The initial idea of the limits was to keep costs down. After like 10 years we can see they didn‘t at all. What they did was to kinda "freeze" the look of the tractors as far as it concerns the number of engines, making the sport loose a lot of it‘s appeal to the fans. It also instandly kicked out the innovators and turned it into check book pulling (especially in the USA). Also didn‘t help the teams that asked for the limits. They are still where they were before... With the 2.5t coming close or being at it‘s physical horsepower limit, the odd stuff is slowly coming back. All of a sudden we have machines like Roude Leiw, Rocket Science, De Jong Special, Cent, .. Tractors that are full of inovvation and real crowd pleasers.
Like everybody is still talking about what a beast the old 4-Allison Green Fighter was. Today we can say, that pile of truck junk and sputtering Allisons maybe made 6000 hp the most and the complete tractor for sure didn‘t cost much more than 60.000 € to build. Today we have pretty much that in just two engines and three times as much work during the season, even though we do less events...?!
Remember what a show it was for the money! Never again did we have that many specators at our event again, as the day we ran that 4 Allison beast (and actually made good money with the combination of Tractor / event. At present we‘re happy to break even at the end of the year with A LOT more money coming from the sponsors).
So I would pretty much try to do away with limits soon. Either we are the strongest sport on wheels or we‘re just some "indexed hobby performance".
The forefathers of Tractor Pulling who wrote the rules had a pretty clear idea of what they were doing. They made WEIGHT the limit for the simple reason, the more you weigh the more you can pull. I think the 2.5t is a good example that it works.
According to our datalogging we, in the end, made about 2400 hp in 2.5t in 2008. Considering we had a backfire at the Pull Off at Bettborn because of trying to run too much exhaust temperature, we didn‘t do too bad, even though we‘re probably 1000 hp or more short of some of the others. What we do have though, is moveable weight and are pretty much the only ones who can run HP tires in the light class. Others are struggling with either balance and / or tires (simply because they don‘t have the avaliable weight to fix that problem). For the last couple of years we have always combined adding horsepower with loosing weight on the back of that tractor and we‘ll continue to do so.
Shows me, there is a limit of how much power you can put to the track (or we‘d be left in the dust in that class) at a given weight. If you have "enough" power for the weight, you can win with skills (the unlimited minis are a good example, too. Two "damn" Chevy‘s in the top 3 at the European finals)
I know 200 kg more in the 2.5t would kick us out of the game, 200 kg less and we would almost have to detune the engine. At present we have to add a little more power to reach the limit. I am already VERY curious how Rob van der Waal will fare in the 2.5t with the old Judge chassis (that thing is SHORT!). If he keeps it the length it is, according to my theory, he should have his hands full making the top spots against the EU top, even though he probably has plenty of horsepower.
Problem is, the power you can get to the ground (= costs) is DRASTICALLY increasing with every extra kilo. I think in the 4.5t class were are "miles" away from what could be done. I know we could stick a 4th engine on the Green Fighter at that weight if we had to. Not sure if that would even reach the "power to the ground" limit though... I would give it a try and take away the limits of the 2.5t and see what happens, but for god‘s sake leave the weight alone.
For the heavier class we have to be VERY careful though. As said, we are worlds away from what could be done and lowering the weight will kick a lot of teams out who will not build new tractors without a perspective (even though at present they ain‘t really doing it either). So we probably have to keep the weight where it is.
If we want to get more spectators, I think we should start the madness with a set date in 2 or three years and drop the limits in 4.5t. I am just not sure there is enough money in the sport to do the switch. It would also become one heck of a driveline war. On the other hand - what would really happen? Nobody can spend more money than he has and we would probably see tractors adding more engines that are at a lower tune up. Take 10 % of power out of each engine to make them more reliable and less expensive (and they will be a lot cheaper, if I reconsider how much money we have to spend just to gain 100 hp per engine) and add one or two engines instead. I think it‘s more fair than this current BS, where you can watch those, who lied the best at the limit making, run you into the ground, knowing that you could instandly add 500 hp per engine or add another engine, if the limits would allow you to. Would also stop the damn discussions. I am getting soooo tired of them.
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on Dec. 17, 2008 01:13
