Yorkton held a certain significance for many of the racers at the Truck and Tractor Pull on the weekend.
For Stacey Getz, it saw the end of his first mini tractor, which he started driving about 30 years ago.
"The last place I drove it was here in Yorkton. I had a mishap with the sled and it got damaged. It's kinda been in storage since," he said.
Getz's brother told him he wanted to take parts of his mini tractor to get it going again for his son to use.
With a laugh he recalled his surprise at seeing a lot more than a few extra parts when "they rolled it out here last night all rebuilt."
Several generations of family racers joined in on the activities. With the close-knit tractor pull community, one does not need to be related to treat each other like family.
Ken Beauchemin joined young racers Blaine and Trevor Cusack to work as a team reviving a unique tractor.
In the mid-1980s Beauchemin built the first turbine-powered vehicle in Canada, a helicopter engine propelled tractor. The appeal of the vehicle is its unique look, he noted. Another major draw is its ability to shoot flame in the air.
"We did not want to copy somebody else's stuff. We wanted to make it so it was our own," he said.
Beauchemin raced the tractor for about five years before selling it to someone who stored it in a quonset for about 15 years after burning out wiring, a starter and other components.
That was when Cusack, who remembers the tractor as his favourite from tractor pulls in Vermillion as a child, came in. After digging around to find the tractor and phoning the owner, Cusack picked it up last year at the Bonneville Powerama and enlisted Beauchemin's help in restoring the tractor.
The task took some time since the custom vehicle was new to the Cusacks and "a lot of it I could hardly remember either," said Beauchemin.
"We put some of the major components that were originally on it back on got it painted up, put the roll cage on it, and got it looking close to the way it could," said Cusack.
"Now it is really nice. Looks beautiful and I'm proud to have these guys here pulling with us," said Beauchemin.
