I always felt that there should be an award for the person who showed the best sportsmanship or endured the greatest hardship ( '07 would be Danny Elmore, hands down) at Diesel Power challege.  With that in mind, here is the story of Chris Werner and the sled pull.

This year the overall winner of diesel power challenge was Chris Werner and his '01 Dodge, but there's more.  At the very last event, the sled pull, the skies opened up and started raining, making the sled track very slick for about the last four pullers.  Chris was dead last in the order, and in the mud couldn't move the sled more than about six inches.  Having seen 200 horsepower trucks on full street tires pull over 150 feet, my stomach turned as Chris's 800 horsepower truck couldn't even budge the sled.  Originally the idea was to go with the original pulling standings, which would have dropped Chris to third place in the event.  A number of people started saying "oh well, that's racing," while others pulled me aside and told me that they felt Chris's truck was the top competitor and deserved better.  Chris himself didn't whine, complain, justify his own position, or yell.  He pulled off the track, calmly gave his opinion, and waited for a decision to be made.  As rain continued to fall, it looked like the sledpull might now be cancelled, handing Chris the win.   Time progressed, the skies started to clear, and there was a chance we might be able to run the pull over again.  One of the people advocating a re-pull was Chris himself, Chris who had one of the lightest trucks in the event, which was on the least agressive tires, and who had the most to lose.  He was willing to jeapordize his number one standing to run in a fair event, and if that isn't a true competitor, I don't know what is.  In the re-pull, Chris placed fifth, which was enough for the overall victory.  Congrats on the win Chris, it is well deserved.


It should also be noted that Tyler Scheers, who came 30 hours from Canada to compete, placed third on the first sled pull, but hurt the truck and couldn't re-pull.  Because of this, the truck dropped to the bottom of the field.  Had the original pull counted, the Ford would have ended up fifth place, a strong finish for the big blue beast from the North.