Is The Pro Stock Class Broken? (originally posted May 5, 2004)
Published January 26, 2009 02:45AM, by Jake Morgan
(originally posted May 5, 2004)
A look into the future of the Pro Stock as well as the other tractor classes
I’ve been working on this opinion article for the better part of three months; actually it’s closer to four month now after the latest set of revisions. Usually I have a thought and write an article in a few days then let the article set for a half a week to a week and then read over the article to see what points I missed and to see how the article reads. Not this time. I know I don’t have all my bases covered because this is a very difficult topic but here goes nonetheless.
This article has been different for a number of reasons. I started out with the intentions of focusing on the Pro Stock class, I soon realized that this problem is more than just a Pro Stock problem; it’s a tractor problem. For those of you who believe there aren’t any problems right now in the tractor classes, keep reading and maybe our opinions aren’t really all the different, then again maybe they are.
Ask yourself this: what will the tractor classes look like in ten years? Twenty years? How about as little as five years? Any different? Any better? Any worse?
Lets get back to the present for a few minutes. I believe things are exciting and entertaining now but could they be better for the fans and the pullers alike? With the present being alright, what about the future. If all the tractor classes stay status quo for the short-term it will be a huge detriment to the sport and it will have a very negative impact on long-term growth.
So to get things rolling I will take this as close to step by step as I am able to. I apologize in advance if I get off track, the issues seem to be interlaced and complicated. For easier argument I’ll try and stick to the Pro Stock class. I will reference other classes occasionally but the Pro Stock class is at the heart of my discussion.
I propose the following question - Is the Pro Stock class broken?
I’m sure that many of you believe the answer is unequivocally NO! Some of you will instantly yell out a resounding YES! I fall somewhere in between, the class is definitely not in shambles. I love watching this class. A few years back I was just a casual Pro Stock fan, now I absolutely love to watch them pull. The advances in horsepower, the close competion and the immaculate vehichles make this class a fan favorite. However the class is starting to show signs of some serious issues, and there are even more serious issues on the not too distant horizon.
The problem is a very simple one, as usual it simply boils down to a little math, the important numbers and calculations always seems to come back the same thing, cubic inch. A large majority of pullers I’ve spoken with admit that the cubic inch limits are preposterous but yet nothing ever changes.
I believe that for the tractor classes to continue to be viable classes into the 21-century the cubic inch limits will need to come down in all the tractor classes. That’s right ALL tractor classes need to get down to reasonable limits. I’m going to go out on a limb, but I believe this is inevitable and will happen with-in ten years, and the organization(s) that take the initiative will be much healthier and viable for long term stability and growth.
There are tons of pullers and builders that are probably yelling at their computers right now, and if my lively hood or my huge investment was in a large cubic inch motor I would be rather upset myself. So before you turn off your computer or jump over to the Feedback page and start to bash me please read the rest of this opinion article (then you can bash me).
Engine Limits: What it is vs. what it should be: For those of you out there who don’t already know the limit, Pro Stock are “limited” to 680 CID (Super Farm Stock are 640 CID, Super Stock are 650 CID (certain orgs. limit them to 504/505 CID) you can see we are all over the map in the 600’s with no logical progression or reasoning) The ideas and thoughts have been thrown around for a few years on lowering the Pro Stock class to 620 CID, I believe this is a complete waste of time. Any cubic inch limit in the 600’s for any tractor class is absolutely preposterous. I hope no organization would make such a minor change down to 620 CID hoping that it would solve anything. If an organization(s) did lower the limit to 620 CID I would suspect the thought would be to lower the limit in stages, 60 CID here and 60 CID there until it gets down to a reasonable number. The biggest problem with this is simple economics: Why force the puller to spend the money twice or even three times. Do it right the first time and spend the money once. I am a firm believer that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing right. Especially when it comes to making rules that cost pullers money.
Now you may be asking me what I think the limit should be, and some of you may already think they know. To be completely honest with you I’m not entirely certain. I’ve narrowed it down to a 36 cubic in range. I believe it should be no lower than 504 CID and no higher than 540 CID.
All the classes should get to the same limit eventually but as for the exact number I’m not quite sure. As I sit here and type this I believe 504/505/510 would be an ideal limit but 540 would probably be more realistic and more inclusive (more on that later) so I lean toward the 540 limit.
Technology vs. Time warp?
