Brian Nogle spends a lot of hours, and money, to see how far he can pull 8,400 pounds with his mini-tractor.

Last month, he won the 1,850 Big Block Mini championship at the Keystone Nationals Championship Indoor Truck & Tractor Pull at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Arena.

“This is the first Keystone,” said Nogle, 44, of Millmont, Pennsylvania. “This is the golden one.”

Most tractor pulls in which he and other pullers from the Susquehanna Valley compete are at smaller fairs or pulling competitions.

Judging by the crowds and number of pullers who show up, the sport is big throughout the Northeast.

The crowds at tractor pull events love to hear the roar of the powerful engines as they watch the souped-up farm tractors, pickups and four-wheelers strain to drag long flat sleds hauling weights.

During the pull, a gear system moves the weights, which could be up to 65,000 pounds, from over the sled’s rear axle eventually to the front of the sled, making it more difficult for the tractor to move.

Eventually, the tractor can’t go any farther, and the next competitor tries to beat that mark.

Tractor pulls have been part of farming life since the 1930s and became part of county fairs in the 1950s, according to Wessels Living History Farm.

Nogle and others from central Pennsylvania are part of Interstate Truck & Tractor Pullers, a group of tractor pull competitors from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia who pull in events in several states.

“You don’t win much, but you spend a lot,” Nogle said. “I got astronomical money in the motor. Stupid money.”

But Nogle, who started competing in tractor pulling in the 1990s but stopped before returning to it six years ago, said he does it for the excitement.

“It’s just like an adrenaline rush,” he said. “It’s addicting, it’s different. It’s one of those things.”

John Forman, 31, a grain farmer from Watsontown, Pennsylvania, who has been competing for about five years, won for the first time at the Keystones last month in the 10,000 Pro Farm Class on his 4430 John Deere. He also described tractor pulling as “a rush.”

“It’s exciting. You pretty much get one shot to do it right,” Forman said.

Eric Eberhart, of Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, who has been competing for close to 20 years and is part of the Interstate team, said, “You’re definitely not doing it for the money. There’s no way you can equalize out the money you put it into it. A pro stock tractor, you can put $250,000 into it if you want be competitive with it. You got to really love to do it.”

His three sons also got involved, and the two younger ones compete, one with antique tractors and the other with Pro Farm tractors.

“Every tractor, we built them from scratch,” Eberhart said.

“It’s just something I always wanted to do. I’m still working a bunch of bugs out. It’s just the plain interest in doing it.”

He said the pulls not only draw crowds, but a lot of competitors.

“One night at the West End Fair (in Laurelton, Pennsylvania) there were 72 tractors in one category, from kids with pedal tractors to pickup trucks,” he said. “There were more than 800 hooks in a week.”

Sylvester is a reporter at The (Sunbury) Daily Item.