This is one of my favorite times of the year.  Not because it’s summer, the month of my birth, the peak season for butter beans and fresh peaches, full of thunderstorms, or a great time to go to the beach.  No, no.  All of those things are great, but none is as great as the…

CUMBERLAND COUNTY FAIR.

I LIVED for the fair when I was younger.   I kind of still do.

This year is the first year I was not able to partake of all of the events I love.  I did manage, however, to attend the truck pull on Friday night.  There used to be a tractor pull and last year there was even a mule pull, but this year there was only a truck pull to attend.  That’s ok, though, I will take whatever kind of pulls I can get.

That sounds kind of weird, but you know what I mean.

Here we are rolling out the track where the trucks will pull.   And by we, I mean not me as I haven’t a clue how to operate this piece of machinery.

But I would like to learn…

This is the “sled” that the trucks pull.  There is a man who operates the sled sitting in the little cabin.  The weight is in that red box with the flags and it shifts up towards the front of the sled as the trucks pull.  The weight is adjusted based on the class of the trucks and how much weight their engines are able to handle.

I’ve been going to this event for so many years now, that I know some of the trucks that are regulars.  They have names.  A few that my cousin and I could recall this year were: Live Wire, Holly Roller (who was MIA), and Bad to the Bone.

There is a lot of tinkering and standing around of men that occurs on the field.

Granny and Papa taking it all in.  They always sit in lawn chairs in front of the truck (which we back up into our spot) and we girls sit up in the bed of the truck.

The first truck to pull tests the weights.  If the truck pulls a “full pull,” which this year we deduced was about 230 feet, they often adjust the sled weight and allow the test truck to pull again.

This is Live Wire, hauling tough as usual.  Many of the best ones are these old, old trucks.

Just in case you were wondering, they are not street legal.  Although, there is a class for that where several silly people enter their VERY expensive pick-ups and often break them.  I will decline to comment further on that issue.

Now this is one of our favorites in recent years.  I’m almost certain that this started as a street legal entry and then became a true competitor after a serious engine overhaul.  The frame, however, appears to have been “maintained” in its original condition.  This year, the truck’s name was “Ugly Truck.”  I had a good laugh over that.  At least he doesn’t take himself too seriously.   He did have almost a full pull, so that will teach you to judge a truck by its body.

Cousin Lauren and I had another good laugh over this one.  In case you can’t tell by my semi-blurry picture, that says “Varmint.”

LOVE it.

This is the diesel class.  Also not street legal.

And this is why they’re not street legal.

I believe there is a funnel cloud sprouting out the front of this truck.

Seriously.

And he’s off.

Whoa, nelly.  On his way to a full pull at a whopping 19 miles per hour.

Actually, that’s about as fast as you want one of these trucks moving as they carry thousands and thousands of pounds of weight behind them through a fairly narrow opening in the fence.

We didn’t see any major mishaps, blow outs, or short pulls this year, but there were a few trucks that kept dying as they tried to get going with the sled.  This poor dude would make a big ol’ roar…

Rev it up…

Put it in gear… and then his engine would die.

All exhaust and no pull.

Then we have the cutie-pie trucks.

Don’t be fooled, they can haul a serious load.

They also tend to lift up on the front as they pull so they require extra skill in steering correctly as the front of the truck bounces off the ground.  If the truck is not properly steered, the truck can run off-course and jack-knife.  We saw this happen this year, but I was so caught up in the drama that I forgot to take a picture.

Sorry.  You’ll just have to come and see for yourself.

We didn’t stay to see the street legal bunch this year because I’m getting old and had to leave the next morning at dawn to drive back to Nashville for work.  I didn’t really want to leave because it’s really entertaining to watch this class as it’s normally the one with the most casualties (trucks, not people), but in a way it’s kind of painful to watch people break $40,000 trucks.

So that’s a little taste of the Cumberland County truck pull.

I hope you enjoyed it at least 1/100^th as much as I do, which is A LOT.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump