After working until late I got home and sat in front of the TV when the commercial came on.
It was the second time I had seen it within the week but now it made perfect sense, I had to go to Tractor Pulling. At that exact moment it was the best idea I had ever come up with so I phoned my friend Thomas who’s not afraid of crazy ideas. At first he didn’t know if he wanted to jump on the granite but said ok after talking back and forth.
I had only seen the huge tractors with fire out of the exhaust pipes of four helicopter engines, on Eurosport when I was extremely hung over and nothing else was on Sunday evening but it looked like fun and an experience you couldn't miss live.
Tractor Pulling is a sport with lots of people in overalls, rubber boots and flannel shirts talking about tractors and engines. Not many from the city come to these areas and on regular bases they have these events far away from Copenhagen. A modified tractor has to pull a 20 tons sled 100 meters, the sled moves its weight toward the tractor so it gets harder to pull. The biggest tractors has around 9000 horse powers and the smallest ones, which pull way less weight, has around 150 horse powers.
When a tractor pulls the sled more than 100 meters, it is called a “full pull”. It sounds so pointless that we had to see it with our own eyes.
Finally the Saturday with the big event came and Thomas and I meet up with two other friends. All four of us had somewhat of a hangover but nothing serious, excided we started the 40 kilometres drive northwest of Copenhagen to a quarry and to the Danish Championship in Tractor Pulling. The sun was shining from a clear sky and it was maybe one of the last summer days in the year. The concrete jungle vanished behind the car and was replaced with open fields with a small house here and there. Everything pointed in the direction of a perfect day.
About 5 kilometres from the quarry, signs with a picture of a tractor in action and text about the championship, guided us to a parking lot on a field. We couldn’t hear anything but suddenly when we locked up the car a huge cloud of smoke erupted behind the hills and noise from an engine broke the silence around the hills, we smiled and couldn’t wait to get closer. At the entrance… two tables put up, we paid and walk towards the pulling area passing the biggest tractors of them all with 4 turbine engines, we couldn’t wait to see those in action.
They were about to set up the sled and the modified tractor when we came up to the fence. The tractor sounded very angry when the driver/puller hit the accelerator. Once fully set up the green flag was shown by a man in a cowboy hat, rubber boots and overalls and the pulling could begin. As the angry tractor started the pulling, there was so much smoke coming out that if you looked up you could actually see the ozonlayer get thinner, environmental organizations would hate this some call a sport, the ground was shaking and my eardrums was screaming in pain when it passed me.
It was a Fullpull and I turned around looking at my friends who was shaking their heads from side to side, they had only one question “but why!?!?!
The couple of next tractors did about exactly the same as the first one we saw, except one that caught a small fire. I took some photos of this sport but got a bit bored with it. In a brake between two classes we went to a tent to get food and to every event with folks in rubber boots and overalls, you can get a sausage with bread or without bread and beer. We took a bit of both went into another tent where a guy was singing or trying to sing because he was super drunk, and sat down eating in silence, we were very out of place here. It didn’t get any better when the drunken guy found a helium balloon and started the song all over again sounding like a smerf.
The next tractor class was small garden machines with small engines which were about the most boring thing I have ever seen. It was more fun watching the people around the hill we sat on and I couldn’t help myself thinking, what made people come to this? Did they come often or just like us, for fun? Couldn't they see the stupidity in all this?
After hour and a half the small boring tractors was finished or so I thought, they were doing another heat…. My eyes was looking at the ozonlayer at first and then my watch which was telling me that in 3 hours the biggest tractors would come out. We walked around trying to kill some time and ended on another hill still waiting. It wasn’t the pulling of the sled that was boring but the set up took 15 minutes every time. A tractor of a smaller class only pulled the sled about 10 metres and got a retry so they had to set it up again, at that point I was about to walk the 40 kilometres back to the concrete jungle of Copenhagen.
My watch told me it was 4 pm another hour or so before the real action would begin. While another tractor was pulling the pour sled one of the biggest tractors warmed up its engine and drowned all other sounds in a radius of 500 metres. Words were unnecessary our smiles said it all, the moment we had been waiting for was going to happen within a short time… the sound from the four engines on Team Fox’s tractor and the 9000 horse powers was amazing. I was very excided to see this monster in full action.
5 pm, the boring smaller modified tractors was getting even more boring and pointless. What was the point of this sport? What farmer ever came up with the idea? “I bet I can pull this piece of junk further than you can….!!!!” Jesus H. Chrystler! At least these farmers didn’t hang around street corners robbing old ladies when they sat on they modified tractors pulling a stupid sled.
The biggest tractors got pulled over to the starting area and once again they fired their engines. We were getting closer and closer to what we had been waiting for. A sleeping ass, lousy expensive food, too many inbreeds in rubber boots, overalls and flannel shirts, a screaming ozonlayer and lots of boredom, it was all worth it, now the big moment would come. We sat up right in the grass as things and noise died down, the calm before the storm.
5.30 pm… ok a little late but better late than never. The guy in the speakers didn’t say anything for a while, I guess everyone knew that the biggest and most noisy tractors was about to pull.
5.45 pm… the announcer broke the tension in the air, at first I didn’t understand what he was saying or maybe my brain didn’t want to.
They had to stop the event now and get back tomorrow with the biggest tractors…… WHAAAAAAT!
If he knew what the four boys from the city had gone through all day he would those damn tractors to do a run just once. We had been waiting around 5 of the most boring hours of our entire lives and now we got robbed for the best part….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! … it didn’t happen, every one around us started to pack their things and walked back to the parking lot, normally that’s a good hint that it’s all over.
We couldn’t believe it but started to laugh, it was one of the most stupid things we had done. Tomorrow it started at 10 am but very fast we agreed never to go to Tractor Pulling again.
A friend of my friend was doing a powerboat race nearby and was just about finished when we pulled out of the field / parking lot. My friend talked him into give us a run in his boat at least that would make it somewhat up for the wasted day in the quarry surrounded tractors of all sizes. We located the boat after a bit of driving and talking in the cell phone. Our depression had vanished and we got to go on a powerboat. The friend of my friend walked towards us and said he was sorry but he couldn’t take us because he had to get diner with some other folks…
Money, wet eyes and lots of nice words didn’t change his mind and our miserable day just got worse.
In the car back to Copenhagen we said nothing but once in a while a head would shake and come out with some grumpy sounds and a laugh.
The beers in the bar helped a lot and if it was the last sport in the hole wide world when all other sports was either banned, gone down or taking away by aliens and Tractor Pulling was the very last thing to see in the world, I would still never go back!
