May 28th
The National Tractor Pulling Championships, hosted every August by the Northwestern Ohio Tractor Pulling Association (NWOTPA) based in Bowling Green, is the single biggest tractor pull in the world. Held at the Wood County Fairgrounds, the event attracts a crowd nearly twice the population of the city.
Ironically, it was in the town of Bowling Green, Missouri where early records show motorized pulling competitions started in 1929. Tractor pulling has grown continuously since, gaining popularity far beyond the farming community. The first tractors used in the pulls were the same tractors used for plowing fields, with the power of about 50 horses. Today, tractors in competition boast 5,000 and even 10,000 horsepower. “You can feel the ground shake when the motors start,” says driver Nicole Snyder. Snyder is one of the growing number of female drivers in the sport, and at 17, is also one of the youngest of the 1,100 National Tractor Pulling Championships (NTPC) competitors.
The tractor pull is held on a dirt track laid out in the fairgrounds Grandstand area. The competition involves pulling a long metal sled bearing a large weight, and the tractors roar and spew smoke as they try to pull the sled as far as they possibly can. The furthest pull wins the the Ultimate Ring, or as competitor Larry Koester calls it, “the super bowl ring of tractor pulling.” There are actually a number of awards and more than $150,000 in prize money, as drivers compete in different divisions and weight classes. According to Koester, “There might be 500 pulling vehicles here of all different weight classes, from the big tractors to the little farm tractors to the four-wheel drives.”