Road Warrior meets Green Acres: Tractor Pull a surreal event
By David Menzies
I wasn’t sure what to expect at the Bolton Truck & Tractor Pull. I mean, a towing competition? Now I know better. Truck and tractor pulling is one-part Road Warrior, two-parts Green Acres. It’s the sum total of what happens when a gaggle of good ol’ boys get their hands on the sort of money that could fund the U.S. national defence program (and then use the dough to outrageously modify farm equipment.) End result: Terminator meets Hee-Haw.
Pulling is a different kind of motorsport. There’s no oval asphalt track; rather, vehicles – one at a time – roar down a narrow dirt-covered straightaway measuring about 300 feet. It’s all about might rather than flight as mutant trucks and genetically-altered tractors endeavour to tow a sled that doesn’t resemble anything Santa Claus ever piloted.
It’s a multisensory experience. The acrid smell of burnt rubber, hot coolant and back bacon on a bun wafts in the exhaust-filled air. As Chevy, Ford and Dodge pickups wage war; imports are conspicuously absent (although the Dodge Ram trucks this year were mockingly referred to as Fiats by Ed and Steve, the play-by-play commentators.)
Surely Bolton is an appropriate setting for such an event, given the town sounds so mechanical (along the lines of, “Say, Jed, why don’t you bolt-on that ’72 Firebird spoiler to the back of your Silverado?”)
At times, the sound and the fury seemed to signify nothing: trucks and tractors seldom went faster than 25 km/h or further than a couple of football fields. And yet, many of these vehicles are unspeakably powerful. One tractor sported a 1,100-horsepower motor. There’s something perversely bizarre about a piece of farm equipment being driven by a man wearing a crash helmet and a Nomex racing suit.
As the evening wore on, the vehicles got bigger. And louder. And smokier. Alas, there was only one tractor in the 8,000-lb. Pro Stock Category, “on account of some of the guys having ‘malfunctions’ a few weeks ago,” noted Ed. (Translation: they blew up real good.)
Nevertheless, it was standing-room only up in the creamsicle-coloured stands, where John Deere ball caps, mullets and tank tops reigned supreme. At times, I had to double-check I was still in Ontario due to the preponderance of NASCAR paraphernalia and Confederate flag decals.
Even so, this was the place to be for Boltonians. The fact that each vehicle had a carbon footprint about the size of a coal-burning plant was something to cheer rather than jeer. Only an aspiring comedian would dare complain about the number of people smoking in the stands. And the closest thing to a pro-environment message was a T-shirt that read: “Save a tree. Eat a beaver.”
By 9 p.m., as darkness took lease, there was still three more hours of pulling on the agenda. But I had had my fill. As I fled the Bolton Fairgrounds behind the wheel of a four-cylinder Japanese coupe, I could’ve sworn I heard banjos ... and Al Gore screaming.
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