Nokian Tyres and Valtra have combined their expertise to set a new world record for the fastest tractor. And just to make things interesting, the new record was achieved on an ice-covered Finnish airfield.
Multiple World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen kept his head cool and drove the machine at a speed of 130.165km/hr (80.88m/hr), helped by the world’s first winter tyre for tractors. The Valtra T234 was fitted with Nokian’s new Hakkapeliitta TRI tyres, a pair of 440/80R28s on the front and two 540/80R38 on the rear.
“I have done top speed tests earlier with several cars,” Mr Kankkunen said, ” but this was the first time with a tractor, and we immediately got a world record! The tyres and tractor worked really well, even though the weather was challenging.”
In 2013, Nokian Tyres, the inventor of the winter tyre, achieved a world record for the fastest car on ice, as test driver Janne Laitinen drove at a speed of 335.713 km/hr (208.602m/hr) on the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia. Grip and speed were ensured by the car’s Nokian Hakkapeliitta 8 studded winter tyres.
Nokian extended its versatile winter tyre selection to tractors when the Nokian Hakkapeliitta TRI was launched in the spring of 2014. The tyre’s unique tread pattern, winter rubber compound and siping maximise grip and traction. The diagonal siping creates grooves on the tread blocks, increasing the number of edges that grip the driving surface and improving longitudinal and lateral grip. Nokian was the first to introduce block pattern tyres for tractors more than 10 years ago.
“Testing at the extremes is at the core of activities and it requires unique skill,” Nokian Tyres’ research and development project manager, Tero Saari, said. “We wanted to show the true performance of the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta TRI. It’s quite a remarkable sight when you see a 7.7t machine flying past at more than 130km/hr with a quadruple World Rally Champion behind the wheel!
“When a tractor is driven that fast on a winter road, it requires great grip, stability and handling properties. These have been our targets during the development of the Nokian Hakkapeliitta TRI.”
The record was achieved on February 19, 2015, on the emergency airfield at Vuojärvi, Finland. The total length of the packed snow strip was approximately 2,300m, and a 50m speed trap was set at the middle of the strip.
The Guinness World Records organisation defines specific rules for the world record for fastest tractor, and the time for the tractor to travel through the speed trap is measured in both directions. The resulting world record was an average of these two measurements.
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