The Perfect Eliminator For Antique Tractor Pulling

1. Easy starting for antique tractors as light as 2500 pounds.
2. Able to stop tractors as heavy as 25,000 pounds.
3. Self propelled for quick pull back between tractors.
4. Self propelled to drive to the next pull. (Portable)
5. Able to uniformly and progressively make the pull harder as the distance increases. No sudden stop by dropping the pan like a dog running to the end of his chain. Then everyone places within 6 inches of the leader and the fastest one to jerk the end of the chain wins.
6. Work for clay and/or blacktop.
7. Built in distance measurement.
8. Built in speed monitoring.
9. Waterproof.
10. Indestructable.

We are a bunch of poor farmers that put slightly hotter sparkplugs in our old tractors during the Winter so that we can compete with each other during the Summer. We will probably combine our junk iron piles and weld us up something.

We might be able to obtain a Greyhound bus with the engine in the rear or a school bus with an engine in the front. Would it be better to start out with a semi tractor or semi trailer?

The large difference in class size may be hard to work out. one of the big sleds in my area didn't work too well with the 3500 ld tractors this summer, it went off to the side of the track and kind of pulled the tractors. On the flip side a small one wouldn't stop the 11000 ld 100hp Farm tractors at a different pull.

#3 and 4, The fastest backing skid I have seen is a old chevy Cab-over with a regular wieght transfer type skid, The guy was good at backing and could move. This one might not be heavy enough for the bigger tractors, would stop a 11000 lb, 100hp farm tractor. They would lift up the pan and lock into place and take off the measuring wheel and go the next pull.

About # 5, there is a antique skid from Fargo ND that is a 2 ton ford truck with a thick steel plate underneath and four hydraulic cylinders that lift the wheels off the ground as you go. I don't know how it would work with the heavier tractors as 9000 is as high as I have seen it used. I am not sure how it would work on hard tracks, I spun out with my 560 on an o.k. track mostly due to my inexperience and a poor hitch set up.

Some of these use a bicyle type tire with some sort of measuring gauge for distance. I have not looked at them closely so can't tell you any more.

Reliability is going to depend on how fast, hard some people jerk it and a lot of other things. The big sled I mentioned breaks down at nearly every pull I go to and the rest break down occasionally. The true measure is how quick a skid is back up and running.

I hope I did not waste your time

Wheels