Hi Tomo
I was part of the RAC display team and was one of the NCOs, I was there that day. The guy who owned the traction engine went over the public address system and challenged us to a tug of war. We met up with him and inspected his engine and was quite clear a tug of war was out of the question and we would have ripped the back of his machine off. So it was agreed to take turns doing a straight pull instead.
For some reason a smaller engine went first?? And did a successful pull and the crowd went nuts the tank did a successful pull but with no reaction from the crowd.
The next engine connected and you see the results. I can confirm there was no damage to tank it drove off the arena and drove onto the tank transporter at the end of the rally. No NCOs we're bollocked and the driver was not charged.
I later asked the driver a very proud tank man what had had happened, he said after the first pull he wasn't impressed by the reaction from the crowd, so on the second pull he put the light switch into convoy mode which kills all lights and puts a small light on on the rear of vehicle which you wouldn't see during the day, it was still out of gear and he applied the foot brake which meant it would be a 56ton dead weight, and the brake lights wouldn't come on due to it being in convoy mode.
The tank functioned for the rest of the season with no issues.
No questions we're asked as it was made clear at the start it was at the owners risk, to be honest we weren't interested in doing it in the first place.
Hope this helps regards Gaz
