Twenty years ago, when the Mexico Young Farmers started their annual Truck and Tractor Pulls at the Audrain County 4-H fairgrounds, there was nothing there.

All they had were a road grader and a vision.

The Young Farmers started peeling up the grass and hauling in bleachers from anywhere they could find them in town. Once the few portable lights they rented were meticulously placed around the brand new tracks, a tradition was born.

“It worked well for the first year so we did it again and were able to start purchasing some stuff to improve things out there,” said Ross Becker, one of the Mexico Young Farmers’ treasurers.

Back then, there were no concrete barriers, no fences and no PA system. The young farmers have come a long way since that first pull and are still making improvements to their iconic event.

“We’ve been doing a bunch of upgrades up at the fairgrounds,” Becker said.

Last year, a new announcer's stand and dome speakers were installed, but that wasn’t enough for the pull’s 20th anniversary.

“We went and bought some more speakers this year and we’ve been redoing some of the bleachers, which is an ongoing process, but we are going to have more seating this year than we have in the past, which is a big thing, because we have always run out of seating,” Becker said

The Mexico Young Farmers are also working to bury fiber cables with the hope of debuting a digital scoreboard.

“We take pride in putting on a good show,” Becker said. “There have always been improvements we wanted to make and we think that if we put on a good show and make everybody there feel like they’ve got their money's worth, they’ll be back.”

In addition to the serious improvements happening on the production side, there are even more upgrades coming to the track.

Lightweight Superstock tractors is a new class the Young Farmers added this year.

“It’s basically what it sounds like – they’re a light tractor with a whole lot of horsepower,” Becker said. “Most of them burn alcohol instead of diesel fuel and it’s just a pretty wild class.”

Another “wild class” they’ve added is the 5,800-pound modified tractors. In this class, pretty much anything goes, as long as it has a single engine.

“There could be some with turbine engines like out of a helicopter and stuff like that,” Becker said. “I think most of them are running V8 engines out of a car or pickup (truck) with superchargers on them.”

With 10 classes on the schedule, three of which are national, Becker anticipates pullers to come from all over the Midwest through the East Coast.

“About half of the classes we’ve got it is the last hook for those pullers so there will be a little extra competition with guys trying to get all the points they can get to finish out the season,” Becker said.

Terry Hagedorn of Thompson will return this year competing in one of the national champion series classes. Becker said that while Hagedorn is usually in the running for first place, he is sitting a few points behind on the leaderboard so he expects to see some strong pulls from him.

Pulling season in the area began with the Mexico FFA’s first Truck and Tractor Pull in May and essentially ends with the Mexico Young Farmer as a last hurrah before they turn their attentions back to the fields for fall harvest.

“We put extra effort in to make sure everybody has a good time and try to keep it a family-friendly event,” Becker said.

Gates will open at 4 p.m. and pulling begins at 6 p.m.Saturday.