Pulling in All Directions

Pulling in All Directions

It’s funny how we measure motorsports in directions. Are you a circle track racer, or do you go straight? Stock cars, drag cars, and pulling vehicles. It seems we identify them by any way possible. Make, model, powerplant, and, evidently even the direction they choose to perform in. The world of NASCAR, and all its subsidiary stock car racing in every form are our circle track cousins. The dragsters: our forward flying friends. Truck and tractor pulling naturally gets grouped in with the dragster folks. We are a straight line sport. Forward down the track. Point A to point B passes, measured with a laser. Except, how many times do pulling vehicles go truly, and only forward? I have often said there was many a driver, who would have won a pull, if we would have taken their total distance traveled, instead of their A to B measurement. 

Pulling is a forward moving sport, but that doesn’t mean that those passes are always straight forward. Track reading, traction, steering, and braking are all vital aspects of each and every pass a puller performs. And, as every driver and good fan knows, it is a very rare thing to see a puller who does not drift left to right, or back and forth, or hard steering avoiding the chalk line in a run. They are given an entire width of track, and be it by choice, or the will of the tractor, they usually take up all that real estate. From end to shining end and all the dirt in between pulling can quite literally be a sport that is all over. 

While truck and tractor pulling seeks to move forward in the most literal sense every time a driver hooks to the sled, the sport as a whole, seeks to move forward in a metaphorical sense every season. What I mean to say is the world of truck and tractor pulling as a concept is always progressing. This takes on many forms, and has done so since its inception. New technologies, new mechanical advancements, new rivalries and points champions. It is not only moving forward within the framework of what is possible, it is moving forward, and outward geographically. One might even say it is expanding. Just as the pulling vehicle looks to travel from end to shining end of the track, the sport holistically has expanded from sea to shining sea in this great country of ours. 

As I was working The Pullers Championship pull, in Nashville, Illinois this weekend, one thing that my attention was continually drawn to was the vastness of which pullers had traveled to compete. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if one single and specific group had traveled from a selected far off area. No, pullers came representing their regions and divisions from quite literally every corner of America. If you were to graph a circle on the map of the continental US that ensnared the home town of each competitor, you would have to draw it around the edges of Maryland, down and through the states of Alabama and Texas, continue through central California and Nevada, meandre up through Wisconsin and Michigan, follow the great lakes up into central New York, and then slide back down into Maryland. That would take us from the Atlantic, to the Gulf of Mexico, along Mexico’s border, on to the Pacific Ocean, along the Canadian border, and then back down to our starting point. If that isn’t the entirety of our continental country, then I don’t know what is. 

While pulling is a linear sport, it is anything but straightforward. Just in this one pull alone, over 6,000 miles worth of driving are represented. From sea to shining sea. From border to border. The sport isn’t just moving forward, it’s moving outward and expanding. Is pulling as big in competition and popularity as it’s ever been? If not, I think it is right on the precipice of becoming so. With destination pulls that allow competitors from all edges of the world to participate, with the internet and social media, we cannot deny this: our sport is moving forward. And outward. And all-over. Pulling is big folks. And we are happy to be a part of it. 

Green Flags and Tight Chains. 

Pullin’ is Fun. 

Mike Eitel

Beer Money Pulling Team

Engagement Specialist

michael.eitel.bevier@gmail.com

660.342.0206