SHARPSBURG
Souped up pickup trucks with names like "Bow Tie Beast" and "Protest This" pulled on to a scale to be weighed for competition.
Elsewhere around the track, male and female participants sat up high on their farm tractors, waiting for crews to prepare the moist dirt strip for the event.
Hundreds of fans packed bleachers, sat in lawn chairs and stood to see which vehicle could top the next in might.
Wednesday night was tractor and truck pull time in Washington County.
The event, part of the Washington County Ag Expo, featured six classes of tractors and trucks, each trying to pull a weight box on a vehicle known as a "sled."
"Then they just come out here and see who can go the farthest," said Kenny Barnhart, who was helping out at the event.
The competition was put on by the Washington County Tractor Pullers at the Washington County Agricultural Education Center on Sharpsburg Pike.
Barnhart explained that the weight box starts at one end of the sled and moves forward as the tractor pulls ahead. The weight gets heavier the farther the tractor goes, making it more difficult for the tractor to move forward.
The sled is designed to carry about 18 tons.
Fans let out loud cheers for those who pulled long distances but also clapped for contestants who didn't make it quite as far.
Donna Thomas of Boonsboro said she attended the pull because she knew many people in the competition.
Thomas competed in a tractor pull Saturday night in the 18,500-pound farm tractor class.
"I did it because my dad asked me to," Thomas said.
But, she said, there was another reason.
"And I did it because I wanted to see if I could beat the guys," she joked.
Thomas met her goal.
She won her class with a 38-year-old John Deere 5020 tractor by going a distance of 295 feet, 9 inches, she said.
"I did it for all the gals out here," she said.
Another tractor and truck pull is scheduled for today at 7 p.m. at the track.
