Our probe into strange sports on the lunatic fringe takes a hairpin turn into the realm of lawn mowers and cups. You just have to read it to believe it.

Lawn Mower Racing: United Kingdom, United States of America

Say it again now, slowly. Lawn. Mower. Racing.

The depths of human eccentricity never cease to stupefy. How useless is grass to begin with? What purpose does grass serve, other than to lend a certain aesthetic quality to our yards and shame our neighbours? Think about it. Suburbanites invest more time in grass and lawn care than they do in their children. Once you succumb to the deadly desire to maintain a perfectly manicured lawn at all costs, the game is over. That downward spiral leads to one place and one place only: madness.

Now the unnatural obsession with grass has spawned a sport. Madness again could well describe the dark place where lawn mower racing was conceived, some decades ago in the United Kingdom. The British it seems, will race just about any machine with a motor and wheels. Avid gardeners and landscapers as well, some maniacal mind saw fit to marry the two pastimes together in a macabre union of recreational activity. The result is perhaps the most sinister craze to hit grass since the Slip ?N Slide.

The British Lawn Mower Racing Association ? there is a U.S.A. equivalent body ? has been in existence since 1973, which leads us to conclude that this sport is green no more. Whatever you have to say about the bizarre nature of a sport that cheers on contestants on lawn mowers, at least the origins are noble. The Irish pioneer behind it was a rally car racer who found the scourge of corporate interests and high costs of the sport tiresome. And this was back in the ?70s. His goal: start a new sport with a premium on fun, not money. As such, there really is little on the line in BLMRA (again with the acronyms) sanctioned lawn mower races, other than pride (integrity too perhaps). Twelve races are now held every year between May and October, from Wales to Sussex, the most notorious of which is the 12-hour endurance race, a sort of Dakar Rally for lawn mower enthusiasts. We may as well mention what is already obvious. The idea for the BLMRA began over pints at a village pub.

Check out some great deals on UK hotels before you head there for the next big lawn mower race.

Now there?s an idea for a new oddball sport. What team, while on the brink of total inebriation, can brainstorm the most inane and oafish excuses for sports in ten minutes?

Sport Stacking: United States of America, United Kingdom, anywhere boredom runs rampant

Confession: our investigation of oddball, zany, weird and frankly, stupid sports, has become irksome. Exasperated with a preponderance of blasphemous, irreverent recreational pursuits with no visible end in sight, we bring you the sport of stacking.

Has it really come to this point? In our quest to diversify and whittle life down to infinitesimal niches and specializations, do we now in fact live in a world where people stack cups … for sport? The answer is an emphatic: We do! We do!

Witness the World Sport Stacking Association, whose website arrogantly displays the link ?About WSSA.? The nerve. How dare they assume acronym knowledge awareness on par with NATO, FIFA or the aforementioned BLMRA? Other notable observations from the association?s home page include the graphic that declares, ?Need a cup to stack?? and then exhorts readers to visit a website that sells sport stacking gear, including, but not limited to, ?stack mats?, ?wild cups? and wait for it … instructional DVD programs.

On how to stack cups.

What a sports marketer?s dream. But more on the WSSA and the sport itself. The mission of the WSSA, as they declare on their website, is to ?promote the standardization and advancement of sport stacking worldwide.? There is a rule book which you can download and read (we absolutely drew the line there) and a list of tournament results and records. From the looks of it, participants basically stack cups in pyramid-like formations over and over in a certain timeframe. Clearly, we have hit a new low.

Despite our instant, near nauseous revulsion of this quasi-sport, we feel sincere empathy for the child on the home page of the WSSA website. Happy and proud, he displays the medals he has won at a WSSA event completely oblivious to his newfound status as mega-dork. Perhaps when schoolyard hoodlums wail blows on the innocent, as they inevitably will with good cause, he will know better than to stack cups for sport.

Save money on U.S. hotels the next time you journey to America … hopefully for a better reason that to watch some kids stack cups.

More from the world of zany sports up ahead …

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6