Pulling Contests For Garden Tractors, ATV's

Pulling Contests for Garden Tractors, ATV's AG WORLD Ag World 13-4-19 "We have lots of fun without spending a lot of money," says Bill Penfield, Lemmon, S. Dak., one of the pioneers of the latest new farm "sport" - garden tractor and ATV pulls. Penfield says garden tractor pulling got its start in his area about 5 years ago. "Several of my neighbors got together and built a weight transfer sled to accommodate the lighter weight tractors. They established weight classes and included 3 and 4-wheel ATV's in the first pulls. They also established guidelines on length, width, and where to locate the hitch," he explains. From the beginning, Penfield says participants started to "soup up" their mini tractors. "The modified garden tractors soon became the main attraction. One fellow, for example, put a 4-cyl. air-cooled Wisconsin swather engine on a hydrostatic-driven Ford garden tractor. Another guy put a Ford V-8 with a 4-speed transmission on a home-built chassis weighing less than 1,500 lbs. We've seen almost every combination immaginable of car engines, swather engines, etc., on every type of home-built chassis." Penfield built his own garden tractor racer using a 1928 Chevy car frame, a 1%1 Ford rear end, a 1965 Chevy 4-speed transmission, a 1969 Chevy built4-cyl. engine taken from a Massey Ferguson 36 swather. "The hood, engine compartment and rear wheels were also part of the Massey 36 swather. The front wheels were salvaged from a Sund combine pickup." In 1988 there were several mini tractor pulls in the Lemmon and Mobridge, S. Dak. area. Participants have formed an organization with a set of rules and guidelines. There are 3 or 4 weight classes. Any tractor weighing 1,500 lbs. or less can pull in any of the higher weight classes by adding weight. Most stock garden tractors have now been replaced by home-built tractors built from the ground up, according to Penfield. "The largest expense on our own tractor was the battery. Everything else we needed we found in our own junkpile. One thing we've learned is that the tractor with the biggest engine doesn't always win. The winner is the tractor with the best balance of power, weight and tires," says Penfield, who says he often beats tractors powered by V-8 engines with the 4-cyl. engine in his home-built garden tractor. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, William Penfield, HCR 63, Box 7, Lemmon, S. Dak. 57638 (ph 605 374-5273).

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