07:02:47pm, Wednesday, May 08, 2024
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My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Moderator Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 1,449 |
The Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction this past weekend speaks volumes on some of the major problems with the sport of national truck and tractor pulling.
For those that have not looked at the results from the NTPA event there were 2 tractors in the show, not 2 in the pulloff, rather 2 teams that made the drive to Vermont. While these two teams [the Lustik’s and Broughton’s] should be congratulated for their dedication to the fans, sponsor and promoter, it begs the question; why 2 tractor at a Grand National event? While I don’t want this to appear to be just an NTPA problem [PPL is also suffering from low numbers in this class] we need to take a look at what the real problems are, the class itself has some issues that need addressing. 1, there just are not enough 650 cubic alcohol tractors to support 2 organizations. 2, the rules for the class limit the number of places in the country that you can pull your 650 OHC alcohol Super Stock. This class has limited it’s self to only NTPA GN and PPL CT events. A rather limited market. 3; the outrageous expense of owning and pulling these vehicle’s makes it hard to grow the class. 4; the NTPA precommitment rule is not working, if the NTPA considers this success I would hate to see their version of failure! It’s time to overhaul the precommitment rules. 5; the travel, while Dixie Choppers is a great sponsor and Essex Junction Vermont is a beautiful place I’m not sure that a 1 day event in New England is what the sport really needs. Essex Junction is a long ride for those few tractors in the point’s race, and apparently too long a drive for those that are out of the point’s race. And who can blame them! 6; when only 2 tractors show up for an GN event, what does this do to the promoters interest in the class for the next year? Dick Morgan www.PULLOFF.com Independent Pulling News |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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outlaw pulling fan
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outlaws is having the same problem with this class. Not many show up. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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USS (UNLIMITED SUDS SLURPER)
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dON'T giVe UP yeT On thE OutlAw usS CLaSs. i BELieVe tHINGs ARe lookING UP. i'M nOT sURe aBOUt ThE uSs PuLLs dOWN sOuTH (tEXass, oklaHOMO) bUTt, i'M thINKinG tHE pULLS iN tHe mIDwEST wiLL dO OK (MIsERY, kANsASS, NebRASIkA, IoWuHbunCh, sOWT DUH-ko-DUH). jUSs mY rinG-aN-O-pinIOn. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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A. Bedard
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Yes, there could have been more pullers show up, but Sid and Jordan put on a heck of a show...probably the most crowd pleasing of the day. There was to be a pull in NH and ME during the weekend but those were dropped. Gardner Stone is working on getting more hooks up here to benefit the pullers. But, at the end of the year if a puller cant win the points they may not wanna show up. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Was at the pull in Essex, Dave set the sled to a Mod Turbo/ Super Farm class to put on a show for the crowd. Then added 4-5 more blocks for the pull off. Hull usually brings the MM and Kwiatowskis tractors but I guess there both broke. I gotta commend the semi guys. They put on the best show of the day by far. Not sure how much longer it will be a GN event since half or more of the vehicles were "state" pullers. Good show but they need to get diesel supers in there or something to get NYTPA and ESP tractors to come up. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Middle America
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When a GN like Mt Sterling has issues drawing enough OSS in the middle of pulling country its not hard to see the issues that a pull like Essex Junction might have with numbers. The downturn in the number of LSS precommitted also is alarming when the class is actually growing in numbers. What is the issue?
When for example it would take over 500 gallons of diesel for a team like the Haugs to make the Essex Junction event, plus the 50 hours it would take to drive there for two 15-second runs, it doesnt make sense. The power of the multi-tractor teams also means for some pullers that theyre running for fifth place. There are definitely two levels of pullers in SSO. Staying close to home and running in a state or regional organization for less money makes a lot more sense and thats speaking directly to the pushrod guys. OHC tractors have few options like Mr. Morgan said. No puller pulls for the money, but even with an added purse level it would seem that the amount of travel is really taking its toll. So we have 2 SSO at two different events. I commend the pullers, promoters and fans of the events where we've seen some low numbers this year. They made a show and I thank them. It boils down to the reality in this economic age it everyone has to ask themselves if scheduling these classes to run from one end of the pulling world to the other in a couple day's time is possible. Building numbers in SSO means scheduling hooks in a reasonable drive for every potential puller. It also means promoters need to look at the big picture and ask "where else could they run on my weekend?" The smart thing here is for the SSO guys and that means all of them that could be interested in pulling 10-15 events a summer they GET TOGETHER and promote themselves as a package to NTPA/PPL for the events theyre willing to run and make those events. The Orgs. get a committment from the pullers, the orgs. can then turn around and say to promoters "Heres OSS and there will be 10-15 of them at your event" Barnstorming built drag racing and it continues to build classes to this day like it did for Pro Mod and 10.5 classes. I really like the class but it will die without some change, and soon. I also dont claim to have the answers but something needs to be done. |
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Here is my opinion
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Registered: 07/06/2008 Posts: 1,347 |
1). NTPA should drop Essex Junction unless the promotor is willing to make it a 2 day event (which is unlikely). Too far to drive for most people for one hook.
