PORT HADLOCK — This track isn’t for your father’s lawnmowers.
The new race track on a former concrete plant site near Nesses Corner Road is grass-free and hard-packed gravel for riding lawnmowers racing at speeds of 40 mph or greater.
Nearly 50 serious lawnmower racers, some from as far away as Canada, Iowa and Oregon, will compete during the Hadlock Days 2008 weekend July 11-13.
Hadlock Days Association member and volunteer Lloyd Crouse is pretty revved up about it.
Crouse will be one of those breaking in the track he helped build, along with Port Hadlock businessman Jim Morgan.
“My mower got a ticket going 71 on the street,” said Crouse, proudly looking over the 470-foot track on former A.J. Hill property where other Hadlock Days events and vendors will be set up.
The Shine Quarry and Penny Creek Quarry in Quilcene donated the base surface gravel for the track, which has 6 percent banked turns.
The Hadlock track will join the state’s lawnmower-racing circuit that includes Sequim, Omak and Chehalis.
“This has become a real popular sport,” Crouse said.