This is the part where I get frustrated. My fingers can’t keep up with my thoughts and the “why less is more” part of the argument starts.
There’s a faction of people who like to pull out the argument that we should not limit the technology and lowing the cubic inch will do that. To those people I respectfully disagree. The lower cubic inch limit would allow a greater number of new modern power plants to be used instead of the antique blocks that are currently being retrofitted and updated on the Pro Stock circuits.
A limit of 680 actually only benefits a select few motors, most of which were last produced in the 1960’s and 1970’s. How can rules that benefit 40-year-old motors be advancing technology?
If pullers, fans, and the major organizations took a serious look at the tractors that are currently being produced by the major manufactures in the USA as well as abroad they would see a very obvious trend. How big are their motors? The John Deere, Case/IH New Holland, AGCO, McCormick all are being manufactured with 8.3 liter, 505 CID motors, while some of the other domestic and European tractors are in the 460 cubic inch range. A far cry from the current antiquated 640-680 CID limits.
If the current rules aren’t benefiting tractors that were produced in the mid 1960’s to the 1970’s I don’t know what is. These rules as well as the motors are antiques to say the least. Sure these motors have all the advanced technology that is available in tractor pulling today but the blocks are still outdated and outmoded.
Color vs. Popularity
The ridiculously large limits were originally designed to be all inclusive. The goal was to allow almost all the motors ever produced in a two wheel drive farm tractor to be legal. At the time of the rule inception there was:
- Massey 640 CID Perkins engine
- Oliver/White573/636 CID Cat engine
- Duetz and MM/White each had a 585 CID engine
- Deere had the 531 CID engine (The 619 is interchangeable but was never offered in a rigid frame two drive tractor).
As an interesting side note ALL these manufactures as well as other manufacturers not listed had engines in the mid 400 CID range.
While this may have seemed like an all inclusive rule in the beginning, in reality these big block tractors make up an extremely small percentage of the tractor offered from the major manufactures, not to mention that the smaller companies have no engines even close to the current limits.
These all inclusive rules have actually created very exclusive classes in pulling, with two manufactures dominating, and in the case for the Pro Stock class, one manufacture is rapidly making up 90% on the class on the National circuits.
For those of you who have the “eye for an eye” mentality: IH dominated forever and now it’s Deere’s time to shine. All an “eye for an eye” ever gets anyone is a bunch of blind people. For pulling to be more marketable it needs more brands, it needs a blue, or an orange, yellow, lime-green, dark-green, off-red as well as the green and red in the winners circle: VARIETY. If the ATPA or NTPA were to take a tape of a pull to a prospective sponsor or promoter who is unfamiliar with pulling what would be more marketable a 90% green class or a class with variety and color? I’ll take the variety, and so will they. Pulling will always need the Deere but it needs more.
The 540 CID limits I propose would still allow the big block Deere (531 stock) to pull. It would also allow the 540 Perkins to be legal. Any motor over 540 should be allowed to decube to 540 as long as the motor was offered in a rigid frame (non-articulating) tractor that way no motor gets left out in the cold.
Case in point: In western NY there are the usual JD and IH but there are/were a number of very strong Ford NH dealerships and AC/Agco dealerships and it filtered over to pulling in certain classes but not with many 600+ CID motors. The color is in the classes with a very reasonable 504 limit.
In fact one tractor class overall nationally stands out as having the most color, Light Super Stock. There is a Light Super Stock in just about every make or model of tractor ever made. There is no single color that makes up a vast majority of the class, unlike the Pro Stock. Although the 504 limit has all but eliminated the small 301 motors this hasn’t limited the classes’ variety in any way. This class is what tractor pulling is all about, different colors with different setups battling it out to see who is the best that given night. Not just which Deere will win! People can give a number of different reason for the variety but it boils down to an attainable engine limit for every breed (even the off breeds). A level playing field CID wise means that everyone comes out to play. Reasonable limits = variety.
For those who think color will be brought to the class when organizations allow component Pro Stock in 2005, again I respectfully disagree. Component will be safer and cheaper but it still won’t overcome the issue of color (Tractor purests, this is coming whether you like it or not, and it may eventually come to Super Farms Stock as well). A new rearend will not make a New Holland motor any bigger.
There are many that would argue that a majority of tractor sold in the USA are IH and JD so the pulling track is just a reflection of the fields across America. That may have been true in the past but things are rapidly changing and pulling need to keep up with the times.
