By SHELBY ASHLINE
Recorder Staff
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ORANGE — Eight young boys and girls gathered around a red toy Farmall tractor. One by one, they took turns pedaling the tractor 25 feet across the bright orange finish line, dragging a small trailer of bricks behind them.
One brick proved too easy, and with each successful pass, another brick was added to the load.
By the final pass, the few contenders remaining gritted their teeth with determination and shifted their weight from side to side to force the pedals down as bystanders cheered them on. Once across the finish line, they panted from exhaustion and relief, and broke out in large grins at their success.
During the 40th annual Yankee Engine-uity Show held at the Orange Municipal Airport Saturday and continuing Sunday, the “kiddie tractor pull” was just one event for the enjoyment of engine enthusiasts, and perhaps young engine enthusiasts in the making.
Families could peruse the vast collection of working exhibits and antique cars, tractors and engines that covered the field in front of the airport, or shop for various knick-knacks at the flea market featuring nearly 100 vendors.
Wayne McCartney, 70, of Phillipston had his 1870 corn sheller on display. He came prepared with a few dozen ears of corn, and would put one through the machine every once in a while to the delight of passersby. Once the corn fell from the cob, he would use his 1916 International Harvester engine to grind the corn into chicken feed.
In addition to the corn sheller and corn grinder, McCartney brought a 1935 John Deere BN, a 1929 Rumeley Oil Pull and a 1953 baby blue Chevrolet pickup, his favorite engine in his collection.
“I collect a little of everything,” McCartney said. “I just like everything that’s old.”
At one point, McCartney said he had 160 things with engines, including 70 standalone gas engines and six antique cars. He even collects toy trucks.
“It’s just something you’re born with,” McCartney said of his desire to collect, which was sparked in 1982. “I’ve had duplicates and triples of the same thing.”
For McCartney, his passion for old engines began in childhood.
“When I was a kid, I used to go visit my grandparents in Maine,” he said. “This is what my grandfather used, old engines and old trucks. It never left me.”
For the past 25 years, McCartney has been coming to engine shows to feed his passion and be surrounded by others with similar interests, attending a dozen shows each year including the Bernardston Gas Engine Show, which was held one month ago.
Matthew Barber, 25, of Westminster also attends both shows regularly. This is his seventh year at the Yankee Engine-uity Show.
Of his estimated eight tractors and another dozen things with engines, Barber brought three: a 1951 Farmall Cub, a 1973 Massey Ferguson 14 and his favorite, a 1952 Musgrave Mow-Cycle.
“It’s the only one I’ve ever seen in person,” Barber said of the Mow-Cycle, which he inherited from his great uncle in 2002.
“That tractor has been in my family for about 50 years,” he said.
In 2007, Barber worked to restore the Mow-Cycle, straightening the sheet metal and giving it a fresh coat of paint. He estimates that he spent 100 hours working on the tractor over a period of six months.
Barber said that many of the other pieces in his collection were given to him, or he bought them for next to nothing.
“I tend to try to find things that are oddballs and kind of unique,” he said. Even having come to engine shows for several years and seen many of the same pieces routinely, Barber said he’ll always spot something new too. Finding old friends comes easy.
“All the people in this row, I know all of them,” Barber said, adding that if he had known about engine shows when he was younger, he would have loved to attend earlier.
Barber expressed a desire to see more young people get involved in collecting engines, tractors and antique cars.
“Somebody’s got to keep (engine shows) going,” he said.