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Competitors pulling their weight at fair
Published 7/31/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Satanta resident Clarence Correia will tell people he's hard to miss traveling down the street.
He's right.
If it were just Correia and his truck, he would have blended in Thursday afternoon as he traveled down Mary Street. But it's the four-engine sled-pulling tractor Correia hauls on a trailer behind his truck that draws the attention.
As Correia stood with the tractor on Thursday in the parking lot of Jax, 1907 E. Mary St., passersby walked up, asking questions such as how much gas the implement uses (it takes about 52 1/2 gallons of methanol fuel to run a 300-foot track) or why all the engines (Correia said he can never have enough horsepower).
"Are you pulling somewhere?" one woman asked him.
People can see what Correia's tractor and others can do at 8 tonight at the Western Kansas Truck and Tractor Pull show at the grandstand arena at the Finney County Fairgrounds. Tickets for the show, provided by the National Sled Pullers Association, are $10 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and younger and $15 for a pit pass. Tickets are available at www.selectaseat.com, Garden City Co-op, Garden City Farm Equipment or Dillons stores.
There's also a meet and greet from 1 to 3 p.m. today at Jax with some of the show's tractor pullers.
Correia, 54, began tractor pulling in 1978 and started back up after quitting for a few years. This year is the 14th that Correia has been in competitive tractor pulling.
Correia, who also has a home in Tulare, Calif., is on the road mostly every week from about February to October with the competitive tractor pulling. Correia's son, Jeremy, who drives the machine, was flying in to arrive in Garden City at 3 p.m. today for the competition.
According to Correia, the tractor packs about 10,000 horsepower with its four 526-cubic-inch HEMI engines. He has about $200,000 invested in the machine — each engine is about $40,000.
To give an idea of the power and speed the tractor possesses, Correia said an average motor on the street carries 250 to 300 horsepower.
The machine took a year and one week to build, and Correia said the tractor's tires can turn up to about 130 mph. The tires' rims are big enough to provide a temporary bed to his grandchildren who sleep there while Correia and his son work on the tractor.
The way the tractor pulling events work is the tractor has a 300-foot track it runs down. The tractor pulls a sled down the track that typically weighs about 160,000 pounds, or 80 tons. As the tractor runs down the track, the weight on the sled transfers from back to front and tries to stop the tractor by applying more force and weight.
"It's a lot of fun," Correia said of the events. "It's a big adrenaline rush."
Correia said he's been on the tractor seat, freezing and shivering in February and by the time he's "made the pass" or gone down the track, he's covered in sweat.
Correia runs four circuits with the tractor, including the Pacific Tractor Pullers Association, United Truck and Tractor Pullers and National Sled Pullers Association.
Correia's wife grew up around racing — his in-laws raced. While his father-in-law quit racing, Correia is still going.
"This is my schedule for August," Correia said, pointing to nearly every weekend filled up for the month in the book.
The team is scheduled for 42 runs this year. They've won six of the last seven events the father-and-son team has competed in — they took second in the one they didn't win.
"Just depends on who shows up," Correia said of tonight's competition and how they'll do.
Jeremy Correia was 13 when he got behind his first blower tractor, a more powerful tractor than an injected one.
Correia said his wife had wanted Jeremy on an injected-type tractor, but once Jeremy got behind the more powerful one, he didn't want to go back.
People will tell them they're crazy with their hectic schedule and speed of the tractor.
"My wife keeps telling me that, too," he said.
But the two keep going.
"Rule of thumb," Correia said of horsepower, "it's never enough."
On the Web:
Finney County Fair: http://www.finneycountyfair.org/
Download a copy of the Finney County Fair book.
Should the biothreat lab be moved to Kansas? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com.
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