Q & A with Sascha Mecking

Sascha Mecking, 42 years old from Westerstede in Germany. Sascha was the former boss and one of the founding members of the international Tractor Pulling website called ,,pullingworld.com". In his early years, he was a lot on the road with the Green Monster Pulling Team from Füchtorf in Germany and helped them a lot in technical issues and developments on the Allison powered Tractors called ,,Green Monster" and ,,Green Fighter". Currently he's the vice president of the German Tractor Pulling Association (DTTO) and working on his own Limited Mod Tractor. 

pullingworld.com: What are you doing in your normal life?
Sascha Mecking: I do everything technical / export shipping / IT first level support and work safety at Dostofarm GmbH. Check www.dostofarm.com!

pullingworld.com: What do you like to do in your free time, except Tractor Pulling?
Sascha Mecking: There is not much free time left to be honest. I like my classic rock music and to help at our local motorsports club.

pullingworld.com: What do you like about Tractor Pulling?
Sascha Mecking: Meeting all those people and to learn something new about engines all the time!

pullingworld.com: What was your first Tractor Pulling event?

Sascha Mecking: Good Question.. sometime in the late 1970s. I was too young too remember.

pullingworld.com: What is your favourite Event / Pulling track?
Sascha Mecking: Made (NL), Füchtorf (D) and a lot of smaller events with good tracks and a quick running show!

pullingworld.com: When and where have you driven a Pulling Tractor for the first time?

Sascha Mecking: The first puller I built that I could actually sit on was my „Tiny Temptation“ Garden Puller in 1998. So it must have been at Füchtorf (D) that year.

pullingworld.com: What was your biggest success?

Sascha Mecking: German Champion in Garden Pulling 1998 probably sounds best on paper. The ones I was most happy with, was winning German Champion with a Lego Puller in 1987 and the first titles with the Green Monster Team after a long time without winning anything major for a few years in the late 90s and early 2000.

pullingworld.com: Which Pulling classes do you like, too?

Sascha Mecking: I like anything with close competition, variety and creativity!

pullingworld.com: What was your biggest disappointment?  

Sascha Mecking: That EC in Füchtorf (D) where we broke the third Rockwell ring and pinion on the Green Fighter pretty much in a row. That was frustrating because we had everything right and then a part, that by then we didn’t know how to improve on, just kept busting. That kind of torque into the rear end we already had back then (15 years ago) is still not matched by many these days.

pullingworld.com: Which things must be changed in the future of the Tractor Pulling sport?

Sascha Mecking: I think here in Europe we need to understand, that we on one side need a „top level with anything goes“ show but, and I think that’s as important, a competition for „members“ who can’t afford to spend the value of a house on a pulling tractor. Competing members make the best fans and bring the sport to a wide audience. They are the entry step for new teams, new events and new fans.

pullingworld.com: What are your plans for the future in Tractor Pulling?

Sascha Mecking: Get my own tractor to run and see how far I can get with that. I would like to show people it’s not THAT difficult to build a pulling tractor and that they can do it, too. If one day I can load that thing behind an RV and travel around with it and motivate young people to get into the sport, I am happy. 

   

pullingworld.com: What was for you the most important moment in the sport?

Sascha Mecking: The day they introduced limits to the Modified classes with the intention to make it „fair“ and „affordable“, when, the way they were done,  all they did was to force people to always have the latest and greatest technology, totally killed creativity and turned it all expensive. As you can tell, I don’t mean this in a positive way. It’s often cheaper to have one more engine on the chassis and them all in a „mild“ tune instead of one less and all set on kill.

pullingworld.com: What was your favourite Pulling Tractor project in the workshop during a winter?   

Sascha Mecking: For sure not my current project. I prefer to tinker with adjustments and setups much more than building them!

pullingworld.com: Something you want to say?

Sascha Mecking: Yes - make sure we keep the variety in the mod classes. If the crowd can only tell the tractors apart in their paint job, they won’t pay to watch that show. Watch the crowd heading for the food stands in the US when the mods hit the track while here they pack the stands when a class with lots of different engine combinations goes down the track.

pullingworld.com: Thank you for your time and good luck for the future !