South Buffalo Volunteer Fire Department's benefit truck and tractor pull benefits Sarver boy

Two-and-a-half-year-old Christian Stiehler of Sarver doesn’t know much about truck and tractor pulls, but he sure seemed happy to be with his parents on Saturday morning for the start of the fifth annual South Buffalo Volunteer Fire Department charity tractor pull.

Christian has cerebral palsy, which is a congenital disorder of movement, muscle tone or posture.

Christian was chosen to be the beneficiary of this year’s event, which organizers were hoping would raise some $40,000 for the Stiehler family to help cover Christian’s expenses for therapy and other treatment.

The affliction will require him to have a wheelchair to get around in and currently requires other costly things such as leg braces and a walker to help him deal with his condition.

His mother, Emilee, said the expenses really add up.

In the previous years, the event has raised a similar amount for other needy area children.

“Insurance only covers so much,” said Christian’s father, Brandon Stiehler (pronounced Steeler). “Things like this walker are thousands of dollars. Things like this are going to help him walk. A lot of this equipment is vital for him.”

Erin Pflueger, a South Buffalo Township volunteer firefighter and the event organizer, said the idea to start doing this fundraiser evolved naturally.

“We had this pulling track on our grounds and it was sitting unused for quite a while,” Pflueger said. “A friend of ours named Kevin Haas, who has since passed away, came to us five years ago. He was a truck puller and he approached us with the idea of having a benefit truck pull to get the interest back in the area and bring the people out.

“As a whole, people are generous. We have five pulls throughout the year, and this is our grand finale when we give all of the money to a local kid.“ Pflueger’s husband, Justin, said all of the event sponsors are local businesses.

A rainy day made the track muddy and slowed down the events. The first contest involved antique tractors pulling trucks and got off to a late start. The events would continue well into the evening, Pflueger said.

“There are pullers coming for the truck portion of the show from New York, Maryland, West Virginia and the Ohio-Kentucky border,” she said. “Pullers are good people. Everybody wants to help. They wouldn’t miss it. A little bit of mud doesn’t scare them away.”

The Stiehler family was hoping to be on hand for as much of the competition as they could but figured they would probably need to get little Christian back home for a nap before the day was done.

Pflueger said she couldn’t help but admire him.

“I’m so happy we found this young man (Christian),” Pflueger said. “Someone told us about him. At 9 months old to go through what he went through, and to meet him, to talk to him, to watch him — you would never know, because that’s what he knows.

”But he’s so strong and he fights right through it with a smile on his face. He’s pretty incredible. It’s a great family.”

As for the competition, semi truck puller Mike Adams explained that he pulls trucks like the ones you see on the highway. There also are categories such as street class, hot street class, and the big rigs — all designated by the turbo charger size.

“Every truck has a turbo charger, and the class is regulated by the size of the turbo charger,” Adams said. “The bigger the charger, the more power and performance the truck is going to have.”

The winner in a category is the tractor that can pull the weight the farthest.

Winners receive prize money which Adams, a past champion who has competed in all five years of the event, has said he always gives back. “I don’t keep the money. It’s a charity event,” he said.

Adams added he has been a volunteer firefighter for 35 years and this event involves some of the finest people he has ever met including, Haas, the event founder, whom Adams called a good friend.

“He (created) this. It gets better every year. I get emotional because I think of him. He was the driving force. He (helped) put this together five years ago. It’s just grown and grown and grown and grown. We’re going to have competitors here from not only Western Pennsylvania, but central Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio — they’re coming from all over — for a good cause, for a child and a family that needs what we’re doing here.”