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U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association Finals Labor Day Weekend

August 23, 2012 by

Sta-Bil Mower Racing Series

The US Open is coming on Labor Day weekend. No not that one, the final race of the U.S. Open Racing Series, and as I am sure that you all know, this means lawn mower racing at its finest! Actually that weekend will be the close of lawn mower racing season and the STA-BIL Keeps Grass Fresh Finals will also take place.

While I have not watched that much lawn mower racing I became fascinated with it when I read that a racer named Bobby Cleveland managed to get his mower to reach 96 mph on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. I have had several cars that could not reach that speed.

So next weekend is the biggie for the league with the top race in a 20 year old series, the STA-BIL Keeps Grass Fresh Finals and the finals in the inaugural season of the U.S. Open series both taking place at the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Delaware, Ohio.

For fans of the TV show “Home Improvement” the 150 horsepower Dixie Chopper Jet Mower, built on the show and which once mowed a football field in 14.2 minutes will be on display as will the 104+ Octane Boost mower that holds the world land speed record for mowers, shown in the video above.

There are five basic classes of mowers (seven overall I believe) allowed, although they all share some characteristics. They must all have been sold commercially, have the grass cutting blades removed and have working brakes and a kill switch.

The classes start with the stock class, fresh off the factory floor. Then there is the JP Class for kids from ages 10-15. The IMOW (International Mower of Weeds) class is a highly regulated front engine grouping followed by the Prepared Class that allows modified drive trains, engines and other parts. The final class is the FX Class that allows major modifications.

I should note that there is more than one lawn mower racing league and here we are just talking about the U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association and not the American Racing Mower Association or any other organization. The races will be broadcast on Fox, although I have not yet found the time, so it could be tape delayed.

If you are interested there are even mobile apps to play as if you are a driver with Lawn Mower Madness at the Apple App Store. I wonder if this invention is the next racing platform, or is it just a fad?

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Filed Under: Contests, Fox Sports, Outdoor Activities, U.S. Lawn Mower Racing Association Tagged With:

Athletepath Debuts Race Tracking App at Hood to Coast Relay

August 21, 2012 by

Athletepath

The other day a friend went zipping past my house setting what looked to be a pretty good pace and he ran down my gravel, pot hole stricken street and away he went around the corner and up the hill. When I ran into him later in the weekend he said that he was just on a 10 mile run in preparation for the annual Hood to Coast Relay.

It turns out that a number of friends and acquaintances are going to be participating in the relay, either as runners or as team volunteers. So how do you follow people in a two day race when the roads are closed and it is hard to tell team times?

Well one startup company, Athletepath, is going to give it a shot with a product that is just now emerging from beta. The product uses social media to keep followers of atheletes informed on their progress and enables the athletes to fill in their followers about what is going on with them.

The company, started by Wieden + Kennedy’s Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) that selected the company last year as one of nine companies to get funding, out of 275 applicants. The founders of Athletepath include CEO David Embree, Christian Reed as front-end developer and Junichi Furukawa as lead technical developer. A look at their athletic resume shows triatheletes, cyclists, soccer player and skier, among other outdoor activities that they and others on the team participate in.

The free app can be used with any browser and uses official race timer information to keep racers and their followers up to date on their progress. It can use email, text or post to Twitter results when someone crosses the finish line that you are following.

The goal of the program is more than just a tool to inform fans of ongoing results. It also informs athletes of upcoming events in which they may be interested in participating.

Hood to Coast Relay

About Hood to Coast
The race is an interesting event that takes place over the course of two days and runs, as its name implies, from Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood east of Portland, down the hill and onwards to the ocean, finishing leg 36 in Seaside the following day.

The starting altitude of the race is over 6,000 feet above sea level and each leg is anywhere from 3.52 miles to 8.09 miles in length. There is also a start in Portland for teams that are doing the walking version of the race as well.

It is a pretty big event and this year it expects to have 1,050 teams, each with a maximum of 12 runners and a minimum of eight that will take on the challenge of running the entire 199 mile course over the two days of August 24 & 25th. This is the 31st running of the event and the first year it had eight teams.

While it might seem that this could be a receipt for confusion as some teams come, like at events such as Bay to Breakers, just for the fun of it and with no real expectations of finishing the race, the race has a rather strict approach and gets times from previous races to judge the quality of teams. It also looks at finished times and uses that for seeding teams. There are a series of penalties for a variety of infractions ranging from 30 minutes to 60 minutes to disqualifications.

Now I can tell my friends I was there watching and citing their team times as proof, and as long as they are unaware of the app I can reap free beers for being such a supportive friend! A win for everybody in my book.

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Filed Under: Apps, Athletepath, Contests, Hood to Coast Relay, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: ,

Professional Disc Golf? It's Growing

August 14, 2012 by

PDGA

It was pointed out to me that, duh, there is a difference between the Ultimate Disc League, which plays a version of football with discs, and the Professional Disc Golf Association, which plays a version of golf while also using discs.

While the PDGA season has been ongoing for sometime, there are still a number of major and minor tournaments on the board, both for pro and amateur players including the European Championships that start Wed. Aug 15 and run through the weekend. They are being held in Colchester, United Kingdom and currently there are 195 players registered for the event.

