s a glint in his eye that suggests this is part of lawn-mower racing’s charm for him.

~

Just a few years ago, the lawn mowers of Ellerbe were idle on Saturday nights. But that all changed when Jeff Johnson and his step-father, Bill Lawrence, both members of the local Lions’ Club, shared an epiphany: Why not transform the Lions’ Club’s old horse-show ring into a lawn-mower-racing track and raise funds for the Club by charging admission? So, in 2005, the town of Ellerbe staged its first lawn-mower race, which featured two mowers. Nowadays, as many as fifty lawn mowers compete in bi-weekly races with as many as 1,500 people in attendance to watch them—not bad when you consider that Ellerbe’s population is just over 1,000.

History has nicely situated the town of Ellerbe to be the Mecca of lawn-mower racing. Stock-car racing was born on the kind of North Carolina back roads you can still find around Ellerbe. It was for outrunning police on those back roads that bootleggers running moonshine started modifying their cars. Before the sport evolved into the NASCAR that is today a glitz-and-glam industry far removed from its rural roots, this renegade spirit and love of speed was celebrated in local car races. Ellerbe is just ten miles from the North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, a historic track that was abandoned in 2004 by NASCAR in favor of larger venues. The next year, Ellerbe hosted its first lawn-mower race. The timing was not coincidental.

Four years after NASCAR’s departure, Ellerbe’s attitude toward the association seems like the same sort it might direct toward a hometown-boy-made-good who forgot his roots. The town is proud of its ties to the sport but also bewildered by, and maybe a little resentful of, its runaway success. Faded cigarette advertisements featuring NASCAR drivers still adorn the local hardware store and the walls of the downtown pool hall. But Ellerbe people are now probably more likely to fall into conversation about local lawnmower drivers than NASCAR racers.

~

As I wander the racing grounds, I discover that Cagle Mowersports has the most inviting tailgating setup. I’m drawn in by a gathering crowd and, in this heat, the hum of electric fans. When I approach the makeshift party, I’m greeted by a group of racers. Jeff Johnson, standing in the shade of the Cagle Mowersports’ trailer, explains the community’s newfound obsession with lawn-mower racing: “This is a way to continue our love of racing. If we tried to get back into cars, we’d have to put in $25,000, but to get a mower to racing standards you could spend $100 for the stock or $5,000 for the modified.” (The races are divided into classes, from fast to fastest, including Men’s and Ladies’ Stock Class—which no woman has ever entered—Super Stock, 40- Plus Modified—for racers forty years old and older—and Factory Modified.)

According to Johnson, lawn-mower racing is the only motor sport accessible to “the working man with a family.” Drivers race for money in Ellerbe, but with the cost of modifying mowers, a $20 entry fee, and a winning pot typically under $200, it’s clear that most drivers will never break even. But that’s not the point—at least, not according to the men I’m talking to.

The Cagle Mowersports’ fully equipped trailer is provided by Jeff Cagle, a racer I’ve been told is a “real crowd pleaser.” When Cagle begins to speak, the other men who are loitering in the shade momentarily hush themselves, and I understand that Cagle is a local hero of sorts. He’s not just a lawn-mower racer—he’s an entertainer.

“I heard Richard Petty say one time that it was all for the fans, and I feel the same way,” says Cagle, a towering man with a permanent grin. His modified lawn mower bears a Superman logo and blue strobe lights. “The crowd loves me,” he confides, “children really flock to me, and I take time out for them.”

The other men join in with their own passionate testimonials.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re racing as long as you’re racing!”

“We work hard and we play hard, and we drive the same way—hard.”

I head for the registration area. Lynyrd Skynyrd plays on the observation-tower speakers as mowers line up to be inspected by the Chief Steward, who will decide whether the machines are eligible to race. (There is no lawn in lawn-mower racing, just a dirt track, and blades must be removed.) The queue includes mowers advertising local businesses, mowers with flaming hot-rod paint jobs, an old Craftsman mower with numbers shaped out of primary-colored electrical tape, a black stock model that’s been turned into a bumblebee with yellow duct tape, and even one orange mower, bearing a Confederate-flag decal, named General Lee.

I find myself staring in awkward silence at the machines with a slender, twenty-something guy sporting a dark mustache. I ask if there will be a crowd tonight, and he explains that people might be late because of the Bigfoot monster-truck show taking place in Rockingham. I must look disappointed, because he quickly adds, “Don’t worry. They could have Bigfoots and Jesus in Rockingham and there’d still be a crowd for the lawn-mower races. It’s a religion around here.”

~

At five, the rest of the audience arrives, their pickup trucks rolling onto the racing grounds, metal porch chairs rattling in the beds.

