Go big or go home

It’s one of the first things that people see as they migrate down the hill among the thousands attending Fieldays. The muddy drag strip to the left is the home of the Tractor Pull competition.

As the event enters its 42nd year, a man who has been there and done that is returning once again.

For someone who didn’t grow up on a farm, Jakes Steyn has quite an agricultural work background with many years of experience behind farming equipment.

As the agricultural contracting season ends at John Austin Ltd in Te Awamutu, Steyn gears up and starts preparing for another Tractor Pull competition.

Even though his job title reads agricultural contractor, Steyn, who comes from South Africa, considers himself to be more of a “city boy”.

This will be the third year he has entered the Fieldays Tractor Pull competition.

At his first Tractor Pull appearance in 2010, Steyn unfortunately lost to a man who had ventured up from the South Island for the event.

When he returned in 2011, Steyn won both the National Weight Transfer Finals and the Weight Transfer Waikato “Sid Frazer-Jones” Trophy.

He competed with his John Deere 8530. Steyn wants to make it clear that his tractor was one of the biggest in the competition.

“My motto is: go big or go home,” he chuckles.

The Tractor Pull is made up of two events: the Weight Adjust and the Weight Transfer.

Steyn only participates in the weight transfer event, entering both the National and Waikato rounds.

“The Weight Adjust is where you haul a concrete slab behind your tractor, sort of like a drag race, while the Weight Transfer is where you drag a sled which has a computer onboard.”

The Weight Transfer is designed so that the closer tractors get to the finish line the more weight they will be pulling.

The transfer sled automatically starts to slowly increase the weight being pulled as soon as the tractor sets off.

Planning is important. Steyn has a lot of the technical aspects to get right for that extra advantage come race day. He also strips down his 8530 and makes it look like it just rolled off the production line while also ensuring that it is well serviced.

Even though the tractor will get filthy during the Fieldays, Steyn still puts the effort in to make his tractor look perfect.

He has to get tyre pressure and weight spot on. If he was to enter with a smaller tractor and he was taking part in the weight adjust event he would have to increase his tractor’s tyre pressures so that they are almost at bursting point.

With the transfer sled, however, he says he would want to have tyre pressures quite low so there is more traction between the tyres and the ground.

He has to abide by the guidelines when preparing his tractor. “We have had problems with people in the past modifying their tractors and not telling anyone.”

Any modifications that Steyn makes have to be registered with officials to keep races fair. Modifications could include putting a chip in the tractor’s computer to increase the horsepower.

The competition is not necessarily about how big your tractor is, but more about how much it weighs. “Tractors are limited to tonnage, it’s just a matter of playing with the rules really,” he says.

For Steyn, the Tractor Pull is not just a competition; it is also a social event to talk about new technologies and new products in the agricultural industry. “You see the other competitors around sometimes and there is always that competition between all of us who enter the Tractor Pull.”

During the Fieldays, co-ordinators of the Tractor Pull hold a function on site designed for feedback and the planning for the following year.

For Fieldays executive officer Janine Hill and her team the intense planning for the Tractor Pull competition starts around about six months out.

They organise machinery and equipment as well as sponsorships and entry forms. They also make sure they have enough staff for the event and lay out new rules if they have changed over the past year.

“In the planning and preparation stages for the Tractor Pull competition we have approximately 10 people involved,” Hill says.

Up to 30 people assist with the competition throughout Fieldays. The people who are involved in the Tractor Pull competition have been a part of it for many years. As clichéd as it might sound, they really are a well oiled machine.

The Tractor Pull competition has changed over the years. “From the static pull against an army tank, to the weighted sledge race (Weight Adjusted competition) and now to a new style of sledge, the weight transfer sledge (WT),” Hill says. As tractor technology develops rapidly, the biggest challenge is in creating a fair and entertaining competition.

Over the three day event, tractors head up and down the drag strip with operators’ heavy feet planted on the acceleration pedal. With plenty of tractors involved in this event, from standard through to highly modified, the only thing left to do is to see who will win in 2012.

“No matter how prepared you are you never know what is going to happen during the event,” Steyn  says.
“There are so many tractors there and you have no idea how your tractor is going to perform.”