Sandwich Fair Times 2025 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 11
Coming a long way
350 feet at a time
Tractor pulls have changed
a lot since the Frieders family got involved with them
at the Sandwich Fair in the
1970s. Antique tractors used
to pull big metal pans. People
jumped onto the pans to slow
down and ultimately stop the
tractor. The contest then, like
now, was to see whose tractor
got the farthest.
“We’re stopping them with
weight,” says Gene Frieders.
“So, we’re letting them pull as
much as they can, as fast as
they can, as far as they can.”
However an apparatus called
a sled provides increasing resistance now.
Frieders says when he started,
an antique tractor may have
pulled 3,500 pounds using a
50-horsepower motor. Some
of today’s entries pull 50,000
pounds and may have up to
four 2,500-horsepower motors!
The sport tracks back to the
era of horse-pulled farm implements. Sometimes farmers
in local groups made a game
of finding out whose animals
could pull the heaviest carts
and other weights. When tractors came along, the pastime
evolved.
From the 1920s to the 1960s,
the contests pulled bigger
crowds. More and more, contestants traveled out of their
home areas for competitions.
They found rules and contest
conditions varied from venue
to venue.
Enthusiasts formed the National Tractor Pullers Association in 1969. Anyone competing in NTPA events knows
what rules and safety require-
ments are in place every time.
Having the same standards
each time makes for fairer
performance
comparisons.
Regular participants accumulate points all season and earn
end-of-season awards.
A lot of them are just gear
heads, engine builders, people
that just love motor sports in
general.” But he says they’re
not wealthy. A blend of hardcore enthusiasm and sponsorships fuels their passion.
At the final NTPA event of the
season, Frieders says, “They
might place second that night,
but they already won the point
run for the year. And they will
be the national champion
tractor puller.” In some recent
years, the Sandwich Fair was
the final Grand National NTPA
event of the season. This year,
it determines berths in one
more contest in Urbana, Ohio
on September 13.
Trucks will have their event at
the Sandwich Fair on Thursday night, September 4. Start
time is 6:30pm. Scott Frieders says that class of trucks
draws drivers from the region.
Keeping a contest fair requires
constant track maintenance.
Otherwise, the course surface
gets more heavily gouged
with each test and nobody
gets the same conditions. But
there’s no need to keep spectators waiting for more action
while the ground is restored
between pulls. The contest alternates on two tracks, each
with its own sled over about
two-and-a-half hours.
The tractor events are at
12:30pm and 6:30pm on Saturday, September 6.
“There’s a lot of local people
from our area within a 3540-mile radius that pull that
night. So that gets some of
the local guys to come down
and pull on a national level at
our local fair.”
“In each session, we run the
same classes. We will be running Grand National Super
Farm tractors. We’re running
Grand National Pro Stock
tractors. We’re running Grand
National Super Stock diesel
tractors. And then we round
out the night with the Grand
National Modified tractors,
“And one will pull first. And which are the multi-engines,
then we’ll go out and fix that eight- to ten thousand-horsetrack,” says Frieders. “While power.”
we’re fixing that track, the
other side will pull. And it As far as this sport has come
keeps flipping back and forth. metaphorically, the drivers
That way, there’s excitement can’t go too far on the field.
for the customer through the A full pull is 350 feet. Measuring stops there. If two or more
entire event.”
make it that far, a pull-off deContestants spend tens of cides the winner.
thousands of dollars on their
machines. So maybe you’d
More information:
think they make a lot of money too. Gene’s nephew Scott
https://ntpapull.com/pullFrieders says they don’t.
ing-101/
“A lot of them are farmers.
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2025 Sandwich Fair Times
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