WELLS — It was a night of fun, family and good old fashioned country life during the tractor races at the kickoff of Kernel Days in Wells on Friday.

Dozens of people, young and old alike, lined up to watch the races, which have become an annual tradition at Kernel Days.

“It’s the town celebration, and they need more tractors,” said Josh Rollenhagen of why he participated. “It’s fun.”

There were four categories of races: slow, barrel, chain and blindfold.

Participants paid in $5 for each race they wanted to take part in, and then the money was divided up for the top three winners in each category.

For the slow race, two tractors competed at a time, trying to be the last tractor to get to the end of the course without stalling out the tractor.

Eleven-year-old Caldyn Huper was the winner of this race, in front of Rollenhagen and Art Allis.

Huper said he’s been driving tractors since he was 6 and was driving pedal tractors before that.

After the slow race was the barrel race, in which a driver had to roll a plastic barrel down the course, around a cone and back to the starting line.

Reed Allis won this race with a time of 47 seconds.

Following the barrel race was the chain race, in which participants had to get a long, heavy chain into a circle drawn on the grass. Following this race was the blindfold race, in which two people rode in each tractor, the driver blindfolded and the other telling the driver which way to go.

The tractor races were one of several activities taking place at Half Moon Park in Wells Friday night. There was also food, entertainment, games for children and volleyball tournaments. Festivities were to continue into Saturday with a car show and other activities.

A highlight of the weekend was slated to be the United South Central All School Reunion, in which USC alumni are coming back to town to tour the old school one last time and look at the newly constructed school.

Look to the Tribune on Monday for a story about the school tours.