West Virginia Tractor Pulls

West Virginia Tractor Pulls

by Dan Locke

As many of you know.  I am now living in West Virginia.   And as you know,  I am the type of person who can immerse myself into any environment.  Well being in WV I decided to try some of the local favorite.  And one the biggest one is tractor pulls. It was held at the Taylor Country Fair Grounds in Grafton, WV.  It was called the Bluegrass Tractor Pull which is a touring event.  What the creator of the series is trying to do,  is get the event standardize.

At the present time it is not.  And they hoping find standards for the sport. You are now asking what is a tractor pull?  Truck or Tractor pulling, also known as power pulling, is a motorsport competition, popular in United States,  which requires modified tractors to pull a heavy sled along a 35 foot wide, 330 foot long track, with the winner being the tractor that pulls the sled the farthest. The sport is known as the world's most powerful motorsport, due to the multi-engine modified tractor pullers.

All tractors in their respective classes pull a set weight in the sled. When a tractor gets to the end of the 100 meter track, this is known as a "full pull". When more than one tractor completes the course, more weight is added to the sled, and those competitors that moved past 300 feet will compete in a pull-off; the winner is the one who can pull the sled the farthest.

The sled is known as a weight transfer sled. This means that as it is pulled down the track, the weight is transferred (linked with gears to the sled’s wheels) from over the rear axles and towards the front of the sled. In front of the rear wheels, there is a "pan". This is essentially a metal plate and as the weight moves over this
 the resistance builds. The farther the tractor pulls the sled, the more difficult it gets.

With tractors, people can put in over $100,000.  Most of these people are farmers.  Farmers with

money.  As I have been told, they are people who have money to throw away , because the tractor have been known to blow up.  And to repair them could cost them (the farmer) into the thousands.

Basically there are three class of vehicles. Two-wheel-drive (2WD) truck class, Super stock, pro-stock, and mini-modified.  And they can be either gas or corn fueled.  They had everything from the big tractor trailers, hot rod tractors and pickup trucks.  The entertainment keep going on and never stop.  Until one of the trucks blow a engine and a axle at the same time. It took about a 45 minutes to get it off the track.

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