[unclebilly]

As a kid, I remember going to an indoor truck and track for pull and thought it was pretty cool. I was at an antique tractor pull in 2000 and asked if I could enter with my 91-1/2 dodge diesel that I had back then. They would let me. Fast forward a year, and there was a big truck and tractor pull in a nearby town, they were looking for ‘stock trucks’ or was it tuff trucks to enter. I signed up.

A close friend of mine had an uncle that used to have a super modified tractor pulling ‘rig’ so I called him for advice. Being a stock truck meant that there were no class rules, no weight requirements, nothing. His advice was to hang as much weight off the front as I could, (‘Fill the cab with bolts’ was a quote from that conversation), block the rear suspension, and shut it down as soon as it starts to bounce. He suggested 2nd gear which was a mistake. The one rule we had was hitch height could not exceed 30”. I brought along a second set of baldish mudder wheels and tires and tire chains that I considered using (against everyone’s advice). I built a custom hitch out of heavy wall 2” tubing and gussets with a hitch height of 28” (this was to allow for the bigger tires if I decided to switch).

I remember pulling in there with my truck and hanging 700 lbs of tractor weights off the front bumper, blocking up the rear suspension with some blocks I had made at work that were held to the rear springs with vice grips.

The first day, I came in second place because my gear choice was too high and I couldn’t get the turbo to spool up. I could have done a repull but didn’t.

The second day, I did damn near a full pull and won the whole event. Our ‘points’ were the aggregate of both days pulls.

I also drove to and from the town the event was at both days, many of the other stock trucks broke or weren’t stock or road legal.

If I can find a photo of the truck, I will post it. I still have the competitors shirt and trophy...