Francis Creek Days

Francis Creek Day weekend.

OK we had a two-day pull here but we only run one class per day, Friday night is Modified and Saturday is Super Stock.

OK so most of you know I have this big ass trailer that I use to haul two trucks on for the last 9 years. But do to being pull over by the Sheboygan State Police I now have a 14-foot Camper where the first truck would be chained down. But for the most part it’s still a big ass trailer to find a place to park.

Now Francis Creek has always been one of my favorite tracks to pull on.
So I got home from work on Friday morning and I told the wife I wanted to take a nap till 1:00 then get ready to head out to Francis Creek at 3:00. The pull started at 7:00 p.m. but to get a good parking spot with my trailer you got to get there early. And I figure 4:30 p.m. was early enough.

So the trip down there was timed perfect, pulled into the parking lot at 4:30 and found a place to park and got unloaded. Now my buddy Bruce left only 30 minutes behind me and he had a real hard time getting parked with his 48-foot trailer all the way at the end of the parking lot.

So my first mistake happened when I went to see Jodi to register and I ended up with number 3 for the night. Well I thought to myself, If I end up being first that’s a good thing other wise Being this early in the class is going to suck big time. Well as it turned out both 1 and 2 spots where also filled and I was going to get the short end of the stick here.
First truck up pulled 241.80 and turned his pull down, Next up was Steve Swanson and the track was still a little mushy and the sled was sinking in some and it was coming out of the hole like a ton of bricks. Steve pulled it 274.76. So with this going on I really didn’t have lots of time to make a good read of the track, I had the gear from Modified that I ran at Gillett still in the box so I went with it. Well as it turned out it was 1 gear to high for this sled and track conditions. I only pulled 7400 Rpm’s with a wheel speed of 31.6 mph I had a good run and pulled the sled 301.66 feet and left the track in First place and felt good about the pull. Well Bruce with Bad to the Bone was up next and he laid down a pull of 307.60 putting 6 feet on me and now I’m in 2nd place and still have 7 truck to pull. I’m figuring if I can get out of this with a money placing I’ll be lucky. I held my own for the next 4 trucks but then Craig Emmes hooked up and put me one place lower with a 302.41 pull and then 2 trucks later Donny Skinkis put me one more place lower with a 305.44 pull. I held my own for the last 2 trucks and finished the day out in 4th place. So with this pull under our belt it was time to drink some beer and get something to eat at the food tent. Before you knew it, it was way past closing time and time for some sleep.
6:00 a.m. seem like it was there in no time and once again it’s time to get some breakfast and plan the day’s events. Now here’s the only problem I have with pulling in the same place 2 days in a row. It’s now 8 a.m. and the pull doesn’t start till 7 p.m. so we have 11 hours to kill. Well went thru and did valve lash and spring check everything was good so buttoned up the valve covers and went to the camper to watch some video’s. And then later went to the local Car show going on in the park and then ended up watching volley ball for 4 hours and then some rain clouds came rolling in and they asked us to help cover the track with tarps. So we gave them a hand covering the track and in return for our help we got a free beer and went to the trailer for a mid after noon nap. Well what seemed like 20 minutes Dean showed up after spending the day with his Son and Grand daughter in Green Bay only 30 minutes down the road. Well it had rained some but not as bad as it was predicted. So they pulled the traps back and started to disk the track up and get it ready for this evening pulls. Now with the storms that came thru the area there was a PPL Pull in Waupun WI that got rained out so a few of those trucks headed over our way to play for the night.

