DO have a cow

Tillamook County Fair returns for 135th year

Fair Story and photo by Jordan Wolfe

For the TODAY

Grab an elephant ear and a Pronto Pup, because Tillamook County’s biggest event of the year is just days away. 

The 135th annual Tillamook County Fair – once recognized as one of the top county fairs in the United States – is a four-day Oregon Coast spectacle running from Wednesday, Aug. 5 through Saturday, Aug. 8 with popular Grandstand Arena events that include concerts and a quirky 101-year-old racing tradition of driving pigs around a track in a stripped Ford Model T.

This year’s theme is “Old Fashioned Country Fun,” with something to experience – or eat – around every corner of the Tillamook County Fairgrounds. The annual extravaganza is not only an opportunity for the community to come together to share their creations – like canned goods, pies, textiles, photography or paintings along with dedicated areas for locals to show off and sell various animals – but provides heaps of daily entertainment ranging from a full carnival complete with midway games, pari-mutuel horse racing and hours of acts on the Courtyard Stage. Daily from 10 am to 8 pm, the stage is host to performances from Tillamook-area dance studios, musicians, a hypnotist, daily ice cream tasting contests and silly interlude contests such as a bubble gum contest. 

Fair admission includes access to nightly concerts Wednesday through Friday along with the annual Demolition Derby to close out the fair on Saturday. Wednesday’s concert is country/pop musician Niko Moon, Thursday is the Oregon National Guard’s 234th Army Band playing a pop/rock mix of songs from the 70s through today in a variety of genres and Friday closes the concert series with rock band Collective Soul – whose biggest hits include “Shine” and “December.”

But for many people, the biggest draw of the Tillamook County Fair is the century-old event that pits man-versus-nature-versus-machine: The Pig-N-Ford races. 

Born from an early 20th-century misadventure and transformed into a sporting event, the Pig-N-Ford races celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. The quirky event features 10 generational race clubs vying for the world championship by running to grab a pig out of a pen, crank-starting their stripped-down Ford Model T car and racing around a bumpy dirt track while cradling the pig around their arm while it rides shotgun. The pigs are roughly 25 to 35 pounds and an inappropriate hold on the pig is an automatic disqualification.

“It’s a memorable experience that you’ll never forget and you can’t see it anywhere else in the world,” said Ben Salo, the reigning world champion. “It’s not only entertainment from a race standpoint, but from a comedy standpoint too.”

Salo described the event as an antique open-wheel race. The Model Ts each racer owns are stripped down to just the barest of necessities – which means the antique cars have no body, no windshield, not even a seat-cushion.

“You have to hold on because it’s a plywood seat and it’s super bumpy and you’re going on a left corner, so it wants to throw you out the right side,” Salo said.

Maintaining a car that is nearly half as old as the United States of America is an important part of being a Pig-N-Ford racer and each Model T is required to only use stock parts and cannot modify the car to, say, go faster or start quicker. 

The Salo family has been part of the Pig-N-Ford institution for more than 50 years, when Ben’s grandfather was given the opportunity to own one of the 10 ultra-exclusive franchises. 

“This is a generational thing,” Salo said. “People can’t just go buy a franchise and start racing – I mean, we encourage people to be part of the club, pay dues, become part of the family – but in order for you to get on that track and race, it’s a blessing. It’s not just given to you. You got to earn it. You got to know someone. You got to get your foot in the door somewhere in order to get your butt on that seat on that track.”

In his teens, Salo took over the racing duties from his father Ken and now is one of the elder statesmen of the sport with 21 years of racing experience and seven championships, each notched as a reminder on his Model T, which Salo’s young son has named “Number 20,” the number of the family franchise. 

“I see myself in him the way he looks at that Model T,” Salo. “I know he’s going to have big dreams of racing it too one day, so that really makes me happy to keep that in the family and keep it going down through the generations.”

This Wednesday through next Saturday’s fair runs daily from 10 am to 10 pm at the Tillamook County Fairgrounds. Pig-N-Ford races are held each day at 5:30 pm. For more information, go to tillamookfair.com or call 503-842-2272.