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Fathers, sons, and their machines

Distance, not speed, is what counts in tractor pulling, where fixing broken parts is half the fun.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published June 12, 2006

DADE CITY -- It's a dusty, greasy sport. Hands get dirty and stay that way, changing out parts that are always breaking.

Heck, it's no fun if everything just works.

But when it does - when the tires turn and the engine growls and the dust flies -- this ride sizzles.

At 2 mph.

In tractor pullin' speed don't mean anything.

It works like this: The tractor is hitched to a sled carrying a 3,500-pound box of concrete. As the tractor tugs the sled along, the box eases forward, increasing the drag on the tractor to 4,000 pounds. Distance is the goal.

Sort of like its prime time cousin, stock car racing, tractor pulling was born in rural America. The motto "pull on Sunday, plow on Monday" pretty well explains how it got going.

Now it's found its way to the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village north of Dade City. Once a month a growing group of fathers and sons haul out their garden tractors - some souped up and painted like sports cars - and set off down the track.

Lester Fisher, a retired west Pasco business owner and whiz-bang handyman, started the event a few months back. But he's been pulling a long time.

"There's competition in it," he says, "just seeing how far they can go."

***

Stock, modified and outlaw. Two-wheel drive; four-wheel drive; super modified four-wheel drive. High Voltage, Hoosier Thunder, Dr. Hook.

Tough-guy names are common in tractor pulling. There are annual region championships and national championships, though it's difficult to tell if one puller is universally agreed to be superior to all others. (Think Miss USA vs. Miss America.)

Europeans got in on the action, officially, in the late 1990s. The Irish Truck and Tractor Pulling Association has a pull coming up at the Clonakilty Agricultural Show in County Cork. Weight limit: 11.5 tonnes.

At big-time pulls, monster tractors perform before television cameras and revved-up crowds. RFD-TV ("Rural America's most important network") airs the National Tractor Pullers Association competitions.

They're best explained in the thousands. Tractors: 12,000 pounds. Horsepower: 1,000 to 10,000. Sleds: up to 65,000 pounds. Cash awards: grand total $462,228.

***

The competitors arrive at the Pioneer museum early on a weekend morning and allow themselves a few practice pulls to work out the sputters. The engines that at first deafen eventually fade to background noise.

Talk is of tires and cylinders. Dress code is jeans and foam caps bearing motor oil and lawnmower brand names.

A brief ceremony, national anthem and all, makes it official, and then one at a time, they're off.

One guy drives the sled, one guy the tractor. A third walks alongside, holding a dog leash attached to a kill switch in case of emergency.

"It's a real safe hobby," Fisher says. "Nobody ever got hurt at it."

Travis Fussell is up. His dad, John, holds the leash. They have spent many nights and weekends tinkering with the tractor in the shed beside their Shady Hills home.

Travis, 12, plays baseball and wears Skechers shoes and carries a cell phone on his belt loop. But he can also change the tractor's oil and battery, and maneuver it like someone who, well, has a driver's license.

He sits calmly on the green and yellow machine, with no apparent nerves, and cranks the throttle every few feet. When it looks like he's maxed out on distance, he starts bouncing the whole thing furiously to build traction, coaxing a few more feet from his John Deere.

"Let's give this fella' a hand," Fisher, who is manning the microphone, calls to the spectators who hear almost none of it over the engines.

With 156 feet, 1 inch, Travis finishes second in the 1050 stock division.

For a time, two guys lost outside Wrigleyville watch from a nearby rooftop. Pullin' packs about as much action as a low-scoring baseball game.

***

Grown-ups pull too.

Dan Frazier drives a spiffy tractor with a one-cylinder Kohler engine and 2003 Corvette yellow paint.

He picked up the tractor from a junk yard for $100, and has put that much into it many times over.

"It's never ending," says Frazier, 43. "My saying is real pullin' tractors are built, not bought."

In the 1050 modified class, the tractors move a little faster -- some blow by at 8 mph - and actually kick up some dust.

On this outing Frazier gets a "full pull," going all 200 feet of the track. But so does another guy, so they throw on a few more dumbbells and a have a pull-off.

The guy riding a hoss called Red Bull wins. Gets a ribbon and everything.

***

Something breaks on the sled, a big green hulk of tires, chains, wood and concrete.

Fisher fashioned it with his grandson, Hal Gadoury, who was 6 at the time. "Building that is the best thing we ever did," he says.

A broken part means only a brief break in the competition, a stop in the pits.

"Did we get it in 14 seconds?" one of the guys jokes.

John Fussell holds the battery. Fisher pulls on some wires. Frazier turns the wrench. Travis, eager for a job, fetches tools as he's told.

"It's all part of it," Fussell says. "It's take 'em out, do your pull, break it, take it home and fix it."

There's the real fun.

[Last modified June 12, 2006, 06:58:12]