Mezzanine said:In the OP video, the number of people without hearing protection in the "warm-up" was astounding to me. I only saw one person wearing earmuffs and didn't spot any earplugs around all those open headers. Is hearing damage manly or something?
HUH?! WHAT? Did you just call me a sissy?!
I stumbled into a fairground near Houston back in the 90's and found some good ol boys having a pit bull powered sled pulling competition. The weights on the sled were worn out drill bits from the oil patch. Sometimes the dogs break their legs. Stay classy Texas.
1975 was my first summer on the race track. I had shipped out with my trotter on the Grand Circuit.
I had two firsts in my life our stop at the Indiana State Fair. The first was to drive a horse in a training mile.
The second happened a couple of hours later as I was coolling out my horse, when I heard a race engine run full out for the first time.
As soon as I got my horse put away, I headed over to see what was going on. They were just starting the unlimited class tractor pulls. As a kid from Central Florida, I didn't know there was such a thing as tractor pulling.
Tommy Ivo was there with a pulling tractor version of his 4 engine Buick dragster, running 4 fuel injected nail head Buicks. I knew what I was looking at because I had built a model of his dragster a few years earlier.
He did a full pull.
I remember watching this when monster truck racing still did tractor pulls as the ushra back in the 80s. Got to see it live at the metrodome in Minneapolis. To this day, easily the loudest thing I've ever heard and I've been front and center at Metallica. As a kid, the idea of 6 motors blew my mind. Then some dude came out and he had two rolls royce or Allison turbines on his tractor. Jet engines on a tractor? Holy E36 M3! Not even robosaurus eating cars was cooler then that.
The first tractor pull I saw was in central Michigan in the 70's. Our family along with another family were camping and a county fair was going on near by. We decided to go look around at the fair and heard the roar of engine and wandered over to see what was going on. A lot of locals with actual farm tractors as well as four wheel truck but also had some modified purpose pulling tractors. As a gear head I was intrigued. Went to a couple other tractor pulls before moving to the south where tractor pulling is almost nonexistent. Still watch it on TV. It's a lot more technical then the name suggests and very popular in the Midwest Heartland.
Back in the early 80's, a co-worker was the grandson (i think) of the builder of "The Peanut Queen." with two blown BBC's. Very famous pulling tractor in our area. I later met that guy through car stuff. Very nice, laid back, knowledgeable guy. Passed away in 99, I think. Fromj Wakefield VA.
adam525i (Forum Supporter) said:Over in Poutine land (Quebec) they prefer truck pulls, this "town" is basically a junction of two roads with around 1000 people there normally but hosts a big event every year with around 60,000 spectators and competitors (Notre Dame du Nord if you are interested).
A trip to Rodeo du Camion is on my list of places to go.
We used to go see the tractor pulls every time they came to Nassau Coliseum. It's probably played a part in my hearing loss.
Sparkydog said:I stumbled into a fairground near Houston back in the 90's and found some good ol boys having a pit bull powered sled pulling competition. The weights on the sled were worn out drill bits from the oil patch. Sometimes the dogs break their legs. Stay classy Texas.
Why did you post that?
We go most years to watch at the fair. Few people I know have built some pulling tractors, fun little toys.
One of the semi trucks from the semi pull lives about 3 miles up the street on a farm, I think it's pretty cool just to drive by and check it out.
On the day of the animal auctions at the fair, we usually catch horse pulling in the arena after the sale. Slow, quiet, but damn impressive.
Here's a couple tractors I pulled with as a teenager.
The gray Case (not the actual tractor) belonged to a friend. Mid-1930's and maybe 15-20 horsepower. But it pulled a wheelie most of the way down the track.
The red McCormick (mid 50's) was maybe 50 hp stock, but my dad installed M&W pistons and sleeves when he was a teenager. I used Turbo Blue fuel. Timing advance was done by a handle on the steering column. Strongest tractor in the weight class, back in the mid 1980's. Now being used again on my cousin's hobby farm.
In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :
I made the mistake of going to the Hampton Coliseum for a tractor pull once. One of the bigger mistakes I ever made! I rode choppers without hearing protection, and shooting as well, in the dumb old days, but I wasn’t even dumb enough to do THAT again. And the fumes were worse than the loud!!!
APEowner said:Duke said:You have never seen a catastrophic engine failure until you have seen a top level pull tractor let go at full scream.
I built tractor pulling engines in the '80s. We did have some impressive carnage. When you've got a big block twisting to 8k rpm and the tires unload bad things happen. Spectacular, but bad.
Top fuel cars can put on quite a show when they let go too...
RevRico said:We go most years to watch at the fair. Few people I know have built some pulling tractors, fun little toys.
One of the semi trucks from the semi pull lives about 3 miles up the street on a farm, I think it's pretty cool just to drive by and check it out.
On the day of the animal auctions at the fair, we usually catch horse pulling in the arena after the sale. Slow, quiet, but damn impressive.
Horse pulling is really neat. Saw it at the osceola country fair last year.
Tractor and truck pulling has always been fun to watch. I had an uncle that did old tractors to do pulling with. I remember once at the county fair watching an old john deer 2 cly do a full pull. That guy doing the voice said you could use the bathroom, grab something from the beer stand and come back before he was done with the pull. it took some time, but he did it for sure.
Wally (Forum Supporter) said:adam525i (Forum Supporter) said:Over in Poutine land (Quebec) they prefer truck pulls, this "town" is basically a junction of two roads with around 1000 people there normally but hosts a big event every year with around 60,000 spectators and competitors (Notre Dame du Nord if you are interested).
A trip to Rodeo du Camion is on my list of places to go.
We used to go see the tractor pulls every time they came to Nassau Coliseum. It's probably played a part in my hearing loss.
I LOVE big rig drags. Drag racers go nuts when they pull one wheel off the ground thinking they're amazeballs. That's neat in your stripped-down 2500 lb Nova. Then wattch an 18 wheeler do the same thing.... with 120,000 lbs.... in all of the first 8 gears.
Torques. All of the torques.
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