Years of pulling progress March 18, 2024 02:58PM
I have recently been watching some YouTube pulling videos from the 80s and 90s. It begs me to ask, Has anyone written a book about the timeline of when many of our safety equipment, modifications, tire changes, etc.? I’m curious approximately what years we introduced things such as roll cages, double cut tires made especially for pulling, water injection, multi stage turbos, front axle suspension, planetary rear end, and so on. What other significant modifications am I missing? Another question would be when did they start making pulling sleds that started so easy and let the tractors build up a lot of speed before stopping us quick at the end
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Re: Years of pulling progress March 24, 2024 07:36AM
If I took all my "Legends" series interviews that became stories for the NTPA "PULLER" magazine from 2010 to 2019, then you would have a much better insight and even answers to your inquiries.
Starting with Ed Hart, the founder of NTPA, who pulled a D-21.
Followed by Nobel Harrison story, as told and shown by his son to me, about Harrison's A-C dealership where Noble had direct access to A-C Harvey, IL engine engineers who helped Harrison with the first twin turbo setup barely after NTPA was born in 1969. Harrison also was a distributor for those twin turbo pulling setups.
A great followup on that would be Max Simpson with engineering and building and perfecting the water injection system. And since Max was in central Michigan,
then let's move to the northeast up into the "Thumb" and Thumb Truck Equipment where the father and 2 sons team of the Elenbaum's introduced a radical new small and lightweight transfer sled that allowed the pulling vehicle to easily get off the line and now have speed on the pulling track, while also manhandling the heavyweight classes.

Lots of other "legends" where you will learn of how they changed the dynamics of their class and overall the image of pulling. Bosse, Harness, Hutcherson, Engler, SCS Gearbox, Banter, John Shaul, Ronnie Reed, Bud Wheeler, Mello, Coopshaw, Danny Dean, Ron Perry, Ron Howe, Roudebush, Tom Urmson, Stauffer Bros., Diehl Wilson, Jaske, Brockmann, Ollie & Sherrie Schaeffer sleds and lots more. In these stories, there is usually at least 1 thing they employed that upped the competition which propelled the class, and thus the pulling sport, in time to improvement.

Someday, I should take all those stories and make a book, to help preserve a half century of modern day pulling. I have 60 active years of involvement in the sport in 13 states plus Ontario and Quebec.
www.DaveDannPhotos.com
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