A reality that some farmers are unwilling to face is that European tractors are grabbing more and more of the US market share all the time. Every time I look around I see a new tractor being tested in a field in this area. I’ve seen everything from Fendt to Valmet in the fields and I would expect to see more of them in the future. I’d also expect to see more McCormick tractors doing field work in the future. Shouldn’t the rules be inclusive to allow these brands to be competitive as they gain mainstream acceptance?
Cost vs Benefit:
Lets face it this sport will always be expensive. The cost is always going to be prohibitive to a large portion of society. The best parts will never be cheap no matter what the limits are. Under the current rules there is no (Zero, zilch, none, 0, nada) chance that a lower budget team could put together a competitive tractor on a limited budget. The price for the machine work alone is staggering to get a motor up in the 650+ CID range (if even possible for the given color). Even to get many motors near 600 CID range is expensive and you are still 80 CID from the limit, a fairly substantial amount.
On the contrary a 500 – 540 limit is either inexpensive or free as many of the motors start life already in that range. For those 466 blocks, they are only 74 (max) inches off the limit which is significant but a stock bore and stroke with the right builder could be built to be competitive without all the expense of a stroked crank and bored block. The newer 505 CID blocks that almost all manufactures are offering would not need a thing done to them to be competitive.
So maybe you say let any engine run under any sheetmetal, it will keep cost down and bring color to the classes. Will the cross breads help the sport? Will we wind up with a class of 680 CID component Deere with different color sheet metal?
We would still be watching 50 year old blocks pull down the track. Not to mention the extremely detrimental effect it will have on potential manufacture sponsorship. No company in their right mind would allow their products motor to be replaced with a competitors and sponsor that vehicle. The Pandora’s Box of cross breads will probably be open at some point and pulling will be the worse for it. Where will it stop? Will aftermarket blocks be allowed? What about Billet blocks be legal? If you think pulling is expensive now, wait until the cross breads become mainstream.
The people that can afford to will always push the envelope and spend unrealistic amounts of moneyfor a minor Hp increase, but for the average puller a reasonable limit would mean not doing unnecessary machine work that could be traded off for a better pump or turbo, or whatever they see fit.
How should the rule be implemented:
Simple answer, slowly over a course of years. Give an incentive to reach the limit ahead of schedule, possibly: take the weight down for the big motor tractors and let the little motor tractors have a distinct weight advantage. Maybe give the big motors a small restrictor plate for a few years until the rule deadline. If the incentive and the timeline were both large enough the big cube parts would either wear out or not be competitive and things would almost happen naturally.
Parts wear out, parts break. There needs to be an incentive to rebuild with parts that would fit the new limits. A time line needs to be developed to implement the rules with the least impact. Both organizations will probably never agree on anything, which make things even more difficult but reasonable limits that are inclusive need to be laid out well in advance, not just thrown at the pullers over the winter.
In Conclusion:
To be honest, I don’t know how to appease every puller/builder, it’s not possible. If the CID is lowered and the rules are ever implemented there will be a portion of the pulling population that doesn’t go quietly. They will kick and scream have a little tantrum and complain about how they are getting singled out. If they look further than their very substantial investment they can see that the sport would benefit in the long run. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t spent money on a big cube motor, I am just sitting in a chair and predicting, reflecting, and speculating what would make the tractor classes healthier.
Sometimes it’s hard to look past this summer or the season after but we are quickly getting to the point of: “Antique Performance Pulling” after ll the JD 5010 is over 40 years old! Don’t get me wrong I love the rusty old 5010 but where are the McCormick, Fendt, NH, Agco? Is Pro Stock healthy? Where is this sport going in the next 5-10 years?
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OK bash away:
As usual this is just my opinion. It is not fact and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I am not trying to single out any person/builder/team. Some of the nicest teams I’ve met are big cube guys, and one of, if not the classiest builders in pulling is a big cube Deere builder. This is not personal; it is just my opinion on what direction the tractor classes need to go in as this sport moves into the future. I believe that it’s only a matter of time until limit changes are made in one or all tractor classes. It needs to be dealt with before the tractor classes in the sport can stabilize and become more colorful. As usual feel free to agree, disagree, call me names, etc… on the feedback page, just do it in a mature and rational manner.
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Jake Morgan
Owner, PULLOFF.COM
Independent Pulling News
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