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W e e k l
y F e a t u r e P a g e
Links
to archived past pages on lower left
| The contents of the “Weekly Feature” page are
provided to you for your entertainment, amusement, and perhaps
information. Here you may find articles of interest, pictures,
historical information on the Club, or whatever shuffles to the top of
the pile on our desk. The only defined characteristic of this space is
that we will make every effort to change/replace it around the middle
of each week. Thank you for visiting, and please stop by again. Click
on any photo to see it larger in a separate window. |
April 20, 2014
Signs
of the Season
The
clock is ticking, the calendar is counting down,
new engines are rumbling behind the half-closed doors of shops and
barns, and all of us wonder…will the weather finally catch up with
the season? Will all the various elements come together in time to
match up with our plans? Well, hope springs eternal, as they say.
The
start of the official outdoor activity season at
the MMOGTA Showgrounds is scheduled for the weekend of April 26-27,
in the form of a planned Test-N-Tune day at Track I. The current
thinking is that we will try to hang on to the 2 day plan in order to
give us a little broader time frame to accommodate some of the extra
obstacles that may come into play this year. As many of you know, a
huge project was undertaken this past winter following the decision
to construct our own Transfer Sled. It has been a marathon effort,
starting last December, and involving an incredible input of time,
talent, labor, and expenditure. At this writing (April 18th)
the new self-propelled sled is nearly complete, power unit up and
running, but still awaiting some final plumbing work on the hydraulic
drive. The crew feels that if all goes according to plan, the new
unit should arrive on site in time for the planned first weekend
(Test-N-Tune), giving the crew an opportunity to test the sled as
well. The first full scale T-Sled Pull competition is planned for
May 4th,
following the opening day Dead Weight pull on May 3rd.
On
the heels of what has been the most gruesome
winter in decades, we are all keenly aware that the weather and
grounds/track conditions continue to be a huge “X-Factor” in
planning for the debut of the new equipment. We will do our best to
keep you updated as the target dates approach. After living with
snow that was dog-leg deep for over 3 months, we are as eager as the
rest of you to see a little dust, smell a little exotic fuel, and
hear all those new engines go to work.
For
those who may not have had a chance to see our
unique new Transfer Sled, we’ll add a few photos that have been
taken over the months of construction. You will see the donor John
Deere combine that was sacrificed for the power unit, cab and
drive/steering axle. The tandem axles with duals were from a donor
semi-tractor, and are used as the ground driven weight box advance,
as well as braking. The rest of the sled is the result of lot’s of
steel, lot’s of engineering, and lot’s of fabrication. As the
project comes to completion, we will do our best to give credit to
all who were involved in this huge effort.
(click
individual photos to enlarge)
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