As a promoter and a board member with an association that promotes truck and tractor pulling, I want to get feedback on what rules / classes you think we should attempt to create for promoters.

Here's what I'm trying to do. We have noticed a sharp drop-off on the number of street stock events hosted at one of our sanctioned pulls (we pull modified tractors, pickups, diesel tractors, etc. - check out www.youtube/CTTPAWeb or www.cttpapull.com for more information). We offer street stock as an option to the promoter. In our twelve pulls this season, only two are taking us up on that option.

Our association then rents the sled to the promoter and the promoter runs the street stock event. In talking to a few promoters that didn't sign up for the street stock option, they have all said they (1) didn't know how to run a street stock event or didn't have someone there they could trust or (2) found problems when trying to set up rules/classes.

This conversation started on another thread, but I didn't want to change the concept of that thread so I'm starting a fresh one.

Let me know your thoughts!
Thanks.
Glen

Safety For a street and Altered street,
U-joint shields: 3 inches long of 1/4 inch thick steel or 3/8 inch thick aluminum. Also, three drive shaft loops per shaft, u-joint shield acts as one loop. Drive shaft loops must be minimum of 3/4 inch wide and 1/4-inch thick steel. All intermediate shafts must be fully enclosed 1/4" steel or 3/8" aluminum.

Vehicle must have SEMA approved scatter shields or blanket. All automatic transmissions must have SEMA approved scatter blanket. All flywheels must be steel.

Windshields cannot be tinted darker than to allow flaggers to see driver through the window in clear day light hours.

Each engine equipped with harmonic balancer that is not SFI approved must be shielded 360 degrees with minimum of 1/8-inch steel. Solid balancer must have minimum 1/16-inch steel. Water pump will act as top shield. Shield must have strap or straps that will keep harmonic balancer from working forward.

Street class - No modifications of any kind to the engine. No weights beyond front bumper in OEM location.
Altered class - Oem heads only dual plane intakes double pumper base max. open headers down and back. 472 cubes max. hydraulic lifters. No weights beyond front bumper in OEM location


My thoughts boys add too or take from.

Alan

By street stock do you mean off the street with plates and ins.,or are you talking about a sanctioned class as alan is describing. The average street guy is not going to spend all that money on steel as cheap as it is anyway,also every promotor will have to get a tech guy and by the time they do all of that they get 3 trucks and they loose thier ass on the hell of a deal they got on the sled. The promotors are better of to have a run what you brung class that requires plates,ins,max hitch hight,and max wieght... that's my two cents worth..........

I agree with the run what you brung philosophy...with the following rules:

- 1st ten entries get to hook...so it doesn't take too long.
- max vehicle weight of 8000....so diesels can pull against gassers.
- weights ok.
- must be registered and insured.

Trust me, if a guy is a whiner, cause he got beat bad...He'll be back next year with a better truck. Then maybe he'll build a pro-truck cause he's so hooked on pulling!

Safety is the part that kills this class....if you enforce it, no one will show up....


A.........

I think the stock rules that CTTPA has now is good. With: the light class with no mods, The 6200# class with mods. and the deisels. I wished I could copy the stock rules off the old web site of CTTPA and put them here.

Clutch doctor while steel isn't exactly cheap these days (what is) 6 loops of 3/4 x 1/4 steel is NOT going to cost that much. And most stockers will pull more than once so its not a waste.

Adrian

"Safety is the part that kills this class....if you enforce it, no one will show up...."

If you don't enforce it, someone ends up hurt or dead, then no one shows up because there isn't a pull anymore!

Alan: I have a hard time beleiving that you had all that saftey equipment on your truck the first time out or even during your first year. I don't think any stock truck puller is going to put a shield around their harmonic balancer. Or invest in a saftey blanket for the automatic tranny. I expect to see a lot of pics in the next few weeks. You owe us. We have showed you plenty. Your always buggin Fraken for pics. Lets see some of your stuff.