2). Probably the best option for Essex Junction is to become an NYTPA event. They would draw tractors from Syracuse, and perhaps even a few ESP guys since there is not a Labor Day pull. 3). Regarding numbers,- I don't know the situation for every puller, but I believe Kwiatkowski, Hulls, Broughton, Lustik's 2nd tractor all broke at Monroe, MI the day before Mt. Sterling. With that much carnage, #s were bound to be affected. 4). PPL has also had pathetic numbers. Look at Hamburg and Connersville, for example. 3 Roberts tractors, Hirt, maybe Haug, maybe Beaudry (speaking of the Crazy Canuck, even though he doesn't run NTPA normally, Essex Junction was about as close to home as one of the 2 major US circuits gets. Wonder why he didn't show up on Monday). 5). I agree, if would be great if NTPA and PPL could coordinate schedules with this class due to the low #s overall (and high carnage rate). Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. Keeping the NTPA dates of Tomah, BG, maybe Monroe, etc open would be a good idea. Likewise, the PPL dates of Henry, Goshen/Evansville, Macon, Wheatland would also be a good idea. However, I'm afraid that a heavy hitter in one of the organizations has a grudge against the other, so this probably won't happen. |
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Re: Here is my opinion
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Middle America
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It may not be the elimination of the Essex event as a GN event that is the right answer, the answer may be in pulling two days and pulling at an event that is in that direction that would make it work. Michael in your third comment you illustrate a good point in the breakage at Monroe, which obviously hurt Mt Sterling. The 500 mile drive from Michigan to Mt Sterling is 9-10 hours in a truck. That haul is hard on everything, especially the human beings at the wheel. If a OSS unhooked at 11 and maybe, maybe finished loading and ready for the road at 1am, there's not much time for rest let alone working on broken equipment. My understanding is that both places have great crowds, and deserve to see the best but the equipment showcased needs to be examined so that classes will be full and a good show delivered. That falls back on the orgs and promoters and pullers to look at the big picture and see where they can go without breaking man or machine. How much of the breakage that occurs in pulling is related to a tired puller or crew member from running 30 hours in a row? Only they know that answer. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Anonymous User
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Two teams showed up, but the team (Lustik's) that has two tractors only pulled one of them. If I am not mistaken he broke up in Monroe, MI because he only pulled one in Mt. Sterling, Ill. That has been a month ago. I am not sure what happened, but being Lustik's I thought they would of had it back together by now. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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lower cubes
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Even the playing field and let the low hp guys catch up ? No not a good idea, imo jus let the class move where it wants, that might be only hooking one association at the 650 cu.in. high hp level and not hooking at 2 ! of course the fans don't want to hear that an I don't blame them, however these economic times are dictating things alot of people don't like. 2 large associations can coexist but it will take "some give and take" for it to be successful. 1 day hooks are great if there is another event the next night within a couple hrs drive . Everybody knows not all events can afford 2 days . Maybe some day they will be able too if the association they choose keeps bringing them a better show every year instead of a average show each year. Pulling should be on 3 tiers, 1) would be the highest hp best of the best, 2) different type of classes ie small cubes lower hp 3) state type of classes that have been around for ever . |
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The NTPA needs to put the pullers first,,,not themselves
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back actwards
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the NTPA nees to figure out that they need to put the pullers needs before there own selves. Without the pullers they are nothing, Look at all the puller that wnet to PPL. Why. becasue they don'yt want to hook with a guy that doesn't even know there names. Dave S. needs to move ooooooonnnnnnn'''''or are they gonna wait till the thing is dead and gone. |
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Re: The NTPA needs to put the pullers first,,,not themselves
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OSS Puller
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Being a OSS Puller, i can only speak for myself. I love pulling my tractor. With that being said, i also have a family and farm that is more important than pulling. The cost of memberships, winter rebuilds, entry fees, fuel and unexspected repairs has consumed all my play money. When the play money is gone its time to stop for the season. Pulling will never get any cheaper as long as the technology and people are willing to buy it. Unfortinetly limitations won't lower the cost or the technology. Technology and limitations = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ |
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Re: The NTPA needs to put the pullers first,,,not themselves
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Kevin Campbell
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We planned to make it to Esssex Jct up until we broke a Wellington. It is a very nice place to go and a great pull. There are a few problems with Essex Jct. Not the pull , but the situation.
