What is Tractor Pulling?

What is tractor pulling? Tractor pulling is when a vehicle is hooked to a sled and is pulled down a track that is about 300 feet or longer. This is a competition to see who’s vehicle can pull the weight the farthest. The sled has a weight box that moves up the sled by the movement of the sled to add weight by moving it to the front of the sled right by the hook point of the pulling vehicle to eventually stop the puller.

The pulling sled can have anything from a stock pickup and stock tractor to a multi-engine pulling tractor. The sled has a three feet chain and at the end there is a twenty-five pound hook. This is what hooks the vehicles to the sled. On some vehicles there is a safety hook which the sled will put a cable on the hook so if the driver lost control of the vehicle they could shut the engine off to the pulling vehicle by hitting a button that will pull the cable. While the vehicle is pulling the sled the sled starts off with a rolling weight. The movement of the tires move the weight box up a ramp and it will hit triggers on the sled ramp that will add air to some air bags to make it that there is more weight and friction to the ground that will eventually stop the vehicle.

Tractor pulling also has flag people to tell that the track is clear to pull on and that everything is safe to pull. They as well help the person back up their vehicle to the sled to get hooked up or unhooked.

Pulling events can be as small as a get together with a couple tractors and pickups or it can be as big as a county and state fair.

Tractor pulling has been around for a long time. They used to pull there horses and tractors. They used to pull dead weight before they had the big sleds they do now. They used to have competitions to see who’s tractors or horses were stronger. This gave the farmers bragging rights.