Prime Time Truck Pulling

Prime Time Truck Pulling

As the Dodge pulls up to the sled, you can hear the fierce rumble of the powerful engine. Once the truck is hooked up to the sled, it begins to pull. The once rumble of the engine is now a violent scream. The tires spin, kicking up dirt until the truck begins to move forward down the track while picking up speed. As the sled pulls harder and harder, the truck begins to pull slower until it finally stops. My sister's boyfriend, Mike Thompson, knows this experience well, because his hobby is truck pulling.

Truck pulling has been a family tradition of the Thompsons for twenty years. Mike has been involved in it since second grade, which is when his family purchased their first pulling truck. His brother drove for the first several years, then his dad, and now Mike has been the driver for the last six years.

The truck they pull is a 1972 Dodge Power Wagon. Right now Mike and his brother are in the process of rebuilding it, and all that is left from the original truck is the frame. When it is finished, the body will look like a 1993 Dodge Ram. The new flip-top body is not actually a real truck body; it is just a shell. A flip-top body is just that--hydraulics flip the body up so the driver can get into the seat, and it allows them to work on the engine easily. The body is black with very few decals. It has spun aluminum rims with Dick Cepak Giant Pullers, which are tires made especially for pulling. The engine is a 1,200 horsepower Hemi.

Making a regular truck into a pulling truck takes a lot of special parts. The stock parts have to be replaced with heavy-duty racing parts made especially for truck pulling. The stock frame has to be reinforced so it is strong enough to endure the weight of the sled. Next, an aftermarket drive train must be installed as well as an aftermarket front and rear end and clutch. Then an adjustable hitch must be built so the truck can be hooked up to the sled properly. Further, the truck has to meet safety guidelines including having a racing seat, a five point racing harness seat belt, a fire extinguisher, a kill switch, and shield over moving parts to keep the parts from flying out in the event they break. Mike also had to wear safety equipment when driving. This includes a fire suit, racing shoes, racing gloves, and a full-faced helmet over a fire proof head sock. Once the work on the truck itself is completed, the motor is built and put into the truck.

Building a truck like this takes a lot of time. To build a pulling truck from ground up takes many months. During the pulling season, Mike works fifteen to twenty hours per week just on maintenance. Mike and his brother do most of the work on the truck themselves in his brother's shop.

It also takes a lot of money to build a pulling truck. The amount spent depends on the organization a driver pulls with. Mike said, "It varies on how nice you want your truck to be and how competitive you want your