Tractorfest began in January 1992 after my dad and I replaced the piston, rings, connecting rod, steering box, and steering wheel on the tractor which had been sitting dormant for ten years. After playing some ice hockey on the pond, my dad took us for a spin on the tractor. We went onto the frozen swamp ice with a few other kids; probably Chris Barton, Jeff Budzinski, Brian Jones, Josh Paige, and Josh's friend T.J. I drove for a brief period and had difficulty shifting the model A transmission which was pretty shot. But I did manage some brush removal while driving.
The next fest that I can remember involved my dad driving, with Jason Loomer and I the passengers. We went up onto the slopes of Mount Tractor and knocked over a great number of dead pine trees. After that fest we continued without my dad. One time we were descending from the turnaround in third gear but I couldn't control the tractor on the rocky trail at that speed (yet). Jeff Budzinski fell out of the dump body and about 15 seconds later I bailed. Chris Barton stayed at his shotgun position with nobody driving and rode into some thick brush where the motor stalled. One time we piled 12 people onto the tractor at the same time and the rear tires flatted from all the weight. After we inflated the tires, I accidentally struck the rabbit's cage in third gear and knocked it over. The rabbit was quite disturbed from it's experience.
A while later, Jason Loomer, Vinny Yesue, and I ventured past the turnaround and descended the very steep grade towards the scout camp. Vin lit a fire in the dump body which I eventually noticed while I was driving. I got irritated and turned around to make him put it out just as the gear shift fell out of first. The tractor began to accelerate, but we immediately hit a tree instead of having a high speed disaster. Near the bottom of the hill, we had to slide the tractor down a boulder because we were in such a jam that we couldn't ascend out. We shut off the motor, put it in first gear, and pushed it down the ledge which was a thirty degree angle or so. The tractor slid about 12 feet and stopped hard when it smashed into a large pine tree. We eventually made it to the camp, rode a couple trails, and returned home on the road because ascending Mount Tractor from the camp seemed impossible.
During the fall a couple trips to the turnaround were made, adding Jen Miller and Jeff Hamer to the list of attendants. Then in December I offered to host the party that is at the end of each cross country season. Mr. Gribbons approved and within the first hour of the gathering we were festing. It was night, there was snow on the ground, the driveway was icy, and there were about 18 kids including: Jeff Budzinski, Jamie Dunlap, Devin Gribbons, Jeff Hamer, Mike Hopta, Keith Kyzavit (Keithel), Brian Jones, Chris Lee (Chong), Dave Kunselman, Colin McCluney, and Obie Savage. To accommodate all the people we had a drive by snowball fight in the dark for about three hours. This fest included the epic tractor incident with Keithel. While turning into the driveway from the road at about 12+ mph (the old motor was smaller, had no govoner, and therefore it had a higher rpm making the tractor much faster), those of us on the tractor received a pummeling of snow from behind the stonewall. This included two foot diameter snowballs and snow thrown with shovels. I got hit in the face by a massive 20 pound snowball which severely impaired my view while I was driving, at which time Keithel stood right in our path holding a snow shovel. At the last possible moment Keithel tried to "jump up onto the (very hot) motor" to avoid being run over, but caught his knees under the bumper. He then attempted to crawl out of the way, but had no chance because the tractor was still moving at more than 10 mph and I couldn't see anything yet. The front end pushed him onto his back and his legs passed under the front axle. At this point I noticed someone's feet under the tractor so I hit the clutch to stop (no brakes). But my foot slipped on the icy pedal before I could shift to neutral, and the tractor jolted forward catching Keithel's chin on the axle which dragged him about a foot along the ground before I was able to stop. Of course all Keithel got was a little scratch on the chin and everything was fine.
