Pulling season has arrived and that means Bryan spends his weekends hauling his tractor around to various tracks in Virginia and Mom channels her inner redneck and cheers him on! Last Saturday was a cold and dreary evening to attend a truck/tractor pull but we sat through rain showers and increasingly lower temperatures for 5+ hours watching truck after truck and tractor after tractor make their best run down the muddy tracks!
A few of the guys sitting around before the pulls kicked off and country girls sporting boots.
Stacks of weights used to add to the tractor so it can pull in various classes.
This arena had two tracks and sleds allowing them to keep the time between each truck/tractor tighter. Also makes for a good back-up plan should there be an issue with one side/machine.
Sometimes things don't go as planned. There were a few trucks towed off the track after making their pull but no major explosions or loss of pieces (tires flying off, engines blowing up, etc.).
Ben was all smiles as he waits his turn to pull. I think the guys get an adrenaline rush from the excitement much like a rodeo cowboy but with less risk of bodily harm! Bryan rarely pulls his own tractor. He prefers to watch so that he can get an idea of what works best and what could be improved on the tractor and/or with the driving strategy.
The amount of black smoke that rolls out of these trucks and tractors is insane! Probably contributing to global warming...
I shot a few slo-mo videos to stretch the time of the pull out beyond the few seconds it actually takes. However, YouTube turns slo-mo into real time?! Sorry. This one is a truck (whose paint job I liked!) making a pretty good pull! Slo-mo allows for the detail of the mud slinging, tires racing, and smoke billowing.
Another slo-mo turned real-time. This was one of a cutesy tractors. Notice his front tires are not always on the ground! Makes for a hard time steering.
Ben pulling in the 11,000 lb. class. Not a "full pull" (300 ft.) but good enough to secure second place!
Ben pulling in the 15,000 lb. class. Again, not a "full pull" but none-the-less a good one! This was the last class of the night, hence the empty stands in the background.
Joey pulling in the 15,000 lb. class after Ben. He tried a different approach to the take off but came up a foot shorter than Ben in the end.
I'm sure that if I stick around Lexington for a bit longer I will be attending more pulls in the near future. They are relatively entertaining, though loud and stinky. Country life. Ha!
I did a little research on tractor pulls and Wikipedia informed me that this is not just a southern US activity, but one practiced in Europe, Australia, Brazil and New Zealand! Who knew?!
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