Three Pull weekend

Well Thursday night we had a Puller Inc. Pull in Manitowoc WI. Now I had pulled here before and had OK results but I knew there was no way in Hell I’d take first place here with the caliber of True 650 Cid Alcohol injected Modified 4x4 that where here. Heck there a few Trucks here that the paint jobs cost more then my whole rig. But when it comes right down to it you have to get your power to the ground to make it work for you.

Now I was at the Drivers meeting but I must have missed the conversation between Gary and one of the Mod truck drivers. But rumors has that it went something like this.

Paul to Gary .. Now I don’t want to be pulling no 350+ feet like we did in Picatonica IL.

So with that said the pull started with the Street Altered trucks and they pulled 285 to 304’ thru the class. Respectable. The track by the way was 350+ if you turned right at the end to the clay dirt track.

Pulling order for the night Street Altered, Super Stock Diesel, Hot Farm Tractors, Mod 4x4, and Two-wheel drive last.

So with the Super Stock Diesel up they where pulling 320 to 340, which I thought, was a good show for the folks in the stands. Those Diesel’s are now Using tranny brakes to help spool up their turbo’s before they leave the line now and with the Automatic trannies in them shifting from 1^st thru 3^rd then back to 2^nd during there run makes me want to build one of those animals.

So Hot farm was up next and Gary had them in the 285 to 307 mark. Which I couldn’t really tell seeing I was in Staging at the time. Oh ya did I mention I was the first puller in the mod class tonight so I had that on my mind weather the keep the first pull of turn it down and hope the track gets better as the night goes on. So as the hot farm finish up the last Tractor broke something and had to be pulled off the track so that seemed the hold the show up for 15 minutes. Which most times the track crew would be working the track up but instead they sat on the side of the track and watched the tractor get pulled off the track. Also the guys on the leveler tractors and wobble wheel where the slowest drivers I ever seen doing this job. Had they shifted just one gear higher they could have cut the show time in half?

So OK the Mod Truck finally get to pull @ 9:30 p.m. I get all hooked to the sled and go thru my check list turn on all switches and slip it into 3^rd and start to feed ShaZam some throttle and at 10 feet out I mash the throttle wide open and off we go picking up speed pretty good I thought. But then I could feel the weight of Gray’s sled start to bear down on me and my tires broke loose and spun out at what I thought was the 280 mark. So I turned the pull down to come back at the end of the class. Funny thing was I put a bigger gear then I would have normally ran with Gray’s sled to see if I could get some better mid track speed. But with him coming down on me so quick it never made it to top speed.

And when I went to check my distance I pulled 263 and some change. Very disappointing to me to say the least.

So the second Truck in the class was a real 650 cid Mod truck and he hooked to the sled and made his run and he only pulled 265 feet so they had a little meeting at the sled and they decided to reset the sled and start the class over. So Now I’m 2^nd from the last truck. So much for all my worrying about being number one truck. So with the sled Reset we started over with the first truck pulling the sled 269.83. Wow Now I don’t know what they did to make the sled pull so much easier but big improvement right. 4 feet wohaa,

So now I went and switch to my normal Mod gear and watched the other guys have fits with the sled all night. The distances went like this 267.19, 259.25, 273.31, 189.03 Broke, 236.00, 273.26, 274.99, at this point I thought the track might be getting better. Then 270.36, 281.64, then my second run ended up with 256.52 but the tires just would hook to nothing. The last two trucks pulled 271.03, and 253.36, So I finished in 10^th place for the night and I got a pay check.

 But then I heard the Mod pullers rumbling about how Gary should have reset the sled again to make it at least to 300 feet. I guess 350 is to far and 270 isn’t far enough.

 I learned a few years back not too piss Gary off cuz it comes back to bit you in the ass the next time you see him. So I just loaded up and headed home keeping my mouth shut cuz I’ll be pulling Gary again on Saturday night.

So Friday night we pulled in Gillett WI again for the fair pull. Now tonight I learned just how valuable my logbook is and at the same time how useless it is. 4^th of July we pulled here with the yellow sled and I thought I logged everything down in the book. I took two 1^st places that night. So I went to my logbook and looked at what I did at the pull and I was going to do it the same this time and see if I could pull a hat trick tonight. Well as it turned out I ended up last in both classes. And I had the gear in the box that I had run on the 4^th but for some unknown reason when I got on the scale I changed to a bigger gear looking to get more speed again. Well when I finally got to hook to the sled the Starting line was a dust bowl no traction what’s so ever till the 100 foot mark then I felt the tires hook for all of 6 seconds then they broke loose and the sled stopped me at 272.33 feet which I thought I heard the announcer say I was in first place. But really she said I was in 3^rd place. Well I guess that makes up for the 4^th when they said I was in 2nd place when I was really in 1^st place. So I changed tire and went and watched the Semi’s and diesel trucks pulls.

