Pulling it all at the fair

Two weeks ago, the county took place in our town, and I covered some of the events held in front of the grandstand.

Look, it's a small, rural fair. Low budget. Low creativity. Low expectations. They have a midway, some rides, 4-H exhibits and the 4-H livestock auction. Food booths. Elephant ears. They had a horse pull this year, but I opted to cover the 4-H kids' horse show first. Later, I drove past and there were no horses in the arena.

Pulling is an important part of the show. The fair has the horse pull, a tractor pull and a truck pull. I like the horses the best, but I had to miss them this year.

The tractor pull involves tractors pulling a weighted sled--there's a moving concrete box on it, and as the box moves, the sled gets harder and harder to pull.

The arena's dirt floor was very dry (with hardly any rain for the last few weeks, that was no surprise), leading to very dusty conditions ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Dustypull-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

Eventually I wised up and went on the other side. However, with the tractors pulling into the sun, there was just so much I could do ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-B-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

They finally had a fire truck come out and wet down the track where the sled was being pulled ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-watertruk-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

Most of the tractors in the competition were really old. Most date from the late 1940s or early 50s. It was ironic because the tractor pulling the weight sled back to the start was nice and new ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Newpuller-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

It was a lot like the truck pull, which took place Friday night. Same basic plan, with pickup trucks instead of tractors. The procedure was the same.

First, the truck pulls the weight sled ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Dingedtruk-8-08.jpg[/IMG]
Lovely truck, right?

When the pull is done, some heavy equipment pulls the weight sled back to the start ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Truksled-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

Note the damage made to the track by the truck (or tractor) as it digs into the dirt track, trying to move the sled every last fraction of an inch that it can ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Dozer-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

So to fix up the track, a bulldozer comes out to smooth things down ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Trukdozer-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

Then the next truck (or tractor) comes out, and here we go again. And again. And again. It amounts to about 15 seconds of watching a truck pull the weight sled, followed by 2 or 3 minutes of pulling the sled back, the dozer coming out and smoothing the track, the next truck getting all set up, etc. It does get rather tedious.

I liked one of the local trucks that was entered. It was a nice-looking Ford that made a good pull ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trax-Bluetruk-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Bluetrukrun-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

But on its next pull, something went very wrong. There was a grinding sound, the truck stopped dead, and something was glowing underneath it. In seconds, people were swarming around ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Bluetrukstop-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

The engine had blown. I heard later that the guy had put about $10,000 into the engine, which was tested with a dynamometer and rated at 1,100 horsepower. Either the clutch or flywheel wasn't up to the challenge, and the $10,000 engine blew.

And that wasn't the worst for him. The worst came a few minutes later: His well-loved Ford truck was pulled off the track ... by a Chevy ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Bluetrucktow-8-08.jpg[/IMG]
A fate worse than death.

The truck pull also featured some trucks from the Wisconsin-Upper Michigan Pullers Association: known as the WUMPAs or "whump-ass." These trucks are much more expensive than even the blue truck, beautifully painted, with highly tuned engines running on nitro fuel, like dragsters. And they were loud. VERY loud. Earth-shakingly loud. Hear-it-across-the-city loud. If sound could create light, this would be a very bright photo ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-Wupma-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

The truck show fills about a third to half of the grandstand. But the show on Saturday night fills all the seats, and then some. It's the demolition derby. There were about 60 cars this year, and a few had beautiful paint jobs ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-DDPaintjob-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

While others were grizzled, recycled demo derby warriors ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-DDDandB-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

And even the cars that came in looking nice came out looking not so nice. At one time, this was an Imperial. I guess it still is, not that you could identify it ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Events/Trak-DDImperial-8-08.jpg[/IMG]

The demo derby is easily the most popular event of the fair. All the grandstand seats are packed, people are lined up around the fences, and the beer concession is very busy. Big surprise, right?