This weekend's Pulls

Two Pulls in one day this weekend.

OK I left home at 11:59 a.m. to head to Maribel WI, which is an hour, and 30 minutes down the road from my house. Made it they’re by 1:30 p.m. and the pulls started at 3:00 so we had lots of time to catch up on the changes everyone made during the week if any were made. Super stock was going to be the first class of the day here so we could then load up and head for Pound WI, for the second pull of the day.

We had the World famous Jim Luedtke’s high speed 007 Sled there for the pull. As I went to get registered I ended up the last puller in the class. So Cool beans I knew the track was going to suck at the beginning and would get better as the day went on, and there where 13 trucks there to help pound the track in for me. I happened to see Jim before the pull started in passing and asked what kind of day we had in store for us. Jim said we have a 400’ track here and he’d try to use all of it. So I went and put a road gear in the truck looking to get some good wheel speed during my pull.

Well as the class started and the first truck of the class turned his pull down and came back at the end. Then there was two Open Stock truck’s that jump up in class pulled but I couldn’t get a good read on the track from them. Then finally there was one for the better Super Stock trucks to pull and he seem to have troubles getting the sled up to the speed I figured we’d be running today. As I looked at the sled Jimmy didn’t seem to have it loaded as heavy as I have seen in the past, It’s was just pulling hard today.

Hmm time to rethink gearing a little, so back to ShaZam I go and I went with a more conservative gear selection. As I pulled on to the scale the guy asked if I was going to make a gear change like all the other guys did, I told him nope I have the right gear in the box and drove off the scale to have the hitch height checked. Oh he says you’re a ½” high here ok no biggy drop it down to 26” head to staging. Now just as I expected the track was coming around nicely and the last few truck where heading into new clay at the end of the track. My Buddy Bruce came up to me and said you should take it out the end if you have the right gear in the box. Just in front of me was Tory Laubach and his Locked and Loaded Chevy Tory laid down a pull of 297’7” on his run, and the track crew did there thing with the box scraper and wobble wheel, so there really wasn’t any sign of where Tory had stopped on the track. All I could do was get hooked to the sled, tighten the chain and give ShaZam her head and let her find the end of the track on her own.

As they gave me the pull it tight signal I cleared the throttle some turned on all the switches and started the tach record. I eased it out of the hole till I hit the first set of cones trying to keep the tires hooked to the track as much as I could then laid in to the throttle and gave ShaZam all she had. The Tach read 5, 6, 7, 75, 78 and then headed back to 75 and held there, I tried to back out of the throttle a little as I felt the weight of the box come down on ShaZam to see if I could keep the tires hooked to the track but I wasn’t fast enough and I blew the tires out from under ShaZam at the 297’0 mark.

So as I was leaving the track everyone was giving me the, you’re in 1st place sign. So I headed to the trailer with my chest puffed out. As I got ShaZam loaded on the trailer Bruce came up and said your finished 2nd behind Tory. Wow Deflate chest.
Oh well it’s a good day anyway 2nd place out of 13 trucks.

So I got everything chained down and made my way to Pound WI 67 miles back up north. Dean Climbed in with me for the ride to Pound and we tried to figure out what’s been going on with his truck as we drove there. He’s been have in sporadic shut downs So it passed the time on the road pretty fast.

Got to Pound at 5:15 and the truck classes just got under way. Went over to register and I ended up the 5th truck in Super Stock and 4th truck in Mod. Now the tractors had the track pounded in pretty good for the trucks and there were 5 classes of trucks before Super Stock So I headed over to the scale with 5 trucks left in 6000 Stock, And got in line behind the truck I was to follow in the line up. Got on the scale and ShaZam was dead nuts on, so off the scale to check the hitch and it’s a ½” low. Hmmm funny how this thing works. Raised it back up and got into staging. Now I was watching the Scoreboard this sled had set-up at the end of the track. It had MPH and distance, but it didn’t seem to be working right some times it read and other time it didn’t till the end of the run.

OK So I get all hooked up to the sled and made all the per staging stuff done, I cleared the throttle and put it in 3rd and off we go. Well about 15’ out ShaZam got a little bounce in the rear and the R’s headed for 8200 then settle back the 7800 and then headed down from there really quick, ShaZam stopped at 234’ 8” and track speed was 13.3 mph. So now I’m pissed there’s something wrong here. My track spotter said I wasn’t that far behind the leader of the class at that time it should have been closer to 274.0 So back to the trailer to change tires and I called the Club secretary and posted my complaint with her that the scale is wacko with the sled. This is what was noticed after a while, the leveler was leaving a pile of dirt just in front of the sled and when you took off the sled would bounce over the pile and up set the truck a little and the measuring device would skip a beat or two while the pan was in the air.

So OK with Tires changed and back in the line up I studied what the sled was doing and when it came my turn to pull I got out on the track and got the tractor driver Attention to get as close to the sled as possible and clean the dirt pile up. He did just what I asked him to do and this time coming off the line ShaZam didn’t have any bouncing at the 20’ mark.
When ShaZam was done pulling in Modified I was in 2nd place behind Poker Face and I had a track speed of 20 mph so at least the sled measured right this time. Well the tractor guy kept the dirt pile down thru out the whole class and I finished 4th for the day, with my Buddy Craig Emmes Winning the Mod pull as the last truck to run down the track. Cold Ethel got hooked from Hell, right out of the hole and laid a run down of 315’ 5” Longest pull of the day. So now it was get loaded up and drink some beer and wait for the fire works to begin.
For the Little Town Pound (Pop. 345) being so small they have one of the best fireworks displays I ever seen. One hour for none stop fire works. Then over to the band tent and food stand for some burgers and beer and before you know it ‘s 1:45 a.m. and it’s time for bed in my RVT. 3 a.m. it starts to rain and didn’t stop till 5:30 a.m. the ground is all clean now here in Wisconsin.

OK I’ll be in Francis Creek July 9 & 10 Super Stock Friday night and Modified on Saturday.

See ya there

Dan and ShaZam

Thanks Dan............ I love pulling, it was almost like I was there I enjoyed it.