The Noblesvillain

Noblesville Tractor Pull

Saturday, July 21, 2007 3:48:47 PM (US Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Last evening I celebrated my 11-year wedding anniversary by going to the tractor pull by myself leaving my wife to put the kids to bed. I guess that's what you call a nice anniversary present. My last visit to a pulling event was this same 4H fair tractor pull in 2004 two months before Mark was born. Ok, we all went out for a nice dinner before I abandoned my family...

Noblesville Tractor Pull
Watch Mean Machine throw some flames

Dual turbine engines drive Plumber's Nitemare, in the Modified Tractor Class

The loud (incredibly loud) noises of the tractor pull attracted me when I first saw Holy Cow pull in a Tipton tractor pull. I also enjoy the old farm tractors pulling. In last night's event, I saw the mini modified class for the first time (are they really under 2000 lbs?). These are some small tractors with a lot of noise and power! The event also ran the four-wheel-drive trucks and Super Stock tractors.

The 'modified' tractors are a bit over the top, but I love the noise. There were three different drive mechanisms in the modified class.

Aircraft turbine engine (I believe Plumber's Nitemare won the event) with dual intakes and a combined exhaust all pointing straight up. Plumber's Nitemare has a 4-cylinder Chevy engine to motor around and only turns on the turbines when hooked to the sled. When pulling in Noblesville, the exhaust blew some phone wires 30 feet straight up as it passed under them.

Aircraft piston engine Dual 12-cylinder aircraft piston engined drove Bionic Buzzard to a pretty good pull. Seeing fire erupt from 48 exhaust ports (not a muffler in sight all night) directed straight up made it look like a two-tiered birthday cake.

Automotive piston engine (ethanol) Using multiple automotive engines, several pullers combined three 8-cylinder engines for their drive (Holy Cow mounts four Oldsmobile V8's but only can run 3 in this class).