Mike Jelle was barely a teenager the first time he climbed aboard a tractor at a pull. He was 13 years old, driving a friend’s Farmall Super MTA at a local event just west of New Glarus on Highway 39 — and he ended up being disqualified because he wasn’t old enough to compete.

It apparently did little to discourage him.

Decades later, Jelle, a 1993 New Glarus High School graduate who grew up between New Glarus and Belleville, is still pulling. Now his 26-year-old son Tanner, a 2018 New Glarus graduate, is doing it with him. This Saturday, the two will take their shared passion to what Mike considers their hometown event: the 20th Green County Fall Nationals Tractor and Truck Pull at the Green County Fairgrounds in Monroe.

Their machine, appropriately named “Son of a Hitch,” wears International 1066 sheet metal and competes in the Super Farm division with Badger State Tractor Pullers. What may resemble a familiar farm tractor from the grandstand is something entirely different underneath, producing roughly 1,900 horsepower.