Ride into Sight History
Thanks for your interest in the history of the Ride into Sight Tractor Ride. Below, you will find the full story of how my love for antique tractors grew and how the Ride into Sight Tractor Ride began.
The history of Ride into Sight dates back to 2011, when I really started getting involved in the hobby of antique tractors. With me being visually impaired, it is a hobby you wouldn’t think someone like myself, completely sightless, with bilateral detached retinas, would want anything to do with. I did, though. One summer afternoon, when I was transitioning from 8th to 9th grade and high school, my dad brought home a restored 1941 John Deere H. We went out to the shed together, and he showed me how to get onto the steel pan seat. After that, he started it, and put it in gear. “Tyler, you’re gunna drive it now!”, he said. He put my hand on the hand clutch and said, “Feel this lever? Push it ahead, and it’ll go in reverse!” I backed it out alone, with Dad telling me which way to steer, and I drove out onto the driveway. The thing had an absolutely granny low. Soon, he said, “Well let’s go down the road!” While dad walked behind me, I drove from our house, to the neighbor’s house to the east, turned it around and drove back home. That’s how my love for antique tractors began.
After about a year, I learned my dad had my great grandpa’s 1936 John Deere Unstyled A in storage at a gentleman’s place. We went to get it, got it running, and I drove it around at the house until I graduated from high school in 2015. Not quite, though.
The other person of whom had an influence on my love for antique tractors is my Grandpa Juranek. In 2014, Grandpa started talking to me about the Oliver 70 Hart Parr and Oliver 88, he grew up driving as a child. One day, he found an Oliver 88, and when I went to his place, he started it, and showed me the shift pattern, etc. Before long, I was driving around his yard also, while he rode beside me on the fender. Soon, I didn’t care about my John Deere A anymore, I wanted an Oliver! Grandpa took care of that, also.
Shortly before I graduated high school, I was walking around outside at my grandpa’s place with him one sunny afternoon. When we walked by one of the sheds, he said, “So shall we go in and you can feel your pile of bolts?” I hesitated… I didn’t have any bolts or old iron out there I knew about. It shocked me, though, when I learned what he meant. We walked into the shed together…
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When we walked into the shed, Grandpa put my hand on the hood of the Oliver 88 of which you’ve seen in the picture above. “Well Tyler, this is yours now, so next time you guys come out, bring a trailer and you can take it home.” I was so excited I nearly peed my pants! I knew the road gear in it was fast enough for tractor rides, and I had always wanted to go on one. Now the dream was real!
At the end of May that year, I knew that if I wanted to go on a tractor ride, I couldn’t have someone just ride with me on the fender, I needed a buddy seat. My dad, and a good family friend, Bennett, built one for me. It was installed just one day before the first ride on June 8, 2015, at Carstens Farm! Woohoo! The 88 did great, except for a few bad mishaps. First, my charging system obviously wasn’t working. When we got to our first stop in Portsmouth, I shut the tractor off and could barely start it again! Ugh! Furthermore, both of my rear axle seals started leaking grease, and my PTO gasket was leaking too! When I started, all was well. When I returned to Carsten’s farm, my rig was a mess! Hahahaha. My dad did meet us on the road, though, and got some good pictures that day.
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Jumping ahead, that first ride led me to making that same ride an annual occasion. Even today in my adult life, the Nick Rosenow Memorial Tractor Ride is still always on my calendar. The good time and fellowship led me to another idea in 2017. Each year, I go to Iowa City in July for an eye check-up at the University of Iowa clinics! I usually go the night before, spend the night in the hotel, and go there the next morning. As I was sleeping in the hotel the night before my 2017 appointment, I had a dream. I dreamt that I was on a tractor ride, driving to McClelland, Iowa on my Oliver 88. I dreamt that I put money in a bucket that went to retinal research to cure my visual impairment so that one day, I would be able to drive off on the tractor alone. Then I woke up and realized… “Oh no. There is no such ride, only a vision in my mind.” So, I created one the following year.
In February of 2018, I put a small “committee” together. It consisted of myself as chair, Mel Hursey, president of Carsten’s farm at the time, and who I like to think of as my “third grandpa” and his wife, Jackie, along with my parents. During the first meeting, Mel and I did most of the talking. I had ideas down, ideas for places we could start, dates we could have it, etc. Soon, it took shape. A date was set. A flyer was created. A starting point was negotiated. Lunch was arranged, and a route was mapped out. Before long, I worked the phone, calling many family and friends to help me. Members of my church family, along with family and friends of whom believed in the cause. August 4, 2018 arrived, and by 8:45 AM, I had exceeded my own expectations of maybe getting five people to show up! And you’ll never believe who was my co-pilot that year on my Oliver 88… Bennett! He has remained in that roll even today. My grandpa Juranek was also along that day and was only two tractors behind me! I think it was sure a “proud Grandpa” day for him!
At lunch the day of the first ride, I remember saying, “Friends, I have enjoyed every minute of this today. Please show me with applause, how many people here think I should make this an annual event?” The roar of the crowd was overwhelming, and Ride into Sight has been on many calendars since. Its success and good nature has spread like wildfire!
Today, Ride into Sight has raised over $40,000.00 towards retinal research at the University of Iowa clinics and grows each year. Unfortunately, however, the 88 that created such a wonderful cause and program no longer runs, as the following year on the Nick Rosenow Memorial Ride, I managed to blow my head gasket. I replaced it with a beautifully restored Oliver 770 diesel in 2019, and it still remains a Cadillac to this day. Grandpa Juranek passed away in 2022, just shy of a month and a half away from the event. I know, though, that Grandpa is looking down each year, and I carry on his love and passion for Oliver tractors.
Out in the gravel, where the stories lay,
Stood an Oliver 88, from a golden day.
Its gas-fed heart would cough and roar,
With Grandpa riding like days of yore.
I took the seat, my hands unsure,
While Grandpa stood with calm and cure.
“Give her some throttle,” he’d gently say,
As wisdom echoed through the day.
He rode the fender, proud and stout,
The kind of man we’re still talking about.
Not with riches, but with hands of grit,
And stories in every bolt he’d fit.
We rolled that 88 through dust and time,
The engine’s hum, a low, sweet chime.
But 2019 brought a different sound—
A gasket blown, a deal gone down.
The tractor’s gone, the shed feels bare,
But memories still linger there.
And though that old iron moved on its way,
Its soul still drives me every day.
In 2022, Grandpa passed on too,
Up to the sky so wide and blue.
But when I hear a flywheel spin,
I swear I feel him near again.
He’s there in echoes, wind, and sky,
In every field I’m passing by.
And though he’s gone from earthly track,
He rides that fender — watching back.
Now it’s my 770 that hums with pride,
While I take the wheel for another ride.
And on the buddy seat, with smiles so wide,
Close family and friends sit right beside.
From gravel roads to sunset’s ray,
The tractor rides are here to stay.
For every mile I drive today,
Grandpa’s riding with me — all the way. Rest in peace.
I hope to see you on the ride this year!
Tyler Juranek
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