The Porter County Expo Center and Fairgrounds is hosting muscular, motorized machines that move.
Roaring engines will set the tone in front of a grandstand crowd.
A showcase for brawny pickup trucks and tractors is set for 7 p.m. Sunday. Gates open at 4:30 p.m.
The Truck and Tractor Pull is in its 17th year as a Labor Day-weekend tradition that is presented by Porter County-based Super Show Promotions.
“We have souped-up farm tractors,” Stacy King, secretary for Super Show Promotions, said. “We’ll have stock, four-wheel-drive pickups. We’ll also have stock farm tractors.”
King said other types of vehicles that get the limelight at the outdoor event are the 6,000-pound super-stock tractor and the 7,500-pound modified tractor.
There is big-vehicle competition to be enjoyed at Sunday’s display of hauling power in the Valparaiso area.
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The revved-up event is on the schedule of the Hoosier State Tractor Pullers Association.
“It’s a very competitive show,” George Everett, association president, said. “We’re really strict on safety.”
Both diesel-engine and alcohol-engine farm tractors will be in the show.
“There’s a lot of horsepower,” said Everett, a resident of Monrovia, near Indianapolis.
Aircraft-engine technology is likewise scheduled to be used by a faction of the tractors at the face-off of heavy-duty vehicles.
According to the National Tractor Pullers Association, tractor pulling is known as “the world’s heaviest motorsport.” It utilizes tractors, farm tractors and trucks that are modified to suit the dragging of a weighted sled.
Everett said four-wheel-drive modified trucks that are used in these competitions resemble a “normal, four-wheel-drive” pickup truck that the public would normally see on the road.
The powerful trucks rolling on the track can have a certain visual appeal.
“They blow out black, billowing smoke,” said King, a Morgan Township resident.
The National Tractor Pullers Association cites the “super farm tractors” class, which it describes as a limited, single turbo charger diesel-only 9,300-pound category.
Bob Kostanczuk is a freelance writer.
Truck and Tractor Pull
Where: Porter County Expo Center and Fairgrounds, 215 E. Division Road, Washington Township near Valparaiso
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $6-$13; pit pass is $20
Information: 219-531-8934