By Zach Jensen,
Tractor pulls always pack the stands at county fairs, and Decorah puller Don Van Duyn has been “pulling” for the last 27 years.
Van Duyn, owner of SEE Electric of Decorah, said he first became interested in tractor pulls in 1993, and four years later, he bought his first pulling tractor –a Schreier’s John Deere Model 4010 – from a man in Wisconsin. Van Duyn named the machine “Birch Hollow Deer” because of all the deer which live around his home, and his new purchase went through an extensive rebuild.
“Over the years, I have modified, upgraded, changed, redone everything on that tractor, and I never really got another tractor,” Van Duyn said. “At one point, we sold most of our tractor, but I never sold everything and started completely over. The steering wheel is the same.”
Van Duyn said he enjoys pulling, because he’s always enjoyed working on projects and preparing his machine for each brief yet powerful challenge.
“You put hours and hours of work into it, and it all comes down to 10 seconds. You always need to be ready for what happens next,” he said. “There’s no guarantee that it’s going to go straight or do what you intended.”
Van Duyn described tractor pulling as a weight-transfer sport in which tractors pull a sled or “skid” carrying up to 40,000 pounds. As the sled is pulled forward, the weight moves up a ramp, which drives the front of the sled deeper into the dirt track.
Full feature available in the July 11 Decorah Leader.
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