(click on pictures for bigger view) The main event in Europe are the "European Championships" at the end of the season. The top 80 (this year equally to 22%) of all the national competitors of the seven most popular classes plus the qualifiers of the Euro Cup are invited to this prestigious event. It's location moves to a different member country of the
ETPC each year and fans come travelling from all over Europe to support their national heroes at these finals. This year it was the Danish Tractor Pullers (DTP) to host the pull and of course they used the
Herning Pulling Arena, which more or less is THE place for high level pulling in Scandinavia. That the European Championships mean more than the usual Euro Cup event could be told by the number of fans rolling in on Friday night and Saturday morning. There was campers, trailers and tents everywhere and the size of the camping grounds used for the Euro Cup event had to be more than tripled. 11.000 spectators poured through the gates. Considering how meagerly Denmark and the surrounding areas are populated, it was A LOT of people and made the promoters smile big time. For luck the artificial hills next to the track provided enough space for them all and besides some of the Scandinavians getting totally drunk because of the (for them) cheap beer (the Norwegians pay 80 US$ for a crate of beer at home) the event went through very peacefully and was one big party. To sum it up: The European fans drank 2200 gallons of beer from the commission stands only... Before the event could be started the sled got under a very careful tech inspection by the 2008 rules, because of the accident in England two weeks ago. All European sleds must have an automatic shut down system from now on: If the box doesn't move, the sled has to automatically apply the box brakes, activate the push down and wheel brakes and pull the kill switch. The two German sleds passed this inspection and we were ready for a safe competition. But before the show started, everything went quiet and the video screen showed a special about Jan van
Alphen, who lost his life due to a malfunctioning sled smashing the weight box upon him at the
british finals two weeks ago.

A minute of silence was held and the
puller's parade was rather quiet when leaving the track. But the show had to go on and the sled was put upon the track, weighted for the 3.5t / 7700 lbs Super Stock competition. The class is still struggling in numbers because of the
Alky - Diesel war. On top of that the Clarke Pulling Team didn't show up to the pull. Peter Clarke is president of the British pullers and had other sorrows than competing after the accident. So Red Alert and Red Fever, two of Europe's strongest Super Stocks were missing. But there of course was another strong
british Super Stock with a Brent Long engine: Just Smokey of David Jones. It was up to him to fight the dutch John
Deeres Berner Bits'n Pieces and
Hoovertrack Bits'n Pieces for first place. Others with chances for a spot on the podium were the dutch
IH Aerdvruter and the
Cummins powered New Holland
Zapo. After the qualifying runs (everybody gets two chances to reach the Full Pull) there was six out the gate and within all those alkies, one diesel! Nils
Damgaard on his Blue Power Ford doesn't stop to mix up the
alky parade. In the Pull Off Willem
Veldhuizen with the
Hoovertrack Bits'n Pieces laid down the distance to beat and dragged the sled to 102.84m.

That was quite a long ways to the chequered flag for the rest of the competition! Gert-Jan Pauly on the
Aerdvruter stayed 30 ft behind and came to a hold at 93,40m. Then the Englishman Dave Jones with the Just Smokey: The 610
cui Long engine was doing all it could, but at 95.89m it was over.

That was still 20 ft behind the dutch John Deere! That
Veldhuizen Special Products is having an excellent set up together became crystal clear, when Willem
Veldhuizens team mate Edwin
Derksen drove the
Berner Bits'n Pieces to 99.89m and into runner up spot.

Then Benni
Harmelink on the
Zapo got a little too close to the left hand boundary line and had to back out of throttle, which was the chance for Niels
Damgaard on the diesel: He ended up 5
th overall. Not bad for a diesel at all!

So the first class was in the books and the next one ready to go.
The "950kg unlimited modified" as it is now called in Europe. To those who don't have a clue what this could be: Unlimited mini rods at 2090 lbs! The track had by now gotten a little on the dry site and it took lots of wheel speed to make the qualification for the Pull Off. The danish Interceptor Team tried three times to make the Full Pull: Dropped the distance of the test pull and then failed in both official attempts!