During April vacation we had a fest and about 15 people attended. A mock film camera dubbed the "Keithel Cam" was attached to the bumper to prevent us from running him over again. The tractoring itself was short lived because the clutch cable snapped after about 20 minutes. Power shifting the model A transmission was only an emergency option because of it's poor condition. After the tractor was returned to the barn, we walked to the scout camp and knocked over a flag pole. Then we found an abandoned truck in the woods and Casey Muratori amused himself by smashing the windshield with a large log. We returned home where Casey and The Mystery Guest won floppy knives in the huffy toss competition. This was followed by an all terrain croquet match and some swamp canoeing. Julie Carlo and Vinny Yesue were in one canoe with Casey and Josh Paige. Josh sunk it and the four boaters required instruction to get the boat out of the water and continue. During the incident Vin held Julie above the swamp water. This particular fest has been known as the "Vinny Julie fest" since then.
At summerfest we had our first out of state participant, Tim Unkert from Connecticut. Chris Barton, Colin McCluney, Josh Paige, Vinny Yesue (Putz), and a couple others attended. The tractor stalled on the ascent to the turnaround due to pull start and carburetor problems. Vin kicked the pull start just as I got the motor running again which forced the pull start to grind against the flywheel causing sparks and unnecessary damage. For this reason my dad banned Vin from Tractorfest until it's triumphant return in 1996 with a "putz proof pull start". We did some baja and got stuck at the edge of the embankment at the road when we had more motor problems. While I was blocking the wheels to restart in neutral, a bunch of ants ran up my arm and bit me. Turns out we were stuck on a good size ant hill.
In December we had the first tractor sledding fest where photographs were taken by my mom. The attendants were (according to the pictures), Jeff Budzinski, Brian Jones, Ian Macfarlane (Iwak), Josh Paige, Greg Previte, and T.J.
Summerfest '94 had the highest attendance for one day of tractoring. We had about 25 to 30 people show up after school in early June including, Becky Baily, Jen Janda, Pam Hatstat, and Kelly Moran among those who were new attendants. The fest began with a trip to the turnaround where the dump body broke due to a passenger overload. Chris Barton drove his jeep during the second ascent to carry passengers, while the tractor carried the sacrificial TV (found earlier that week) to the turnaround with Josh Paige sitting shotgun. While crossing the stonewall at speed, Josh was launched from his shotgun position as the TV bounced around in the dump body. We tractored to a large boulder which is now known as TV cliff and dropped the TV onto the rocks below to watch an implosion. But it didn't break until the second try. Then we returned to the yard and Matt Vitalie attempted to drive his Sizuki Samuri up the trail but the motor started smoking. Then Ian towed the tractor down the road with his Subaru. That is when I learned that the tractor doesn't steer when traveling over 20 mph. We capped off the fest by rolling a farm tractor tire down the other side of Mount Tractor from the turnaround.
There were two trips to the turnaround in September. The first was with Joe Alachoyan after the Lake Sunapee bike race. During the second, Bob Kunselman and I ran over a yellow jackets nest and got stung while descending the trail. Then in October we had a fest with 18+ participants. We tied an old washing machine to the tractor and dragged it along the road. John Crafts got on it and surfed. Then the washing machine was placed in the middle of the road. We charged down the driveway, struck it at full speed, pushed it to the stone wall, and drove the front wheels up onto it. Then we discarded the wreckage near the turnaround. Upon our return, Dorothy Bancroft, Heather Dobek, and Nicole Hanson arrived, so we went for a yard lap with Dorothy sitting shotgun. In a lousy attempt to show off, I tried to squeeze between a pile of big rocks and my dad's tag trailer at speed with only a few inches of clearance on each side. As we descended to the obstacle in third gear, the front wheels caught air on some roots so I couldn't steer. As a result the right front wheel contacted a rock and ripped the right front end and foot peg off of the tractor. Dorothy was ejected from her shotgun position, skimmed the muffler with her thigh, and received a minor burn. The right front wheel, hub, and axle half was now a separate piece of the tractor sitting next to the rock, while the tractor had advanced a few more yards from that point before it stopped. The damage was repaired for festmas '94.