Friday, September 02, 2005
Pushing a Lawnmower to the Max in Granger
Gentleman start your engines! And with a great roar that is exactly what happened the other day in Granger. Yes, Granger, land of a few remaining farms, sprouting McMansions with no sidewalks, and the wonderful if, umm, odd restaurant called Eddy’s Steak Shed. This roar occurred at a lawnmower business that has built...I kid you not...a serious race track for those who want to push sit-down lawnmowers to the max. Yep, picture your basic John Deere riding mower pimped up and you will get an idea of what I’m talking about. Ok, these babies may not be, as Bruce Springsteen sang on “Racing in the Streets,” “a sixty-nine chevy with a 396 Fuelie heads and a hurst on the floor,” but they can still get these things up to an amazing speed. One guy told me that his pride and joy tops out at 40mph or so when he’s whirling around the track. But, and this is a big but, they don’t just go fast; these machines are driven to win the coveted modified lawn tractor grand prize--or something like that. The whole scene is just jaw-dropping fun, with more than a sprinkle of craziness thrown in. And from my view in the stands the whole thing looked like the Indy 500 had somehow been reborn by some weird accident right into the heart of Michiana.
Now to put it mildly, the racing was not for the faint of heart. It was intense, unbelievably loud, and adrenaline-filled. I was pretty exhausted just watching the whole thing. And especially so when I noticed that some of the racers were driving so fast that they were hitting the corners with two wheels in the air. Given this intensity, it will come as little surprise that I witnessed one tractor pushing another into a wall at a rather fast clip. Happily, the machine wasn’t totaled, though the driver’s ego seemed a bit bruised. And days afterward, I remain struck by the seriousness of the whole affair: these guys wanted to win and showed no mercy to their opponents. I’m sure the naughty words were flying from those who were getting cut off, but the roar and din of the engines prevented my ears from being sullied. And while these big guys...and trust me some of these guys were pretty darn big...could cut each other off in a split second, there was a great deal of hugging going on once the race was over. To cap it off, as I was leaving I overheard one guy say to another that this was simply “Normal, everyday family fun.” True, there was a cookout, kids were cheering on their dads, and moms were overseeing the raffle. But I’m not quite sure about the normal part here. In any case, it was the biggest blast I’ve had in some time.
Tough guy that I am, as I was leaving the parking lot I realized I had worked up quite a thirst. I stopped on the way home at the Bella Vita coffeehouse, spiffy signifier of the new Granger. At first glance I can not imagine two more different places in Granger: I had just come from this race-track hidden in the woods and now I was cruising into this upscale coffee house that oozed a metrosexual quality. Yet, it was at this very coffee shop a couple of months ago that I first picked up the flyer announcing the lawn tractor races for the summer. Clearly the Red State-Blue State divide had been breached over a nice cup of coffee.
Upon further reflection, what gets me about this whole episode is the secret qualities that inhabit the whole affair. In other words, just off Granger’s beaten path where shopping malls, drugstores, and gas stations are sprouting, are these little gems. I imagine more than a few Grangerites would never dream of watching a bunch of lawnmowers go round and round when they can drive their Ford Expeditions into their garage, stop off at the refrigerator, and then plop themselves down in a den that has satellite tv and a Playstation. Why go out in other words when the world is at your fingertips? My advice to remedy this matter: come one, come all, the next lawn mower race is Sept. 25. And if you need a drink, Bella Vita is setting up a drive-through. What could be nicer?
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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