After 20 years, and a previous highest ranking of third place, the Pack Pullers won Overall Champion at the annual American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) International Quarter-Scale Tractor Competition.
Over the summer, the team headed to Peoria, Illinois, to compete in the 2024 competition. Junior Silver Hyatt, who studies biological engineering with an agricultural concentration, captained the team.
“I originally wanted to join the team to make connections with students and faculty within the department,” said Hyatt, who is in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engin-eering (BAE). “Then, I fell in love with the team and the design process.”
The Pack Pullers are the only team that does all of their tractor fabrication in house. The BAE Research Shop helps make this possible.
“Many other teams send off parts to be made, but our members do 90% of the fabrication, and our research shop takes care of the rest,” said Hyatt.
The team spends an average of 15-20 hours a week working on the tractor throughout the year. The month before the competition, that bumped up to around 10 hours a day.
“We have been very close in the past, but soft skills are approximately 40% of the scorable events, and you have to do well in all phases to finish first overall,” said Grant Ellington, Pack Pullers team advisor and BAE extension associate professor.
During the competition, each team completes a technical inspection, submits a written design, defends their design, gives a team presentation and competes in several tractor pulls. The competition ends with the durability and maneuverability courses. In Peoria, there are many early mornings and late nights.
Hyatt says this year the team worked on improving their soft skills by a few points and getting a few more feet in the tractor pulls. They added more gears to go the distance and worked on the report and presentation to gain extra points that would make a world of difference.
“This competition is indescribably competitive,” said Hyatt. “Being one of three schools from the Southeast, it’s our goal to outperform the power schools from the Midwest.”
This year the team adopted the Dale Earnhardt mindset.
“We named this year’s tractor ‘Intimidator’ because we were number three and Dale Earnhardt had a car with the number three named Intimidator,” said Hyatt.
The Pack Pullers won the Overall Champion title as well as first place in the Team Presentation category.
“The Intimidator took 20 years to win the Daytona 500, the biggest race in NASCAR,” said Hyatt. “Our team has been competing consecutively for 20 years, and our Intimidator won after 20 years of trying just like Earnhardt’s.”
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