In the News: Young driver still savors performance in behemoth ballet

SALEM — Next time you’re at a playground, try walking backwards up a teeter-totter and evenly balancing the plank when its other end starts tipping down.

Now imagine doing the same thing driving a tractor.

That’s what Spenser Coleman did at the Oregon State Fair in August, when he won that event — tractor loading — along with the overall tractor-driving competition.

Coleman’s teeter-totter was actually two separate 2-foot-wide ramps with a space between them, requiring contestants to precisely place their tractors’ tires. One contestant tipped over the side.

In the pallet-loading event, Coleman had to back up and use a rear “fork” to lift one pallet off a stack of two, then set it down on a different pallet — without spilling the full bucket of water on top. At least that was the goal.

“I spilled about two inches of water,” he said.

The 17-year-old also had to perform well in the knowledge, implement-attachment, and maneuvering competitions in order to win the overall award.

Coleman, who lives on KCK Farms in Dayton, started driving a tractor when he was 9, with a little help from his dad: “He left me on the tractor by myself and I had to figure out how to drive it.”

There were some early accidents — hitting a stack of pallets, knocking over a couple potted trees — but nothing like his father’s story about the man who ran his tractor through the side of a barn.

Coleman, who wants to study horticulture in college, has also had some more practical triumphs, such as driving through a tight passage between two rows of nursery trees. He didn’t hit any, but added, “It made me really, really nervous.”

To help Coleman practice for the state fair, his father created a course at their farm with tricky, S-shaped turns. Coleman also practiced backing up a trailer ramp.

Around the family farm, Coleman’s father pays him minimum-wage for tractor-related chores. Sometimes he has to drive on the road, knowing that impatient drivers are lining up behind him.

“When I first started driving on the road, they’d make me nervous,” Coleman said. Now he resigns himself to the risk the drivers take trying to pass him.

“Every once in a while, if there’s an opening, I’ll pull off and let them go by.”

Jill Smith – Newberg Graphic