Early spring at BangShift Mid-West means many things…the trees are finally starting to leaf out, daffodils are blooming, my allergies are raging, and fields across the region are being torn up and prepared for planting. I’m not exactly 100% sure what the local farmers are “preparing” their fields with, but the entire valley nearby reeks like a hog farm…the wrong end of a hog farm at that. But, hey, if it helps the corn grow, do what you gotta, I guess.
Plowing a field here is a pretty straightforward affair: mark your boundaries, dig in and keep the rows straight while you relax in the cab doing six miles an hour. Till rows, turn 180 degrees, till rows, repeat. I’m nowhere near as well-versed in tractors as Lohnes is, but it sounds easy enough, right? (This is where I get slaughtered by the real farmers…) The Swedes, however, have once again found something involving an engine that they are better at. Called “Hastighetsplöjning“, or speed plowing, it’s exactly what you just pictured: a cross between actual farming and a tractor pull. We don’t know if this is an actual sport or not, but we do know that while the speeds might not look all that impressive, swinging a Ford tractor around like that takes a pair made out of titanium.
He gets the tractor up on three wheels a couple times. Like his tractor thinks it’s a CRX. Looks a lot more out of control than a normal tractor pull, more like autocross with tractors.
Speed ploughing – so that’s the ground for this year’s crop of crystal meth being prepared then…….
This is a lot more interesting than the sight of terminally bored Swedish farmers trying to alleviate the crushing monotony of their lives before blowing their heads off with shotguns!