Keeping the Champions in the Family

With the Fagundes family – it’s all about the competition. Jesslyn Fagundes is an energetic 19-year-old college student who excels at soccer and plans to have a career in nursing.

She attends two colleges—Fresno City College and California State University Fresno—to fulfill both goals. She takes classes at City to be eligible to play on the school’s soccer team and attends the university to pursue her career goals.

The Lemoore High School graduate has a third passion most of her teammates and classmates would be surprised to know about the petite country girl from Kings County who drives a tricked out pickup.

The truck is one clue. Her last name is a dead giveaway to her weekend hobby, tractor pulling. Fagundes is a name synonymous with tractor pulling in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley. Here dad, Robert “Robby” and uncle Donnie are among the best puller jockey’s in the West.

In most families, younger siblings or children are recipients of such hand-me-downs as jeans and cars. For Jesslyn one of dad’s castoffs was a thundering 1,800-horsepower puller mini tractor with a wheel base not much longer than a garden tractor.

When her uncle moved up the multi-engine, unlimited class her dad took over the wheel of his brother’s blown mini. Jesslyn got the naturally aspirated mini her dad drove with the moniker “The Agent.”

Jesslyn’s 6-year-old sister renamed it “Wicked Sweet” as big sister continues the family’s winning tradition. Jesslyn has won her class at the West Coast Nationals (WCN) two years running against some of the toughest competition in the West or East.

Her father won the blown mini class for the past two years at the WCN. It is the first time father and daughter have won different classes in the same event.

You don’t just get into a mini puller. You strap yourself in and hang on. Jesslyn admits it is a real “adrenalin rush” to fire her tractor and drive it on the track to hook up to the sled. It is a thundering experience.

The only disappointment is that it does not take long—about 30 seconds--for the 632-cubic inch motor in an eight-foot long chassis to drag the 60,000-pound sled 300 feet down the track, roughly a third of the length of a soccer field.

“It just does not last long enough,” she admits.

She strapped in and fired her first mini puller when she was about 11. As a high schooler, she participated in a few meets, but now pulls full time with her dad and uncle at 12 to 18 events per year. She is one of only two females who pilot tractors on the West Coast.

There are no horsepower restrictions on the naturally aspirated minis. Just weight limits and her dad has to add 300 pounds to “Wicked Sweet” because the driver weighs only 110 pounds.

Robby encouraged his daughter to take up the sport like his brothers encouraged him. He entered his first event in 1981.

“In the beginning I would just show up with my helmet and drive. I was doing a lot of running around in those years and did not spend a lot of time helping in the shop getting the tractor ready,” he admits.

Then the brothers told him if he didn’t do the work on the tractor, he did not drive. It kept him off the street and out of trouble. It also made him a pretty fair mechanic.

“Now wrenching is a very enjoyable part of pulling--trying to figure out ways to get a little stronger. I talk to a lot of people in person and on the phone and get a lot of information off the internet,” he says. “There is a lot of rebuilding done in the off season.”

His blown mini puts out about 2,000 horsepower, but is limited to just 575 cubic inches.

Robby played high school sports and coaches football. His competitive nature carries over into tractor pulling.

Two years ago when he won his class at WCN, his closest competitor broke.

“The guys teased me about winning by default or I just got lucky when the other guy broke. I got tired of hearing that. This year no one broke, and I won straight out. I guess you’d say I redeemed myself,” Robby says.

The Fagundes clan has traveled to many states pursing their hobby in a tractor-trailer-hauler. It is a family tradition Jesslyn is following with the same pride and competitiveness as her dad and uncle.