Ha!!! Deas that is just a little to much for me. I guess fast would be fine for me but since i don't have to road my equipment tracks wouldn't hinder anything. i can't justify the hundreds of thousands investment in modern equipment. my ground could be a bit abrasive for steel tracks though. D4Jim----I have the same thoughts with coyotes. i recently purchased a savage 17WSM for those coyotes. it has been a game changer.

If you farm in central CA. and have to move from place to place you own a lowboy or some kind of heavy trailer and some kind of implement carrier not a big deal ,traffic is terrible roading is pretty tough even for rubber tire-track tractors

Yep! if my property wasn't so concentrated in one place the steel tracked tractor wouldn't be as attractive. just one mile of dirt road maybe twice a year. other than that never leave the place.

I farm in central California the SA cats were the way to go and still maybe are. The tractor I farmed with until The late 90s was a D8K direct drive did all my ground prep with it. Bought a 9370 360HP 8 wheeler to help the D8K now the cat is my dedicated ripping tractor. You can’t beat steel tracks for getting power to the ground. I have put over 10,000 hrs on each machine rubber & steel both have their place here. Skinner

Those must be some pretty valuable trees...😃

It sounds like Mike and I are about the same age and have similar backgrounds; I've been in farming all my life and I'm seventy years old this year. I still use a D6D SA for all of my tillage work, and when I'm done the ground looks the same as the ground worked up with the new equipment. I converted the open center hydraulics to closed center to pull my laser drag scraper and I have fitted the tractor with GPS for guidelines when working ground at night or in the fog... You could say that new technology meets old technology.
I'm in the San Joaquin Delta near Stockton, California where the Benjamin Holt developed the track layer. My nearest post office is in Holt, CA. I echo Mike's comment that we can still maintain and repair these tractors without having to call technicians from town.
I still believe that the D6 9U series crawler was the best farm tillage tractor ever made. I moved up to the D6D SA twenty years ago to pull some larger implements... and I thought that I would spoil myself with a cab. My D6 9U is sixty-three years old and the D6D SA is forty-three. Anybody think that the current model tillage tractors will be around in forty or sixty years (green, red or yellow)... I don't think so!

A photograph of the D6D SA and the drag scraper
 

D6D with gps and laser scraper that sounds like a great tractor!

DeltaKJ. Yes DeltaKJ. You are right I have got you beat by a year but other than that I was raised the same we farmed in Turlock East Denair Montpellier, The open farming has went away down here I still do one 80 acre piece here but we bought a place by Colfax wa. tired of California. I am like you I can do everything I want with a Cat I can do it for less expense do a lot neater job than these monster 4wd tractors and yes I am one who likes his fields neat when I get done. Your D6D is as good as it gets, nice to drive, easy on fuel compared to the new stuff, easy to fix, the years of the SA AG tractors were CATS finest Hour!! With a little TLC and a few parts it will be running for Many years and yes an old 9U was a good farmers tractor or as the old timers would say were good old ENGINES,  it’s nice to hear there are still some like minded people left  THANKYOU. 17afarmer  Mike