Except him and his two fellow Danish man everybody made a Full Pull in the end and we had 8 in the Pull Off. The crowd was already betting their money on their favourite puller. The two with the best chances on the win probably were the Lambada VI with a Knox
Hemi and the Mission Impossible - a "cute" little Allison powered machine. The track proved to be even more difficult now and if you got out of the center line, you were lost in the dust. The worst it probably hit Emil Roth from Sweden
.

He and his big KB
Hemi ended up in a cloud of dust and could scrap his tires afterwards. The German KB
Hemi machine, Mr. Rabbit was on a good run, but something let go in the engine and in the end two Chevy powered machines passed him:
Beverol Exception and The Dealer. The Dealer even managed third place overall! But the top two were playing their game 40ft further down the track: Rene
Geerts with the Mission Impossible Allison this time stayed behind the Lambada.

Last year he had put it on them all. But the Allison beast is not easy to handle in this class.

After the little
unlimiteds it was
TWD time. This class is still not really picking up, even though the
swedish pullers brought three machines to the finals this time to compete against the top four of the dutch competition and one English man. The English guy, Kenny Smith on the Legend & Hero stopped his attempt with the engine being spread all over the track. The Swedish guys showed some
ok runs, but in the end it was the dutch guys out the gate only. The one with probably the best engine in the class is Johnny
Kraai from
Putten.

He was on a monster run, but then pulled over to the left and ended up out of bounds.

So old time
TWD puller Arie
Luyendijk set the best distance with the Sledge Hammer, followed by the Screaming Bobcat and the
Intertechno Predator.


Remarkable here is the fact, that the owner and driver of the Screaming Bobcat,
Bertus Broeks is the owner of
Intertechno (dutch Bobcat and Atlas Import) and thus also sponsor of the
Intertechno Predator (as well as the Lambada and the Next Sensation team). But he already started rumors of campaigning a modified next season. He just loves the sport and is
Hemi crazy... After all these single engine classes it was time for the multi engine modifieds at 3,5t (7700 lbs). The Full Pull was not that much of a task for the better teams and 10 made it out the gate. However the track was like concrete by now and a lot of tractors had real bad bouncing issues. The first distance was laid down by "
l'aspirateur" (the vacuum cleaner in
english) a dutch /
belgian / french triple turbine cooperation, running the french competition. The tractor ran pretty well and set the first distance to 86.09m. That was enough to stay ahead of the two twin Allison machines of the Green Monster Team that both bounced like kangaroos but by far not enough to stay even close to the Lambada Modified. The three
KBs made it to 104.05m.

That was a lead by 60ft for now!!! It even was way too much for the multiple champ Brian
Armistread on the Desperate Dan. 88.86m was
al he could squeeze out of his four Chevy engines.

The triple turbine Baby Duck, the 4 Chevy's of Black Power (which ended up in nice fire ball, melting a head gasket and some minor areas of the head) or Cougar couldn't manage anything worth a trophy neither.

But there was one young team from the Netherlands, that had put together a hell of a triple
Hemi mod over the years.

With all the goodies on board they had laid down some very impressive wins during the 07 season already. But in Denmark it all went the worst: The throttle cable of the second engine came loose and having the fuel system of the two front motors hooked together, the front engine got way lean and spit the blower off. So in the end is was the Whispering Giant turbine machine with Baas
Liefting behind the wheel finishing in third position.

The first day of pulling was over and by now it had gotten quite cold and stormy and on the camping grounds "catch your flying tent and try to fasten it to the ground securely" was the main game to play. Anyhow the next morning awaited us with bright sunshine and just a light breeze. The track had been worked on heavily over the night and we could go on pulling. 2.5t (5500 lbs) modifieds were up first.
After having run the class in the Euro Cup competition for the first time this year and Black Power not coming out on top and even getting his butt whipped at some
german pulls by the end of the season, Poul
Ager Jensen invested in some new blowers. The European Championships taking place 20
mls away from his workshop should not be the place for him to be
decrowned as kind of the light mods for over a decade. But there was some other teams who were going to try very hard: The dutch Green Spirit single
Griffon of the
de Regt family, the
swedish Wild Thing, which actually is the old Empty Pockets with two KB
Hemis mounted side by side, the
britsh Black Gold aux blown single Allison, the German twin turbine
Isotov 2 and the German Green Monster single Allison and the
Roude Leiw from Luxembourg with a 3350
cui Curtiss Wright radial bolted into the lightweight chassis.

