Well, it has been a couple of years since I last travelled down to the tiny town of Tooradin. Nestled in the Shire of Cardinia, about 50 kilometres south-east of Melbourne’s CBD, Tooradin plays host to the annual Tooradin Tractor Pull and Truck Show.
My previous experience was a couple of years ago when I actually came down to the seaside location with a truck and plenty of polishing gear to enter into the truck show. This year I drew upon that experience, recalled the high level of trucks I had encountered, reminded myself of the attention to detail every contestant had achieved and decided I am too old to compete with the Victorian truck enthusiasts.
Hence, I entered the Rutter Park Reserve with a rental car rather than a rig this year, although on several occasions throughout the day I was wishing I had entered the grounds with either a boat or at the very least a raincoat. This year’s event not only displayed some of South Gippsland’s finest trucks, it also displayed the extreme weather that makes Victoria such a rollercoaster of an experience. To quote one of the stoic stall holders at this year’s event, Brett Sullivan of Sullivan Sketching: “If you don’t like the weather down here, just wait five minutes, it’ll change again.”
Brett was almost spot on – I would just extend that timeline out to about an hour, 45 minutes at the least. When I rocked up to this year’s event, I beat the sunrise by about an hour. It was still very dark, and extremely cold as the first of the entrants rolled in when the gates opened at 5.30 am. The local Victorians were barely in need of a hoodie, but for humidity hogs from the north like me who had packed only for Queensland weather, it was a touch on the ‘holy crap it’s cold’ side. That didn’t stop me enjoying the sun rising over the cool kids as the trucks began to roll in.
This event is very much a mutually beneficial occasion. The Truck Show and Tractor Pull are run separately but held together. It also means there are two different crowds turning up for the events. In turn, this means the truckies are under a tight time constraint. Starting from 5.30am, they have only a couple of hours to roll in and stage up before the spectators start blocking the highway as they gain parking for the Tractor Pull and Burnout event. It creates a bit of a backlog as the trucks have one entrance, however the volunteer team behind this successful event have got it down pat. It is great for the show but meant I was all over the shop trying to grab shots as all the trucks rolled in.
By the time the sun was spilling up over the horizon, most of this year’s entrants were already on ground, which was fortunate as with the sun came the changing of the weather. Gone was my soft lighting that allowed me to wander the ground getting nicely lit images, in came a weather system that would best be described as ‘teenager woken early to do chores and learning the rest of the day has no Wi-Fi’. In other words, it was cranky.
It started with waves of gentle drizzle, packed in a few painful periods of horizontal droplets, interspersed that with gusting winds and just when you were game enough to get out from under some shelter it would bucket down. I’m not talking ‘cats and dogs’, I am talking ‘giraffes and hippopotamus’s’. I ended up next to a food van, holding onto their gazebo with several other truck nuts. We were all doing our best to avoid old mate having to chase his flying tent back into Melbourne. Sadly, during the worst of the downpours, one vendor did lose his double awning to mother nature – his stock was either blown away or drowned. Several other vendors were thanking the crowds huddled under their gazebos as they were grasping their structures to keep them from entering a low flying orbit.
While everyone was proclaiming ‘typical Victorian weather’ and many were reiterating that all this had been predicted, it did not make the day or decisions any easier for the organisers of the event. On the truck show side of things, obviously the cleaning and polishing was brought to a halt while everyone was either seeking shelter in their vehicles or huddled under one of the few gazebos not blown into the tractor pull arena. That comfort was not shared by the very determined judges. Full credit to them, I may have been hidden away protecting my dear cameras, but they still pushed on. The volunteers tasked with organising the show were having their own issues as the donger set up for them to run the show, accumulate and corroborate the judging and generally oversee the event was flooding, with power out due to water seeping in through the power outlets. It was an absolute (I cannot use the term I would like to here, instead I will just have to use the definition – a very rude word for a complete failure or very serious problem in which many mistakes or problems happen at the same time).
The rain was not just playing havoc with the truck show side of this year’s event – the burnout competition was on hold as the pad looked more capable of holding a synchronised swimming carnival than collecting flying rubber and dispersing stacks of smoke. Between the gentle drizzle and the horizontal droplets, there were teams of dedicated volunteers out with brooms sweeping up the unwanted puddles, but when the ‘giraffes and hippopotamus’s’ downpours came, once again it was just an absolute “a very rude word for a complete failure or very serious problem in which many mistakes or problems happen at the same time”.
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Then, of course, there was the other naming rights event, the tractor pull. My first thought was ‘no worries, they are tractors. It would be just like adding more mud to a mud wrestling event’ – how wrong was I. These tractor pull competitors have extremely strict conditions under which they can run, and I was surprised to learn from one of the event’s organisers that, in actual fact, by 12pm they were about to call the event. It turns out that even days before the event, the weather forecast had many of those at the top tossing up the idea of calling it early. Apparently once the track gets too wet, it becomes almost impossible to drag the equipment back out after a run.
Sadly, the circumstances created by a cranky teenage mother nature ensured that many people packed up their belongings and pulled the pin. As the raindrops cascaded down off my rather expensive, yet non-weather protected lens, I put my hand up to join that exit line. I was already drenched through as I attempted to chase more photos. I was caked in dirt after the rain had turned the main area into a modern-day mud spa and I was still bloody cold after failing to pack for weather below about 30 degrees. I had been beaten – for the first time a truck show had beaten me.
Then Brett Sullivan’s words hit my ears: “If you don’t like the weather down here, just wait five minutes” – which I did. And, just like a sullen teenager, the mood changed with the wind. The sun broke through and, while it never warmed up enough to dry me out, the weather stepped up. It would be nice to say it was all harmonious after that, but Brett’s words work in reverse as well. If you do like the weather down here, just wait five minutes. There was still the odd shower but nothing that destroyed morale like the morning events.
The sun and a few good brooms allowed the burnout display to literally light up the early afternoon. I am not sure how much the wet dirt affected the tractor pull, but it did not dampen the sound as the big blowers barrelled down the track. As far as the truck show went, it did make the judges’ job a lot easier, as they assessed the entrants and, by the time awards season started, there was hardly a cloud in the sky.
As far as the winners go, Tub from A&K Dowling PTY picked up the top honours with his stunning Kenworth T909. Browns Stockfeeds picked up best fleet with its stunning Kenworths and Cade Brown in the Browns Stockfoods SAR Legend picked up the prized Stuart Baker Memorial Trophy.
Wrapping it all up, there is a fair bit to say. The numbers for this year’s Tooradin Tractor Pull and Truck Show were definitely down – 106 compared to over 160 last year. Obviously, many people were smarter than me and looked at the weather forecast before they made their weekend plans. That being said, you go to events like this for the experience and I still thoroughly enjoyed my experience. The wet weather did not once dampen the enthusiasm of those that had shined up their pride and joy and, as we all stood shoulder to shoulder under an awning, sheltering from the rain, it just gave us a different view of the polished up big rigs. Whenever there was a break in the rain, everyone was back out splashing around and lapping up the high-quality equipment that was on display. The weather lows just added to the adventure of the day.
My final word is a thank you to the team from CMV Truck & Bus Dandenong. They were the first vendor open during the rain and looked after this stupid Queenslander who forgot that there is cold weather out there – I appreciated that Mack jacket all day, I would say it was the best money I spent all day, but that went to the southern style chicken food truck. I’ll be back next year with a more appropriate wardrobe. Cheers Tooradin.
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