Amber Marble knows what it is to be a girl competing against boys in a traditionally male-oriented event.
The 20-year-old from Mt. Vision has been competing in tractor pulls for the past seven years.
She drives her grandfather's 1940 John Deere modified tractor in a field of mostly men, and she often wins.
Marble comes by her love of tractors honestly. While her mother, Wendy Tennant, was pregnant with Marble, Tennant was competing on the same John Deere tractor in pulls all over upstate New York.
She turned the tractor over to her daughter when Marble turned 13, and Marble has been competing ever since.
"I was in my mother's stomach when she pulled this tractor," Marble said. "When I turned 13, my grandfather pulled the tractor out of the barn and said it was my turn to drive it. He ran beside me telling me what to do.
"I only know of two other girls who do this."
Gus Pfeuffer, Marble's grandfather, bought the tractor in 1980. He began competing on the antique John Deere in 1982.
"This tractor is as old as I am," Pfeuffer said. "I bought it in pieces, and it took two years to put it back together.
"This tractor has been here (at the Otsego County Fair) every year since 1982. I have pulled with it, my daughters have pulled with it and now my granddaughters are pulling."
In addition to driving the tractor, Marble is learning to maintain the machine, having changed its spark plugs and oil under the supervision of her grandfather.
"These engines are plain and simple," Pfeuffer said. "You have spark and you have gas. If you don't, you find out why."
As Marble began to get ready for the tractor pull at the fair Thursday, she pulled out a pink pillow, which she put on the tractor seat.
There is a pink John Deere license plate on the back of the tractor.
"My father would never let me call this tractor mine," Tennant said. "He lets Amber call it hers. He even lets her put pink on it, which would have never have happened when I was driving it."
Marble has a strong record of competition.
She often wins, with three first-place finishes and a second-place the last time she competed on the Morris track.
Thursday, however, Marble didn't do as well as she had expected.
She was disqualified in her first competition, and didn't place in the second.
"I did not get to the driver's meeting," Pfeuffer said. "Usually they have a pace tractor that you can't get ahead of. This time they didn't. She went too fast. This is a pace class, and she just went too fast."
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