One wouldn’t think an old garden tractor sitting in grandpa’s back yard rusting away would have any real value, but these days? They can be a real treasure.
That’s what Van Powell and his wife Jeannene found out when they made an unexpected trek to Tennessee in 2024 and learned about a growing version of a sport that is shrunken down and just the right size for local youth to be able to partake.
Garden Tractor Pulling isn’t exactly a mainstream event, but it is one that last month brought out a small crowd at the Polk County Fairgrounds and hopefully on Saturday will draw additional attention as Powell seeks to grow the number of kids involved in trying their hands at the wheel of a garden tractor pulling thousands of pounds of weight behind them.
The Powell family also helps run Polk County Livestock Promotions and a local farm, so the pair are well versed in agricultural pursuits. But as long as they’ve been involved in everything from cattle show teams to barrel racing on horses, they’d never encountered garden tractor pulling on their journey across rural parts of the southeast.
“The wife and I were in Winchester, Tennessee last year around September, we were up there picking up a set of scales from a co-op farm store for the Livestock promotions,” he said. “We didn’t have enough space for them in the vehicle that we were in, because we were in the car. The guys at the store told us about the garden tractor pull going on down the road the following weekend, so we decided we would come back up and check it out.”
They made the trip back up with a truck and found themselves in Belvedere, Tennessee at an arena where they anticipated finding antique tractors of some kind being shown off. Instead, they were greeted by something else entirely more enjoyable to watch.
“Here come these lawnmowers – and I didn’t know it at the time, they’re not called lawnmowers, they’re called garden tractors,” Powell said. “And there were these kids – 4, 5, up to 12 to 15 years old – behind the wheel pulling these sleds and they were on cloud nine. They loved it.”
The moment he got the first experience of tiny tractors with big horsepower able to provide an experience for youth in the outdoors, it seemed perfect for the goals they were already achieving with other programs.
Powell turned to his wife Jeannene and said “We’ve got to get this.”
Big power, small package
The garden tractor was in essence a creation of suburban life. The riding lawnmower without the cutting deck is essentially big enough to pull a wagon full of leaves or dirt, and yet not too large the machine couldn’t fit in a small storage shed in the backyard. Companies like Sears and John Deere created everything a homeowner with a couple acres of land to manage might need to make their life easier and are fairly repairable compared to modern lawn and garden equipment. The older tractors from a bygone era before the zero-turn mowers of the modern era were built around standard small engines, typically featuring a 10 and 16 horsepower engine and in some cases a V-Twin, that are capable of some real pulling power.
Powell explained that garden tractors are divided up in classes, meant to keep them safe for kids and adults alike. These classes are meant to keep the weight down to between 950 for youth sized tractors, and just over 1,000 pounds for adults. Still small and light enough to be capable of moving around with some help and a trailer, but not too big that a family can’t manage to figure out repairs on their own or need a large shop to be a competitor on a track to make improvements.
Essentially, the perfect sized machine to get kids into various types of motorsports without having to find large racing tracks.
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The goal of the sport breaks down to this: the garden tractor is hooked up to a sled, which has a weight on the back up to around 6,000 pounds that at maximum has to make it 300 feet down the track. The weight slides forward and up on the sled the further the tractor goes down the 300 foot track in make it harder to get further down.
The competitor who makes it down the furthest of the 300 feet wins the pull.
Since the tractors are so small, it makes it the perfect size for kids, Powell explained. And wheelie bars are added to the back to ensure they aren’t tipping over in the process of trying to pull the large amount of weight on a much smaller framed vehicle, which would otherwise send the tractor front forward into the air and anyone behind the wheel toppling off the back.
Powell said that front tires do leave the ground as a garden tractor loses traction down toward the end of a pull on a track, but smaller drivers are kept at a slow speed to keep safety in mind.
After he understood the promise of garden tractor pulling held for Polk County and the surrounding area after their trip to Belvedere’s event, Powell decided he needed to get into the game as soon as possible.
He called up a friend who dealt in auctions for all kinds of equipment and found a garden tractor perfect for their purposes not far away. Powell’s wife got on Facebook Marketplace and had three more tracked down within a day as well available in Ohio. They made the trip and brought them back to Ohio and got to work.
Garden Tractor pulling also provided a great alternative for Mrs. Powell as a sport as well. She was a former barrel racer on horses, Powell explained, but due to an injury was unable to get back into the saddle. Now she has a new horse – with four wheels instead of hooves, Powell said with a laugh.
“We love it for the kids and families,” he said.
Plus, it isn’t too terribly expensive of a hobby. For a few thousand dollars, a family can find and upgrade a garden tractor ready for competition.
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Trial runs
Back in October, the first of a trial run at the Fairgrounds took place for the newly minted Polk County Pullers. They brought out some of the tractors the Powell family purchased along with some others who have since gotten into the action and provided anyone willing to get behind the wheel a chance to try their hand at tractor pulling.
Now a second trial run is coming up on Saturday before they put together events for 2026 that will hopefully bring in some big crowds to Polk County from surrounding states.
Powell said all are welcome to the event Saturday, which is free to participate. Concessions will also be open at the Fairgrounds arena as well. Gates will open at 10 a.m., and the pull begins around 1 p.m.
The Fairgrounds Arena is expected to be the home for the future for the Polk County Pullers, and additional events are expected to be held in 2026.
Those interested in more about the Polk County Pullers can check out their growing Facebook page.
Note: a spelling error was made to a name in this article that has now been corrected. – KtE
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