1. We are 2nd clostest behind Sid in drive time and it is 14hrs away. The easy way to look at it, is that just for one hook you are away for a minium of 4 days. 1600 mile round trip / aprox $1000 to win = $0.62cents a mile from here to WIN! If you win. There really needs to be more there for the pullers to go that far. 2. Late in the season, it is hard to get parts. That is just the way it is. It does not take much to keep a tractor at home. You can't justify keeping one of everything around. There is a lot of things you dont want to keep because of becoming obsolete before you might need them. As in our case... We have all new pistons,rods,sleeves, turbos, rockers, etc , but no spare heads and block. You have to draw the line some where. 3. Yes the class is suffering in numbers. It is hard to blame someone for not going all the way to Essex jct. if they are not trying to run for points. It is hard to get people into the class. The popularity of the light class has kept people from wanting to go to the open class.( If they want to run alky GN they have a place other than OSS). It is still very expensive no matter what you do. The split of the class NTPA and PPL hurts it alot. We just don't have the numbers for it. In a class that runs this hard, it is not uncommon to loose at least 1 of 5 tractors to season ending breakage. |
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Re: The NTPA needs to put the pullers first,,,not themselves
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Registered: 04/04/2008 Posts: 1,523 |
i live approx 1 hour from kevin,and his points on winnings vs mileage make perfect sense to me.i have never been to and really cant see myself going there to watch a pull either,due to the mileage factor too.i do have a few questions tho,what is the croud attendence like for this pull,and can the promoter make a profit.i just cant see the geographical area supporting this type of an event,sorda like scheduling a gn pull in new mexico,its just not going to happen. |
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Re: The NTPA needs to put the pullers first,,,not themselves
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Face in crowd
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Kevin, thanks for taking the time to post your perspective to the issue. As an avid pulling fan, it's really nice to read your insight and it helps the rest of us to get a little more educated on the topic. You make a lot of sense-- not wanting to spend money on all replacement parts, replacement parts harder to come by late in the year, obsolete spare parts, etc.
Great post. |
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Re: My Opinion
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Misty Lustik
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Everyone is making it out like the SSO class has had some sort of melt down this year. The mileage, long hours behind the wheel, cost of maintenance, etc. is exactly how it has been in years past.
Our class never had this problem until Hamburg and BG were booked on top of each other. And I definitely don't say that to point a finger at PPL. Organizations have to book events at the promoters' discretion. From what I remember, the Hamburg pull was moved to the last weekend of their fair. And in hindsight, it was probably a good move on PPL's part. But from a puller’s perspective, there is no use in abusing your equipment pulling with both organizations when you know you'll have to miss a major two-day hook at one of them. The SSO class is the only class being majorly affected by this double booking. There are plenty of FWD's, TWD's, Pro’s, Mods, etc. With the SSO the only class that has lower numbers all combined, we are being strongly impacted by this. Two years ago we had to make the decision to choose one organization or the other. While we do hit some PPL events throughout the year, we chose to follow NTPA's points simply because of our commitment to Cen-Pe-Co and their ties to the NTPA. If we could run both organizations, we probably would. Although it is tiring, we've done it in the past. Regarding some posts above: In my opinion, there are enough places to pull OHC alcohol tractors. OSTPA even allows them now. And diesel to run our Peterbilt doesn't cost any more than diesel for someone else's hauler. And there are plenty of competitive vehicles out there, probably even more so than in the SSD class where truly there are only a handful of tractors that are capable of winning on a regular basis. On any given night, there are at least 10 tractors that have the capability of honestly winning a SSO class. Everyone talks about breakage in our class and sure, there has been quite a bit. We’ve put rods through blocks in both tractors this year. After Monroe, we had to park Reloaded because of repeated issues. But I just don’t think the breakage would be as highlighted if we had more numbers. On a separate note, I definitely think there is a need for NTPA to “push” precommitted vehicles to attend all events, if not legitimately broken. How is it fair for some of the competitors to make that long drive, only to be one of two vehicles there? If you precommit, you can’t decide you don’t want to run for points in September just because you don’t want to drive all the way to Vermont. At Mt. Sterling, several tractors in our class were legitimately broken. However, I don’t think that was the case with everyone this past weekend. Tomah is further for us than Vermont was. We just made the trip to Vermont. It was 650 miles one-way. For us, Tomah is almost 750 miles away. You wouldn’t hear us say that Tomah is too far, so we couldn’t go. When you precommit, that’s exactly what you do. You commit to running the points circuit. Not half of it, or three quarters of it. A PPL tractor was turned away from NTPA this year because the precommit list was full. That PPL tractor would have been in Essex Junction, I’m sure of it. The bottom line is there are as many if not more SSO tractors out there as there have ever been. It’s just that they are basically split in half. Half to with PPL and the other half with NTPA. So when there is a lot of breakage on one circuit or the other, you’re going to hear that the class is dying. I don't believe the class is dying. It’s just split in half. |
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Re: My Opinion
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Anonymous User
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Does anybody have results from Essex ? |
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Re: My Opinion
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Sid Broughton - FP / 305
Jordan Lustik - FP / 297 The Bullet spit a spark plug clear out, threads and all. Took a nice chunk out of the side shield. Congrats to Sid! He made two really nice passes! |
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Re: My Opinion
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Misty, I didnt get a chance to chat with you but I did chat with Jordan for a bit. Thanks for coming up and making the most of a two tractor class, was worth the drive(57miles) over for me anyways!
