Gone with the Diesel

While bored urban yuppies are dreaming about having their own chickens (remember? We had a story about it on this blog contributed by Serena New), farmers world wide live a different kind of phantasies. And there is something very straight forward about it how they do it: no saving of planet Earth, no deeper meaning. It is man with his tractor. Pulling. Heavy stuff.

What you see here is named Trecker Treck in Germany, in English Tractor Pulling. Well, it looks like it sounds: Farmers gather on a field, they bring out their machines and pull. By the way, they pull all day long. Seriously. 


What makes the show is actually what the tractors pull. It is all about the sledge. The sledge has rear end wheels and has a “pan” in front. A skid if you want. There is a mechanism attached to the rear end wheels that makes a weight block move from the rear end to the front as the tractor proceeds. This way the pressure is relocated from the end of the slegde to the front, the pan digs itself into the ground. If the tractor is not strong enough, the sledge will stop it before reaching the 100 meters point. The front wheels of the tractor will go up. Like this.

100 meters is the goal. If more than one tractor would make it then the weight is being made heavier. Till a winner is found. Referees are watching over the results, here you see a female referee sitting on the sledge, documenting the distance the tractor achieved: 

You start realizing how serious the thing is? 

There are different classes for the machines to compete. Depending on the competition class, thetuning is restricted. Internationally. Countries where this sport is being practiced the most are USA, the Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Germany. 

So there is the class for the tractors used in the field without any tuning. There is a sport class. There is a class of self made tractors tuned up to this grade that they can just be vaguely recognizable as tractors. And there is the garden class:

There is the junior class (watch the father galloping along while his son is driving):

And there is the class for miniature models:

And if you have an old timer in your barn, bring it along. It does not hurt to have it standing aside:

Any machines you and your kids drive, bring them along:

And if you feel like posting intimidating slogans on your machines, there will never be a better place then TRECKER TRECK!

All pictures have been taken in Kleinvollstedt, Schleswig-Holstein (Trecker Treck Eastern 2006).

If you want to know more about the sport, I recommend checking http://www.trecker-treck-deutschland.de/ - you will find there a description of the sledge and furthermore many videos which help you understand what noise the machines make and how much smoke there is being produced.