So now the Mod trucks are up next and Pat said he was going to leave the sled set heavy cuz the end of the track was getting to shitty once the went over the little hill in the track. So we knew the distance where going to be in the 250’ range. So first truck up was my buddy Bruce and he pulled 259.14 and thought he Junked his motor out on this run. Next up was Derek Peetz and I’ll say it for the entire world the here. Derek had one hell of a good pull here tonight Pulling 241.42 and he beat me tonight with his smaller motor. But Like I was told once by one of the other pullers that I looked up to, if you want to do this more then once or twice a season you have to get in the same playing field with the big boys. Next truck up had some steering problems and pulled 200.83 the Ed McClain got hooked to the sled only to find out he’d broke something in the drive train in Super Stock. Then Dean was up next and Dean had a really good run here tonight pulling 249.81 putting him in second place. Now Craig was up next and I didn’t get to watch him run seeing I was on the scale and some how my truck gained 150 pounds so I was throwing weights out of the box during his pull. I know he said he was going to try to come out with out the clutch to see if he could get rid of the hippy hops he’s been having. He pulled 240.44 placing 4^th for the night. Now it’s ShaZam turn to make a dust cloud again. Did I mention the track was dry really dry. Well as I got all hooked up to the sled took up the slack in the chain got the green flag and I tried to walk it out but the tires just blew free and they where chattering the beat the band and one guy said they even where going in and out along with up and down. Said the front end looked like silly putty going every which way it could. Needless to say the pull was aborted at the 237.11 mark and I finished 5^th for the night just one place out of the money.

So we sat and drank beer from 11:00 till 2:30 then headed to the camper toy hauler and called it a night after a midnight snack. Woke up at 7:00 headed home and took some time to get ShaZam ready for the pull in Wausaukee WI tonight at 7:00 p.m.

OK left home at 3:00 for the pull in Wausaukee WI that’s only 25 miles from home for me and starts @ 7:00. Now I left this early so I could get a good parking spot, and when I got there I spotted a Telephone pole with a power source on it so I parked there so I didn’t have to run the generator all night. Free Power is always a Bonus to me.

So after a while of being there Craig and I went to Register for the night’s events. Craig pulled Number 1 and I pulled a 10, So Craig gets to worrier about what’s he’s going to do after he pulls first. At 5:30 Bruce comes pulling in with Poker Face on the trailer all fixed from the night before. What he thought was major problems turned out to be 4 littler problems that where easily fixed, So he dodged the bullet on this one.

So for the most part the evening was going great the pull started 30 minutes late but that’s like almost on time. Tonight there’s Stock Semi’s, Super Street Diesel, NSS Tractors, Super Farm Tractors, Mod 4x4 then Hot Semi’s.

So tonight we had 12 trucks in Mod. So there are 2 trucks going home with out a paycheck. I follow Chucky Champagne tonight. So at 8:30 p.m. the sled breaks and axle and there was a 20 minute delay to repair the sled. And the mod class finally get going at 10:00 p.m. Craig gets hooked up and makes his run with only a little hippdy hop off the starting line and stops at the 258’ mark and I thought to myself he we go again, So Gary reset the sled to try and get us closer to 300’ but the track was getting really ruff tonight. Next truck up was Clem Linder and he had a few issues with the truck and ended up having an oil fire under the truck at the 147.53 mark. So another 10 minute delay to clean up the oil spill. Next up was Poker Face and one of the little problems Bruce found was his throttle was only opening ¾ of the way when it would hit a bracket and made him think he was wide open, So there was hidden potential that wasn’t tapped yet in his truck. Tonight Bruce put a gear Two higher then he ran all season just to see what his truck really had. After he made his pull he said the r’s came to 7200 so he might have been one gear to high. But now he has his new baseline and was sitting in 1^st place at the time with a 285.85’ pull. Next truck went 260.04 then Mike Derr broke a front ring gear at the 143.28 mark. So Chucky is up next and it took about 10 minutes for the crew to clear Mike’s Truck off the track. I never like to see the truck in front of me break; it gives you to much time to think about what you want to do. It tend to mess with my mind and the track can change a lot in the time it takes to get the truck off the track. So Chucky gets lined up and pulls a 265.57. As Gary is backing up I point set the sled just a bit to the right of where he was for Chucky, Seeing there was a hill developing under the sled.

So I get all hooked up and tighten the chain. I walked ShaZam out about 5 feet and I gave her a mitt full of throttle and the r’s came up to 7000 then 7300 then backed down to 7000 for the mid run and as the pan hit it sucked the engine down to 6800 and then the tires broke free as the tach went back to 7800 I’m sitting at 265.43 So off to put ShaZam on the trailer and as I’m walking back to watch the rest of the class run the Next truck Steve Sterwald last years Points Champion laid a pull of 288.52 down moving him into 1^st place. Next Mike Wildey pulled 258.12 and the truck stayed on the ground the whole pull there still working on getting this truck ironed out. Next the Boss Man pulled 282.10 Jared Figus in Playing Hooky pulled 274.55 and Cory Lemirande in Old School pulled 285.32. Now Craig came back last seeing the reset the sled and Craig had one little bounce off the line then ran hard down the track for a 279.50 pull for a 5^th place finish for the night. When the dust settled ShaZam finished in 8^th place out of 12 trucks so Whohoo we made a paycheck again.

So after getting everything chained down we Drank beer at Cory’s trailer until 1 then I head to the toy hauler for my midnight snack then headed to bed cuz you know Craig's going to be kicking the beer cans around at 6:00 a.m.

OK Next week is Labor Day already. Wow where’d the season go? Anyway I’ll be in Suring on Friday night and depending how I do there, I’ll be going to Jim’s Falls on Saturday, then Shawano on Sunday. Then there are only three more pulls on the schedule and it’s time for the Blue Funk mode to set in for the rest of the year.

So the stories are coming to and end soon for this year.

Hope you all enjoyed them so far this season.