Last year Gaeton Yelle showed up, this year he had breakage the day before...stuff like that happens. Hopefully NTPA can get the NH and ME shows lined up so its a 3 pull weekend, itd be worthwhile for everyone. BTW...Essex had a good track this year, before anyone says its a sand pit. Andre Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2010 01:51PM by Dick Morgan. |
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Re: My Opinion
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Registered: 11/04/2008 Posts: 48 |
was sure that was the reason we all had to have a shield over the spark plugs, you telling us that shield dosnt work? |
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Re: My Opinion
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puller 12000
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I agree with you Misty, Essex was on the schedule when they signed up to do it, if you don't want to go to Essex then don't precommit, Although when the NTPA wants to have an event that far from the midwest (where most of the pullers are) they must have more than one hook for the pullers if they want to assure enough tractors will be there. |
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Re: My Opinion
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MM KID
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We were on our way, but had semi problems and didnt have enough time to fix it to make it there on time to hook. otherwise we would've been there with 2. it is a 23 hour drive for us, sucked having to miss it tho. |
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Re: My Opinion
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Jared Davis
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The PPL tractor that got turned away was Jeff hirt's runin bare. There are a lot of people whining about OSTPA allowing OHC tractors, but I would say that it's a fair fight to have OHC vs. pushrod vs. diesel. By the way, Misty, will you guys be running the Bullet Reloaded tractor at Dover, ohio again this year ? |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Puller 12000
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I don't think the following would have anything to do with NTPA's declining competitors, Do you???????????
1988 NTPA rule book pages 52 and 53 Grand National Purse 10 Pro/ TWD $5,000.00 7 & 9 Super and 7 Mod $6,000.00 Unlimited $9,000.00 2010 NTPA rule book pages 93, 94, 95, 97, Grand National Purse 10 Pro $5,720.00 TWD $5,400.00 Diesel Super $6,160.00 Unlimited $10,800.00 Note the 1988 purse did not have the aprox 20% two hook discount that NTPA imposes on the pullers purse for 2 day events. Considering what inflation has done for the last 22 years the current NTPA purse is an insult to anybody that pulls for them, and until they don't have any pullers I feel it won't change, and don't tell me the last two years have been bad, the 20 years before that were not. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Chris W
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Well said puller 12000, if these venues are drawing all these fans there is no reason why they cant pay elite purses for elite tractors. The USS tractors are show stoppers and should be paid for it! They are and always have been my favorite class to watch. I love all of pulling in general, but am willing to drive an extra 3 hours and pay 30 bucks to get in to see these machines perform. I dont know what NTPA charges the promoter to have these guys vs. what they pay back, but I know this much if there is a class out there that deserves to be paid big bucks this is it! I agree with Misty, This class is not dead the money being paid to these pullers is a joke for what they bring to the table. And not just this class but all classes in general. Toma and BG are generating thousands and thousands of dollars and should be ashamed of the percentage that the pullers are getting. If you only book the USS in the venues that can afford to pay big money for a big show I think you will be suprised at how many of these tractors will show up. |
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Re: My Opinion----Open Super Stock class at Essex Junction
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Well
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There is somewhere around 30-35 tractors in the US-Canada that can only hook the UL/SS or OSS class.Divide that up between 3 major organizations and you are down to 10 or less each as some tractors havent hooked much or not at all this year.Towards the end of the season lots are broken so the numbers really fall off.
In the future I look for the numbers to fall off in all the higher dollar classes.It just costs too much to build them.keep them together, and haul them all over the US for prize money that needs to be far more than what it is.As for answers I have none. |
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