FARMINGTON – People get their kicks in a lot of different ways, said Randy Buck.

For him, it’s all about tractors.

“It’s my drug,” said the Portland man, using his hand to shade his eyes from the oppressive sun that beat down on the parched earth at the Farmington Fairgrounds on Thursday afternoon as the mercury bubbled up around 97 degrees.

Buck is in town for the 8th Annual Maine Antique Tractor Club Festival, an event that showcases more than 150 of the state’s tip-top tractors, all more than 30 years old, with pulling events, equipment demonstrations, tractor games and safety courses.

The event, in its second year in Farmington, drew more than a 1,000 people last year, and with a giant flea market, children’s events, a parade, concessions, crafters, a skillet throwing contest for the women and a hay bale toss for the men, event chair and club president Roberta Kemp said there is something for everyone.

Buck said he couldn’t think of a better way to spend the weekend. “Now that we are older and don’t hate it because we have to be working on the farm all day instead of being at the beach, we appreciate tractors more,” he said.

The appeal of a multi-ton collection of metal, rubber, pistons and horsepower is that it’s practical, simple and much fun, Buck explained. “It’s soothing. You just go out there and putt around for a couple of hours and all the troubles in the world just go away.”

Peter Turnbull of Woodville, has a big role at this year’s festival. His 1948 Ford 8N tractor, in all its gleaming glory, is the feature tractor of the event. It was chosen in honor of 2003 being Ford Motor Company’s 100th year anniversary and also because the tractor is in mint-condition.

“I just like tractors, always have. Best part of your life is on a 100 degree day like today, driving your tractor in the fields and haying.”

For Buck and Turnbull, the tractor festival is a way to step back in time a few decades, to a slower time, when people knew how to work the land, and enjoy the fruits of the labor.

“When we were kids, we couldn’t go fast enough,” Turnbull said. “Now we just want everything to slow down. Being on your tractor is like being a kid again.”

Buck echoed that sentiment, and with a deep-belly laugh, joked that everyone today is “in a dead run forward, going backward.” When it comes tractor festival time, he said, everything just slows down for three days.

The goal of the event and the club is “to preserve the information and artifacts as they related to the history of human endeavor in the invention, development and use of farm tractors and related implements and/or equipment.”

This is done, said Kemp, through education and demonstration.

“You ask people today where the get their groceries from, and they say it comes on a truck,” Buck says, sadly. “They have no idea that somebody out there has a garden they tend to everyday to get that food. Farming is a dying breed, and this is a way to keep it alive. Plus, it gives us a reason to come out and play.”

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