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| Truck and tractor pull puts power on display |
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| News | |||
| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 09 September 2009 08:00 | |||
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The annual truck and tractor pull is not what one might call a “newcomer” to Louisburg’s Labor Day scene. In fact, Friday and Saturday marked the 38th consecutive year that John P. Hand American Legion Post No. 250 had sponsored the event it created. Such a streak speaks to the event’s enduring popularity. Ask Wayne Knop about the secret to its success, and he’ll tell you that it’s no complex thing. “It’s just the noise, I guess,” the current Legion post commander said with a chuckle.  Indeed, everything about modern-day truck and tractor pulls is a part of the spectacle, from the souped-up tractors bearing extravagant body work to the roar of the engines and billowing clouds of smoke. To witness one belies the sport’s humble origins. Although there hasn’t been an exact date and time put to the first tractor pull, it’s likely that such events initially took place without tractors at all. Pioneer-era farmers would brag to friends and colleagues about the size and strength of one of their horses, which inevitably would get the competitive juices flowing. A barn door was removed and hitched to the horse, while bystanders — one by one — jumped on to increase the weight. The horse that could pull the most weight the farthest was declared the winner. While horse pulls are still popular in their own right today, tractor pulls gradually evolved into their own entity. The same type of growing process can be said to have taken place here in Louisburg, beginning with the Legion’s first official pull back in 1971. It didn’t include the use of a barn door as a sled, but they weren’t far off, Knop said. “It was a piece of metal, and you had hay bales every 10 feet,” he explained. “People would just jump on.” Today, everything about the pull is bigger and more high-tech, including the electronic “mule” that automatically applies a consistent amount of weight to each tractor or truck, the farther they progress down the track. The first night of the two-day Louisburg event is reserved for antique tractor classes and other light-hearted competitions, but Saturday is all business. Officially sanctioned by the Missouri State Tractor Pullers Association, drivers bring their rigs to Louisburg from all over the area to compete for valuable series points. For the local Legion post, however, the event bears a great deal of significance beyond its role as a Louisburg calling card. The 1,500 or so spectators who attend each night help make it the organization’s largest fund-raiser, and Knop said the 2009 pull was a definite success. “We had a nice crowd,” he said. “Everything was about normal.”
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