The event has the feel of a high-school football game, couples in lawn chairs have blankets over their laps and are eating popcorn, teenagers are huddled in groups flirting and laughing. Though no booze is permitted on the grounds, the atmosphere is jubilant.

The mowers begin to warm up on the dirt track. They start slow, but soon they’re bolting over the dirt, back tires slipping toward the fence as they hit the curves. Exhaust fumes hang over the growing crowd. Chunks of dirt fly into the air, even landing in my hair and on my notebook. The noise is overwhelming, nearly painful.

I step away from the fence while men and women around me lean in, weaving their arms and lit cigarettes through the slats. Just as I start to think I’m going to have hearing damage from the sound, one mower stops directly in front of me and backfires—flames visibly erupting from the tailpipe—and I jump so high that the man behind me laughs. I’m shaken, but everybody else is fine, including Ellerbe local Jill Vuncannon, who’s aiming a video camera at the action. Every Sunday after a race, Jill’s extended family—she claims she’s distantly related to at least fifteen of the drivers racing today—comes over to her house to watch the videos. “We have a good time telling everybody what they did wrong,” she says.

“My son races, my brother races,” she continues. “I cheer for everybody so I won’t look prejudiced.” Jill also says that half of her church congregation is in the crowd. “It’s hard when you’re in church trying to be good and you’re still mad from the night before.”

The races have already changed a great deal from when they premiered. Jill explains, “At first, it was just lawn mowers from the house, what people tinkered on. But last year, the Crouches came here with souped-up lawn mowers and, honey, people got busy.”

The pursuit of more and more speed, which seems to be at the eardrum-thump-thump-thumping heart of the lawn-mower race, is, ironically, the same impulse that turned down-home stock-car racing into NASCAR. But the evolution of lawn-mower racing in Ellerbe shows no signs of slowing down. As Jill says, “Things seem to move up a level every year.”

~

When Jeff Cagle enters the track on his pearly-blue and chrome mower, there are no flocking children, but there are screaming women. “Be safe, Jeff!” one calls out.

The race is faster than one might expect a lawn-mower race to be. In fact, the colors of the mowers streak and blur under the lights: Blue…silver…yellow, then silver…blue… yellow. Plumes of dust shimmer like miniature galaxies of stars as the lawn mowers reach speeds of up to seventy miles per hour. In the final lap, Jeff Cagle’s machine trails a taxi-cab-colored mower called Ole Yeller, piloted by a member of the rival Crouch clan. Cagle’s mower crosses the finish line in second place, but his spirit is far from broken. He flashes me a peace sign as he passes and I wave, with a thrill, feeling like I might just have to go out and get myself a silk-screened T-shirt emblazoned with Cagle’s logo.

~

Another race is scheduled to start soon, but I have a feeling I’ve already experienced this Saturday’s most exciting event. I strike up a conversation with a nearby middle-aged couple, Dewey Lamb and his wife, Connie, who have attended the past five Ellerbe races. They drive nearly an hour to reach the track, but Dewey says it’s worth it. “If it’s got a motor in it, I’ll watch it race. I love seeing the paint jobs and all the old-style metal bodies. It’s nice to see the drivers out there testing their skills. I’m just waiting for a woman to get out there.”

Mid-evening, the track gets eerily quiet after the lawn mowers roll into the pit for a break. The track’s concession stands offer candied applies, boiled peanuts, sugar-laced funnel cake, cinnamon-flavored pork rinds, pinto beans, and hush puppies. While scarfing down a funnel cake, I cover my black T-shirt with a fine lace of powdered sugar, which almost complements the thin layer of coppery dirt covering my entire body—lawn-mower racing couture at its finest. Dewey gives my outfit a sideways glance and says, “I left here last week covered in mud.”

I’m doing my best to clean myself up when I hear discordant music echoing in the valley on the other side of the track. It sounds like an out-of-tune marching band warming up to play, complete with cymbals clashing. I listen for a minute, disoriented, and look around to see if local high-school musicians might be on hand to provide an intermission show.

I ask Dewey about the cymbals. He looks at me quizzically, shaking his head. Suddenly, the lawn mowers appear from the pits in an uphill parade and I realize my marching band is actually just the echoing of motors. From where I’m standing, I can’t tell exactly which mower is making the sound, but a series of high, brassy clangs slice through the deep baritone bellow of the others.

This is Ellerbe’s familiar symphony of brass—exhaust reverberating in tailpipes. Alone, the cymbal-sounding mower would not be mistaken for anything other than what it is: a piece of machinery intended to keep the domestic world from growing wild. But in concert with the other machines on the track, the finely tuned motor is an instrument forcing an unexpected, rebellious song into being. It sounds like the future.