Hall of Fame:

Ian Ross

Tractor puller, farmer

 

Ian Ross' interest in tractor pulling started by lending weights to a friend. 

"I gave my friend Stewart Taylor some front weights to use with his tractor puller, so he could compete at a local tractor pulling event at Alford in Aberdeenshire in 1988,” explained Ian Ross. “I went along to see what this tractor pulling was all about, and watching my friend Stewart competing, I immediately became hooked. I wanted to have a go.”

Ian started by purchasing a Fordson Super Major that had a cracked engine block. He then bought a V8 Scania 141 tractor unit with a faulty gearbox, which would provide the diesel power for his first tractor puller.

“This was the start of a 20-year pulling career for me,” he said. “I started working on the project in November 1988, and I had the tractor finished in May 1989, ready for the first event of the season and called it Draglink Special. The name of the tractor was suggested by the chap who painted the panel work, as a play on words for dragging a big chain.”

“While the Draglink Special ran well, it didn’t make enough rpm, so that had to be altered,” he said. After a few years on-track and gaining a lot more experience, Ian and his team altered the fuel pump and the injectors, along with adding two-stage turbocharging, which he said made it an altogether different beast.

At that time, Ian had become more and more involved with the Scottish Tractor Pullers Club. Among the many roles he held, Ian was also chairman of the club on a number of occasions covering a period of around 10 years. In this role, he attended many ETPC meetings in The Netherlands on behalf of the club.

As time went by, Ian had a thirst for more power. And a change of class came with it, as he moved away from his modified Scania V8-powered Major in favour of super stock. But rather than build one, he decided to buy one from the USA. A shopping expedition duly followed, with a trip across the Atlantic.

“Along with my good friend Jim Forrest Snr, the two of us headed over the pond in 1993 to watch an NTPA Grand National pull at Galax, Virginia,” he said. “From there I ended up buying an IH 966 super stock tractor called Boss Hog, which came through Indiana puller Ron Bultemeier. When the tractor was shipped across to Scotland, I renamed it the Super Draglink, following on from the Draglink Special.” 

 

The Boss Hog tractor was set-up to run with a 436ci engine with three turbos. “In our first year, the Super Draglink ran really well,” he said. “We competed at Great Eccleston show and secured a win in the 4.5t class and third place in the 3.5t class, which was a great start to our IH super stock adventure. And it ran like this for three seasons, until he had to find a few more horses to keep up.” 

At this point, Ian turned to diesel specialists Hypermax Engineering to get the 436ci engine up to a much meaner 540ci, initally using the original three-charger set-up.

“After several conversations with Hypermax, I was put in touch with Terry Blackbourn in Wisconsin, who was successfully running a two-charger set up on the US circuit at that time. Terry was a great help and convinced me to go down the two-charger set up with the bigger engine,” said Ian. “So we swapped the IH 966 panels for those of a Magnum. And along with an all-new paint job based on Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character, the tractor became Magnum Force. And we really did feel lucky.

 

Ian recalls that back in 1996, this was a set-up that went really well for him, lifting power up around 2,000hp. It gave him an opportunity to be ultra-competitive in the super stock class with Magnum Force, pulling against renowned tractors such as the Perkoil Express, Running Deere, JBJ Express and Red Alert. He also competed that year at the European Superpull held at the Ahoy Stadium, Rotterdam, which he recalls was one of the greatest moments of his pulling career.

However, it wasn’t long before the class started to see the rise of the alky burner, bringing yet more power and more rpm to the track. However, at the 2003 BTPA Championship event held at Great Eccleston, Ian took the win in the 3.5t class against Peter Clarke’s Red Alert and Willem Veldhuizen’s Bits n Pieces. It was a landmark moment for the canny Scot.

“With a diesel super stock, I was certainly the underdog,” recalled Ian. “This was at a time when we still pulled 3.5t and 4.5t super stock classes, and Willem Velduizen jokingly said to me as we walked off the podium, I hope you’re not pulling tomorrow, so you can give the rest of us a chance.”

Rule changes in 2003 saw the introduction of roll cages and for many, this added unwanted weight, and in the wrong place.

“We trimmed weight off the tractor where possible and fitted a completely new differential, emptied the gearbox, and made the tractor direct drive,” said Ian. “We just had one forward pulling gear, plus a shunting gear for moving around the pit area, plus reverse. This proved very successful and we could leave the start line spinning the back wheels at 80mph, which often put the front wheels in the air. In 2008, a bigger turbocharger from Hypermax brought us a bit more boost and some extra horsepower too.”

Later that year, Ian sold the Magnum Force to Ken Foster, calling time on his 20-year pulling career. He now enjoys standing at the other side of the fence spectating, which he says is not only far cheaper, but is also much less stressful.

“The things I enjoyed most about the sport were getting to meet like-minded people from all over the world, along with meeting the many fans who followed Magnum Force at the events,” he recalled. “Tractor pulling has been a fantastic period in my life.”