Here is your problem guys.

If you run street class, it should be street trucks, if you make them put shields and stuff on, then you are going to get pullers building trucks, and then your problems really start.

I have said it many times on here, from someone who has been in this position a few times. It is the hardest class there is to run.

Your insurance will give you a fit.

pullers are going to get involved, and your going to have hot trucks, with license and insurance.

If you start requiring things, you end up with a pro-street class. Last time i looked, midtenn was doing this. You can not pull a bone stock truck then.

My suggestion, have a prostreet class, keep it simple, and make it legal.

run what ya brung. I never have liked that personally. They where doing that in the northeast, and they got guys there running ex514 headed moutain motors. Are you going to generate a lot of local interest running against that?

With all that I ussually offer promoters these ideas. Run street classes the thursday before your big event. Make it local only, set a radius that fits your geographic area, and truck and driver must be licensed in that area. Ask local law enforcement to help out teching trucks. That helps keeping guys like me form building a ringer.

Keep the crowds back. I ahev done alot of these pulls, i have seen a lot of parts break. Never seen a real street truck trow a part up, may happen, u joints and shafts ussually hit the ground, and a true stock truck, they dont go far. Again its the hot trucks that are not regulated that throw stuff.

Seems like someone that pulls is a hometown guy where ever you go. Get one or two of them to help tech. A few guys that know what to look for really helps. Having a bunch of guys from the firedepartment that dont know, ussually means more trouble. IE I was accused in the past of running alcohol. I was runing racing fuel from the year before. At one location, no one running things knew what to do, so trouble near fights. The next year the local openmad driver and crew were there, and were able to confirm i was not on alcohol.

Again a local only rule would have kept me out anyway. I know some guys dont want to here that, they want to do like i did, build a hot truck, and run around pulling against stock trucks. it is fun and great, and i loved it. It wasnt much fun for true street trucks, and it was always a hassle. If you love it and want to do something like that, again go with a prostreet entry class of some kind. You dont have to spend 50k. And you might not dominate, but you will have fun, and learn alot more about setting your trucks up.

Maybe some of these guys can offer some ideas, i tried to hit the big ones i could think of.

Check out the rules we run with we have improved stock, pro stock, modified and open classes plus this year we added a 8000# desiel class


http://www.heartlandtruckpullers.com/

about two things.

Whats up with E-85?

And how does the blue ford do?
He has a lot of rake whichis something we have discussed in length here.

GLEN Can you put up the original rules for Stock class in the CTTPA

You may find it hard to believe, but YES my truck had ALL the safety crap on it the first year. You see, I built the truck to compete in ITPA's Altered stock class, but didn't get it done in time to catch the first half of the season, so I took it to every brush pull I could find (that would let me in) I got tired of having to find numbers to call to see if my truck would be allowed in, so the next season I went to ITPA almost exclusively. Problem was that winter, they did away with the Altered stock class so I've been playing catch up ever since.

Reddog, I agree with you, but I have seen a part fly out from under a stock truck. Most places keep the crowd quite a ways away from the track to prevent injury and that is a good thing but there are some (all of us have been to at least one) that let the crowd get right up to the track. That's when trouble can begin.

Alan

I agree with Digger the old suggested cttpa rules were good. I have a copy somewhere ill look

The blue ford belongs to a good friend of mine. In that picture he has the 78-79 front leaf springs just 2 of the and in the back the springs are out of a f-700. He did all the body work himself. Usually he is in the top 4 or so. just a 472 flat top with roller cam and a 950 quickfuel

Here is a link to the rules. I just haven't finalized the Street Stock page on the website yet.

http://www.cttpapull.com/Street%20Stock%20Rules%202005.pdf

Trade ya links... I will put a link to CTTPA's website on ours. Can you put a link to ITPA on yours? www.indianatruckpullers.net


Alan

Not a problem. Will do...