A quick look at the sport first. Disc golf was formalized in the 1970s, but its roots go back decades earlier and there has even been at least one attempt to create a commercialized league in the 19

60s. By the 1970s there was groups forming leagues, Wham-O, the inventor of the Frisbee was behind disc golf while others codifying rules and they eventually settled on a set of rules and from this the PDGA eventually emerged.

Disc golf has much the same goal as traditional golf, completing a course with the lowest score, in this case that means the fewest throws. A player covers the course and each new throw is from the landing spot of the previous one. The hole is usually an elevated basket called a Pole Hole.

I have to say that I was truly amazed at the breadth and scope of the leagues that are available for the average and pro player. There appears to be a high degree of organization that is often difficult with an endeavor that is so wide spread but that does appear to be present here.

One thing that really appeals to me is that the courses can have a great deal of quirky features. At the 10-hole course near my house there is a bus stop on the course along with a flagpole, a sculpture and a balcony shot from the 10th hole. The fact that they brew beer on the premises and it is in wine country is just two extra bonuses!

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Filed Under: Contests, Golf, Outdoor Activities, Professional Disc Golf Association Tagged With: ,

Spartan Races Expands- Three this Weekend!

August 10, 2012 by

After competing for the attention of fans against the Olympics for two weeks it looks as if Spartan Races is taking the upcoming weekend off prior to heading into a very busy period that will see multiple races on several of the next dates.

For competitors in the UK there will be a third event in a row (not counting the off week) as the contestants head down to Yorkshire for the continuation of a grueling set of events held in the United Kingdom. The race is slated for Sun, Aug 12 and will start at 10 am, so head on out to Ellington Banks to watch or participate.

There is a pair of events up in New England this weekend, so if you cannot head out on Saturday you still have a viable option to get your Spartan on.

– Freelance Photography – Cameracareer.com'>Sell Your Digital Photos – Freelance Photography – Cameracareer.com

The events will be held over at the Amesbury Sports Park in New Hampshire and will start at 8 am ET.

Also as a note I see that Dial for Men is now a sponsor, at least for the New England Spartan Races. Other major names have appeared on the Spartan Race Web site in the past but I am not sure of they are just filler or if the races have signed additional sponsors. Hopefully we will see more advertisers/sponsors come on board, which in turn could help get some of the events broadcast on television.

There has been no update on winners of the last two UK events on the pages web site and I did not find any additional information at its Facebook page. If anybody can point me to a page that has current winners circle information I would appreciate it.

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Filed Under: Contests, Spartan Race Tagged With:

For a Fling this Weekend Watch the American Ultimate Disc League Playoffs

August 1, 2012 by 5 Comments

I was recently having a beer outside at a pub that I had never been to before and a friend asked me if I wanted to play disc golf. An odd request when drinking beer but before I could point that out he said that there was a course there.

I made the mistake of saying I thought that they had gone the way of pet rocks. The people at the table next to ours seemed to take great glee in pointing out my ignorance and even said that there was a number of professional leagues and they followed one called Ultimate Disc.

I argued, to no avail, that there could not be a professional league because ESPN would be showing it instead of spelling bees. Anyway there is, and possibly more than one, and there may be a tournament near you, or even the playoffs, which will be continuing this weekend.

http://www.pdga.com/
The league that I was pointed to was the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL), apparently because the people I talked with were transplanted Bostonians. There are other leagues as well, such as the Professional Disc Golf Association or PDGA, which we will likely look at in the future.

The league has just finished a 15 week season and its playoff teams have risen to the top of the heap with two team from both of its conferences, the Western and Eastern, with the winners of each conference playoff slated to play in the inaugural AUDL championship game that will be held September 11 at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.

The Western division played last weekend and the top ranked Bluegrass Revolution lost to the Indianapolis AlleyCats 24-20. This weekend Eastern Division Championship will be played with the Philadelphia Spinners, owner of best record in the league, hosting the Rhode Island Rampage.

I never did make it out to the course, I guess I will have to head back for a round and try my hand in the near future.

Filed Under: American Ultimate Disc League, Contests, Outdoor Activities Tagged With:

Spartan Race in Cambridge an Alternative to Olympics

July 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

For sports fans that want to get out of London for the crowds that have gathered for the Summer Olympics but still want their live sports fix, head on over to Cambridge to catch this weekend’s Spartan Race.

The popularity of the event can be seen in that even competing with one of the major sporting events of the year it has already filled 80% of available slots for the athletes, showing that they would rather compete than watch someone else do so.

Held at Bassingbourne Barracks Royston, Hertfordshire the event will be held Sunday July 29 with the first heat starting at 10 am Elite heat for the 5km race. As always the obstacles for the race are held secret until race time, which is a pity since it would be nice to get a photo or two of them in advance. Below is a look at last week’s race in London.

A bonus for this event is that if you manage to dominate you can win entry into a Super Spartan event, and then you can try and dominate there!

The current Top 5 in the point series
1) Hobie Call 12,272
2) Christopher Rutz 12,257
3) David Glover 12,245
4) Shane Mckay 12,222
5) Shawn Feiock 12,213

As of the running of this piece the results from last week’s events had not been posted so in the future we will post race results two weeks after the fact.

Filed Under: Outdoor Activities, Spartan Race Tagged With:
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