After the dust had
seddled on the 8 way pull off, everything looked the same as in the past though. Poul
Ager made them all look like total idiots, with a distance of 101.22m in the pull off.


Runner up finish went to Stefan
Kronvall with the Wild Thing and 91.71m and the Green Spirit with 90.13m. Black Gold bounced half way down the track,
Isotov 2 just never really hooked up,
Roude Leiw broke it's drive line and the Green Monster's Allison spread it's supercharger wheel into the intake manifold.

Pro Stock time!!! During the season
Barend Huybrechts with the
IH Rocky and the danish John Deere team had shown they could beat the
Valtra tractors of the
Herlevi Family from Finland, but the
Herlevis brought a new weapon to Denmark. A Pro Stock machine called "Countdown" they have built to sell (150.000 US $ and it's yours) and qualified through the finish championships. So the team brought a total of four tractors to the European Championships! If that wasn't enough to win the title, then what would be? The Countdown laid down the first pass and made a Full Pull. Everybody thought the sled was set
ok, but it proofed to be on the heavy side for the European standard. Out of 20 only four made a Full Pull. And those four were Countdown, Rocky, Sigma Power (another
Valtra) and the John Deere. You wouldn't believe the
rpms these guys are getting out of their 510
cui engines... rumours speak about 7000 + to make the big 5 inch chargers spin. Anyhow Matti
Herlevi was first hook and barely kept the charger spinning:

At 95.19m it was over for the young guy and
Barend Huybrechts had his chance to win the title.

The 1066 screamed like an animal in pain but 92.19m was all he could manage. Would the new Countdown be stronger than the other
Valtra tractors? The godfather of Pro Stock Pulling in Europe,
Pekka Herlevi then showed that also his Sigma Power was very capable of winning this event and parked it right between the distances of Rocky and Countdown.

That made it two
Valtra on top and an
IH on third. How about John Deere? The big danish Deere got it's nose a little too high and had to
seddle for fourth place.

Looks like the
Valtra domination in Pro Stock pulling is not over yet!
Whether the modifieds would be dominated by V8
Hemi power or not was the question in the heavy mod class. Nine of the strongest pulling tractors in Europe made the Full Pull in this class. Unfortunately two of them couldn't come back to make a second run: The
swedish 5 KB
Olds machine Cougar and the dutch twin
Griffon Green Spirit. They had busted their planetary big time and there was no way fixing it between two runs.

My team captain Tobias
Hoerstkamp had first hook in the Pull Off and with the front end loaded on the triple Allison "Green Fighter" had an excellent start but got to the left and had to back out of it a little at 95m - but managed to get back into the track and hit the throttle again to reach a final distance of 102.70m
.

The next one up, Brian
Armistread was in total disbelieve, when his five Chevy's on Desperate Dan already got stopped at 84.70m. The four turbines on Baby Duck didn't help for a much better distance, but 91.70m was runner up position so far - and was to remain runner up until the end of the class.


The 5 KB
Olds on the danish Fox were good enough for 91.40m - and then it time for the Lambada to enter the track. Willem
Dingerink opened the four big butterflies on the 4 Knox
Hemis and was off for a good start. But at around 80m the wedge chassis lost control of all that power, one wheel over spun and the tractor headed to the left badly. Willem had to shut it down and stood at 88.37m.

Since the turbine tractors Whispering Giant and
Iwan passed that distance it was only the 6
th position for the Dutchman. What a Pull Off!
Another European Championships had come to an end, the dutch remain the strongest tractor pulling nation in Europe and besides the German finals and the Euro Cup finals, the European Season is over!
all pictures from the event