Highlands Today
Sebring, Florida
April 6, 2008
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'Mow Fun' In The Family
Kathy Waters/Highlands Today
From left: Kyle, Trudy, Kari, Kurtis and Tom Ast are all heavily involved in the lawn mower racing circuit. With the exception of Trudy, who is heavily involved with working at the races, the entire family races lawn mowers.
By Douglas Carman | Highlands Today
Published: April 6, 2008
AVON PARK — An Ast family reunion would probably involve a dirt track and lots of high-speed lawn mowers.
Whether it's in Avon Park or in Minnesota, Tom Ast, his two sons and his daughter spend a lot of their family time building each other's racing mowers. Trudy, Tom's wife, adds that she doesn't ride a mower of her own only because she's too busy working on the registrations for the lawn mower races.
"Someone has to stay in one piece to drive the trailer home," Trudy joked, and "we have mow fun."
The family tradition started six years ago, Tom said, when a buddy of his took him to the Avon Park Mower Plex for one of the races.
He drove a few four-wheelers and ATVs before, but he never thought of racing lawn mowers until then.
"I was like Will Smith in Independence Day, 'I gots to get me one of these,'" Tom grinned.
From there, his kids had similar moments when they saw their dad racing on the track. His oldest son Kyle, 18, got a mower of his own the following year after he lent a hand building his dad's racer.
"We jumped in it," said Kurtis, 16, who has gotten into the sport three years ago.
By Sunday, Tom, Kyle, Kurtis and Kari, 13, all had their own mowers soiled from Saturday's races.
Mow Family
Kari and Kurtis said that they do some of the tune-ups and oil changes, though Kari said "I'll have dad do the major stuff."
The hobby involved the family so quickly that their dad is now the president of the Florida Lawnmower Racing Association, and has been the president for three years.
Yes, just three years after that Will Smith moment of his.
"It's been an accelerated learning curve, let's put it that way," he said. His long, full beard couldn't hide his grin as he said that.
It takes the family an entire day to work on their mowers before a race, and they hit more than a dozen of them each year. Like many of the other racers at the Mower Plex this weekend, the Asts haul their lawn mowers in a trailer and drive to each race.
Even though he and the children all race, they never compete against each other, Trudy said, since they're in different classes. The thought of racing against each other has crossed their minds though, with Kyle wanting to move to one of the higher classes where his father competes.
The family acts as a racing team, though they added their neighbor Scott Thieme to the group after he met Kyle.
"He asks, 'do you race mowers,'" Thieme recalled. After he said yes, Kyle asked if he had a welder, and even though he didn't, it went from there.
"It was just a family deal but he fit right in," Tom Ast said.
The other kids normally don't find other racers that easily. Kari said that her friends back at middle school think lawn mower racing is a race to see who can mow a strip of grass the fastest.
"I don't think I met anyone at my school that heard of lawn mower racing until I told them and they gave me the same reaction, like, 'lawn mower racing?'" Kari said.
