CASSOPOLIS — Tractors both new and old raced back and forth across the dirt track in the grandstand as spectators watched mostly men pull hundreds and thousands of pounds of weight with many different styles, types and colors of tractors.

In a sea of tractors roaring, waiting to pull next, sat one woman with a head of bright aqua blue hair. She was perched on an antique tractor, ready to pull the weight as far as her tractor, that she nicknamed Tom, would let her go. As she waited, she was the only woman in her round  the rest were men — competing in the 55-class antique tractor pull.

“Oh, it’s fine,” said Noelle Motuelle the blue haired woman competing with Tom the tractor. “They miss out, it’s a lot of fun. You see a lot of girls running around, but they don’t ever get up on tractors. They think it is a boys’ game.”

Motuelle, a Niles native, is used to operating and driving antique tractors. She has worked at the Niles Scream Park, 855 Mayflower Road, for the past 10 years. Her employment at The Scream Park has played a big role in her life. It is where Motuelle met her husband and about four years ago, it is how she decided to compete in the Cass County Fair antique tractor pull, after the employees decided it would be fun, she said.

“All of us from the haunted house are basically a close-knit family,” she said.

The tractor pull event is a family affair, Motuelle said as she waited for her husband to compete with his antique tractor in the next round. All of the Scream Park employees who compete have tractors that fall in the same 55 class. Motuelle’s brother also competes and sometimes will drive her tractor.

Although this is Motuelle’s fourth year competing, she can still fondly recall the first time she tried the Cass County Fair event years ago. Her first time getting on the tractor remains one of her favorite memories, she said.

“Just my first time when everybody could hear me getting louder the further I got down,” Motuelle said. “I got louder and louder saying, ‘Come on Tom!’”

Motuelle competes with an IH, international harvester farm tractor and competes solely in the antique class, which she does not consider to be too difficult.

“The first time is always a little nerve racking for anybody,” Motuelle said. “Just getting on it, backing up and getting used to the process. Other than that, it’s all easy.”

As Motuelle prepared to watch her husband’s race, she carried her 2-year-old in her arms and predicted how her daughter will maybe one day be competing in the tractor pull.

“She is going to want to drive,” Motuelle said. “Her dad takes her all around on the tractors.”

For the Scream Park team, winning is a hit or miss, Motuelle said, and never their sole reason for competing.

“We just do it for the fun,” she said.

Being one of few women competing in the tractor pull has never bothered Motuelle.

“I work at a machine shop and I’ve worked with horses,” she said.  “I’ve always been one of the only girls, so I’m pretty used to it at this point.”

As Motuelle walked away with her daughter in hand, she said she likes to make a statement at the race, motioning to her aqua hair.

“As you can tell I go all out. [Competitors] can find me easily,” she said.