Pull Truck Racing In Iowa With Tom Rea
The world of pull truck racing is different from all others. The idea is to carry an impossibly heavy load as far as possible before bogging out.
Pull truck racing attracts a special kind of racer. Tom Rea, a local pull truck racer and Karl Kustoms customer, is just such a guy. Rea doesn’t put as much stock in winning as he does having fun and improving his ride.
“Everybody has a good time,” says Rea “If you’ve never been to one, you need to come and watch.”
Formerly, Rea raced circle track for 15 years. But Rea was looking for a bit of a changeup. When he was getting ready to start with pull trucks, Rea wanted to stand out a bit from his competition, so finding a unique ride was important.
“I wanted something different when I was getting ready to pull,” he shares “Most everybody has either got the Ford Rangers or the S10 Pickups. Nobody in our area had a Dodge Dakota, so I wanted one of them.”
“I did all the work myself to it,” continues Rea “I stripped it down right here in the garage. It was a long process, but I was able to spend a few hours a day here working on it.”
Rea explains that pull truck racing consists of taking a 48,000 lb sled and pulling it 300 ft down the track.
As you make it down the track a weight box raises up, loading more weight onto the skid plate. The goal is to make it as far as possible before you can’t go any further. You also want to beat the track more so than the other trucks according to Rea, as hitting the dirt just right is essential to a good pull.
After getting as far as he could on his own, Rea enlisted the help of our crew at Karl Kustoms to put together a winning engine package for his Dakota. First, we looked at the rules from the sanctioning body, then we got to work, squeezing every bit of potential we could from the drivetrain.
Rea even raved about how thorough our techs were with his engine. He shared how they went to the lengths of draining the oil and cutting the filter after dyno runs to check for anything out of the ordinary before putting everything back together.
Together, we helped to put one mean truck out on the track for Rea.
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