This Is What It Is Like To Race $10,000 Lawn Mowers In Texas [PHOTOS]

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Head down to a county fair in Texas, and you may find helmeted men racing through dirt tracks at bristling speeds on, of all vehicles, lawn mowers.

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The pastime is a strange motorsport that photographer Jennifer Boomer started documenting after moving to the Lone Star State. Indeed, lawn mower racing began as a joke, according to a July 2013 profile of the sport in the Wall Street Journal. It was meant to poke fun of the "slickness" of professional motorsports but eventually became a "mini-NASCAR" with its own trading cards and advertisers.

Found in many parts of the Midwest and South, lawn mower racing has a particularly strong following among old-timers in Texas.

"There was a bit of the 'good ol' boys' in [the racers]," Boomer told Business Insider. "They're very community-minded, but they're having a good time."

Lawn mower racing can be an expensive sport, with racers spending $10,000 on a mower alone, though local companies often sponsor the races or racers. Blades are removed from the mowers for safety.

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"We call it the poor man's NASCAR," Richard Lively, who has won the state championship in Texas multiple times, told the Longview News-Journal in 2011.

Boomer shared some of the photos with us here, but you can check out the rest of her work at her website.