Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 16, 2021 09:00AM
As COVID is hopefully coming to an end and many people are preparing for pulling season, I have been thinking about what needs to change to help pulling grow once the economy and the country gets back going. As I am thinking about this, I thought about what is different about the best days of pulling (the 80's) and what pulling has become today. The two main differences that I can think of is that the tractors were for the most part much lighter, they were more unpredictable and there were times when a local guy could come to a big grand national pull and have a real chance against the big guys without necessarily having the same power that they did. As I continued to think about this I came to the conclusion that all of these factors have to do with one thing - the weight of the tractor.

Why the weight of the tractor effects how unpredictable pulling is

-If you go to many of the major pulls and watch classes like the USS or the DSS you can almost guess the top five because of the power difference and money spent difference between them. Heck even a class like hot farm has gotten to the point where you know who has spent the most money and 9 times out of 10 they are at the top. I understand that you have to pay to play but local crowds enjoy to see the local guy who may not have as much money in his tractor have a chance. Its kinda like the cinderella team in college basketball. Many people have never watched the small school until they begin to play well and when they do it is one of the most entertaining parts of the NCAA tournament. The same thing goes for pulling- fans like to see a local guy at least have a chance to be within 10 ft of the bigtime competitors. The predictability of pulling in my opinion has played a major role in The less fan interest that we today. You may ask what is a way to stop the predictability of pulling. There may be others but overall the best way to stop pulling being extremely predictable and only the richest people having a chance of winning is to lower the weight of the classes. When you lower the weight of the classes you will allow for the driver to do more work instead of the machine. This puts more emphasis on the drivers of the tractors instead of the tractors themselves. What this does is it allows for a local driver to get lucky every once in a while and hit his weight right and maybe even win a big Grand National Pull because he hooked his tractor and put his power to the ground better than anyone else did. Granted, the high horsepower guys will always have an advantage over the locals and less money guys but at the same time it shouldn't mean that if you don't spend a 150k plus that you shouldn't have a chance to compete. In reality this argument has nothing to do with pullers but rather it has everything to do with fans and if we can break the monotony of the same tractors winning every single time and giving a local guy chance it will make pulling much more popular for local crowds that may not follow it on a national stage.

I can already hear the argument from many of the pullers about how much more money it will take to be in a lighter class. While there is some reason to this theory, the amount of money that goes into buying a yearly turbo and always updating pump and injectors far outweighs the cost of lightning up the classes. From what I have heard, this argument often comes from people who have a lot of money and pulling and would rather keep winning because they spent the most money rather than because they outdrove another person.

The second most prominent argument that I hear when I make this point is that it will push classes such a super Farm, limited pro, and light pro closer to component chassis and will hurt the Longevity of the stock rear end. The argument against this is that with a lighter weight, it will allow for more slippage of the tires which is easier on the engine because it is not lugging the motor down all the time as well as it's easier on the rear end which is not taking the extreme torque of a diesel motor when the wheels are hooked solid to the ground.

Finally, I don't understand why people act like it is impossible to get a cast rear end tractor down on weight. For example, I know of a few IH 706 rears that are down to 6000lbs and for minimal money and work you can get these ag rear tractors to 7000lbs (THATS 2300lbs in super farm and 2500 in limited pro) Im not sure about JD rears but many of them used to pull in the 5 and 7000 lbs super stock and im fairly sure its more than possible to get them down to at least 7500 if not lighter.

Personally this is the changes to the weight that I think need to be made-
Super Farm 8500lbs
Light Pro- 8200lbs
Limited Pro -8700lbs
This is just my opinion but I would like to hear what others think!
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 16, 2021 11:23AM
I have written about this topic several times before. In my perfect world I would like to see heavy classes ( 8000 pounds or higher ) reduce the weight of the vehicles by 10% and classes lower than 8000 pounds reduce the weight of the vehicles by 5%. I believe it would make for a real exciting show.


Dick Morgan

www.PULLOFF.com
Independent Pulling News
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 16, 2021 11:41AM
Seems to me you are wanting to get rid of big block Deere’s super farm and 4.1 class is full of them would be impossible to balance at that weight.
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 16, 2021 12:11PM
Would bumping limited pro up to 9000 instead of 8700 work? I understand there are some super farms with big block but not many. Also, if your still don’t have enough weight to weigh properly, you can always drop the drawbar. Happens all the time in light super and while it may be a disadvantage, it may just be part of running a big block vs a small block or IH tractor. Let me be clear that I’m not familiar with JD pulling. ( also please delete the duplicate response above)
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 17, 2021 12:43AM
1066 -- your exactly right, there needs to be more of a drivers impact than whos got the most money, there's already talk of wanting to raise the weight in the Light Limited Super Stock class ( THIS DOES NOT NEED TO HAPPEN ), tractor pulling was way more entertaining back in the early 90s, been watching the old ATPA light 5700lbs class on YouTube, way more entertaining and enjoyable, and some of those guys were running 3 chargers and NO COMPONENTS.
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 16, 2021 04:54PM
LSS and or LLSS?
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Re: Make Pulling Classes Lighter Again! February 17, 2021 12:06AM
Dropping the drawbar happens in both light super and light limited super. However I do not think that classes like light super and LLSS should drop weight because they are already very very light and that’s why they put on a good show and have good numbers.
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