Ok, 2 potentials I see. You may not have had an issue, but in your mod street class, I don't see any restrictions on the motor or chassis, so I could bring in my truck and pull or worse a guy could bring in an ntpa mod truck and pull as long as we had plates and insurance. Also, I see loops aren't required, but since the door is left open to all kind's of engine work so they should be required along with a blowproof bell or blanket.
Seems ridiculus, but every club/class has someone that just has to win, so they do what is necessary for the win.


Alan

Alan: No Modified Class Pulling truck would want to pull with the stock trucks. Won't ever happen. We have to park too far from the track and a modified truck would over heat and us stock truck pullers frown upon trucks being pulled on and off the track unless you're broken
If you would ever want to pull with us Alan you would be welcome and don't think you would be a shoe in for first place because there are some modified stock trucks that would kick ass in the pro-stock class.

Thanks digger, you just drove home the point I was trying to make.

Alan

Hey Glen, do you whatever happend to Tamie Blackburn with that Ford called Blue By You? She ran the class really good that one year. Then jumped and pulled pro-stock once and i never herd or seen anything from her again.

I'm not entirely sure what has happened. We heard from them a few months ago and not sure what their plans are. There were two trucks by the Blackburns (BluByU and MissFire). One of them burned in a garage file about two or three years ago. We saw MissFire pull once with us in 2006 I think, but then they dropped out of sight.

She is Sean's sister (he pulls Sled Dawg in our pro-stock 4x4 class) so if I hear from him, I'll ask.

Hey, keep watching our schedule. May be talking a few of the promoters back into street stock classes. And, we may be getting a cool addition to our three day weekend that includes Calhan (Colo.), Aurora (Colo.), and Oakley (Kans.). I know they are not that close to you, but it may be worth just coming down to watch. I'll give you those details when I get them confirmed (can you say the possibility of a five engine modified?).

whoa five engine? that be sweat to see. Where is that tractor maybe coming from?

Is that the Sean that had the one truck with the stroked 427 FE in it ??

Yep... otherwise known as Sled Dawg (http://www.thesleddawg.com). He was beaten by just a couple of inches at our pull in Farmington by a Chevy (YEAH!) so I'm sure we'll see a good points race this year.

My two engines are Chevy's and my mom and brother pull IH 560s running on methanol, so the IH - Chevy combination runs pretty strong. I have upset the family's applecart, though. My new tractor is a JD 7420 with a 454 Chevy in it. And, I pull it with my Ford powerstroke. My family even hauls the tractors with International semis.

My experiences with the stock is much the same as everyone else here. If you want to limit the hassle, make it a county only class or something to that effect. You can add the other general rules, no solid suspension, no open headers, no aluminum heads(except OEM), and license and registration. This will deter the ringers and give you the class you want.

Several valid points have been made here.
It is hard to have street stock and safety equip.

So have an entry level altered stock class, with safety rules. Look at the next class up and make it so that the new pullers you generate with the new class can easily move up in the future. But, enforce your rules.

By the way Reddog is right about the ringer, I have seen him in a truck that could open up at half track take it to the end and back around to the starting line for the next puller. it was an awesome pull.

A link to a pull by our stock class leader right now http://www.youtube.com/user/midtnpullers his is the white chevy.

They would call that class that the white chevy is in, Street Mod, in my neck of the woods.
It doesn't look to be "Pure Stock".

That is what our stock class is now. if its going to be done it needs major rules for the engine combo. The guys in that class are pretty strong. We have a factory head and block rule. Dual plane with one spacer and 13 pounds of vac at idle oh ya and mufflers. No cube limit.

In my opinion one needs a cube limit and I think flat tappet hyd. cams flat tops things like that to keep cost down, but then it has to be enforced.

The best way to keep power output to a minimum is a carb restriction....

- make everyone run a cheap ol' eldelbrock 600...
- and factory pulleys on steering, fan, and alternator...

Won't cost much for competitors, and cheaters would have heck modifying that carb...


A........