OK so I found Amber was set up in Donny’s Trailer taking registration in there. And as it turned out I walk in the door at the wrong time again and I ended up being the 8th puller in the class. So I’m pretty much screwed in this class today also with there being 17 trucks in the class. What I learned over the years pulling here in Francis Creek is the track gets better as the night goes on.
So I went and put in my Super Stock gear, seeing as I’m not going to get to see how the track is before I pull. And then got into staging.
First puller turned down his pull to come back at the end of the class, Second truck of the day was Mike Kauss and he also boned by being to early in the class. Mike’s got a good truck but he’s been getting shitty placements in the line up’s, Mike pulled 294.98 Next up was the Ernt’s Brothers Truck and they just put the new Motor in last night so this was there maiden voyage and they pulled the sled to the 289.00, It’ll take a few pulls for the motor to break in then it will be watch out. Next up was Bruce Wagner with Bad to the Bone. As Bruce tried to come off the line he missed his power window and he had to push in the clutch and get pulled back to try it again. This time he brought his R’s up more and as his truck got going it came to life at the 150’ mark and picked up speed as he headed down to the big end of the track, When Frank put the last stage down Bruce was the first truck to go over 300’for the night with a pull of 312.29.
We run a floating finish from 300’ to 325’ anything over that is a Full Pull. So up next was Dallas Luther and a Truck he calls Mean Streak, Dallas put down a good pull of 304.65 leaving the track in 2nd place at that time. Next up was Derek Peetz and one thing I’ll say is he’s not a quitter. As he left the line he had a good run going but at the 100’ mark he ran thru a hole and it bounced his rear-end off the ground and he hit the shifter out of gear. Like a Pro he grab the shifter slammed it back into gear and got back on the hammer down the track for a pull of 291.99. OK so ShaZam’s is up next, I had Frank place the sled 4 feet to the East of where he’s been stopping just to get on some new ground for my tires to rip up in off the line. As I get ready to pull on the track I see only the Wobble wheel coming down the track no leveler I say to myself, It must be me. Everyone get the lever and wobble wheel, I get only the wobble wheel. So OK we’ll just have to deal with it, As I get all lined up and get the signal to tighten up the chain here comes the leveler down the left side of the track with the wobble wheel in tow. So I guess there trying to make it right, then they swooped in front of me and headed down the right side of the track. They hit everything but where I was going to run down the track in the middle. So in reality they didn’t help me at all, but it looked good to the crowd.
So as I left the line I tried to keep the tires hooked to the track and just keep feeding ShaZam throttle. And when I hit the 200’ mark I gave ShaZam the last bit of throttle I had left and I felt we had a good run going and I could see the end of the track coming at me and then the last stage hit and ShaZam stopped at 305.02. Well good enough for 2nd place as I was leaving the track, but I still had 10 more trucks in the line up looking to put ShaZam one more rung down the placement ladder. Next truck up was Jeff Kakuk and they had a run of 296.02, Next Truck up was a PPL Truck owned by Cory Lemirande, Now Cory and I had pulled against each other years ago and he’s got a really tuff truck to beat. And he showed how good his truck really is tonight here. He hooked to the sled and he got a good hook and by mid track he put the hammer down and hit the dusty end of the track where Frank stopped him at 318.51 moving everyone down one place. The Next PPL truck to come up was Scott Kickbush, Now Scott has boo goo horsepower coming out of his Dodge engine, the only problem he has is getting it to the ground. Scott had a good start to his pull but as soon as he put the hammer down his truck actually seem to slow down during his pull and stopping at 294.15, Next up was my beer drinking buddy Dean Wagner He took his turn at putting us all one down and had a good sounding run but fell short on the big end of the track with a pull of 301.12, Next Truck up was Donny Skinkis and Donny gave me a schooling again with a pull of 308.80 putting me into 4th place for the evening. And that is where I stayed as the last 4 truck pulled for the evening.

So got ShaZam all loaded up and chained down and then it was beer-drinking time 10:35 p.m. Wow seemed once the pull started the time just flew by. Before you knew it the clock said it was 2:30 a.m. and it was time to head for bed. At 6:00 a.m. my generator ran out of fuel and the AC stopped running so it was time to get up and head home.

OK This weekend I have a Three-day pull Starting in Amhurst WI on Thursday, Rosholt on Friday, and Shakey Lakes on Saturday. Hope to see you all at some of them. But don’t worry if you can’t make it, I’ll have the story posted here next week.


Dan and ShaZam