Zaring making return visit to championship pull

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Fillmore resident Jake Zaring will compete in the 39th World Championship Truck and Tractor Pull on Saturday in Louisville.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Fillmore's Jake Zaring and the Dixie Chopper pulling truck are making a habit of being invited to the World Championship Truck and Tractor Pull.

The 39th annual championship pull is scheduled during the 2007 National Farm Machinery Show Feb. 14-17 at Freedom Hall on the Kentucky State Fairgrounds in Louisville.

For the second straight year, Zaring and the Dixie Chopper pulling truck are among 15 drivers and trucks from across the nation that have been invited to compete in the 6,200-lb. 4x4 Modified Truck class. Competition begins at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17.

In his inaugural invitation to the world championship pull, Zaring finished fifth in the 2006 event. With a pull of 233.25 feet, he was in the top three for much of last February's event but eventually was bounced from the track and finished fifth overall.

Zaring completed another successful year on the pulling circuit in 2006, highlighted by a victory in front of the home folks last July at the Putnam County Fair. Zaring will be competing in the Lucas Oil Pro Pulling Series again this season.

His first invitation to Louisville came less than a year after Zaring and longtime friend Jim Hilburn (Dixie Chopper national service manager) debuted their Dodge Dakota creation on the pulling truck circuit. They built the truck in an incredible 51 days in spring 2005.

"It's a dream come true," Zaring said of the invitation to pull at Louisville again.

Co-creator Hilburn is equally excited about the return visit.

"It is almost unheard of for a first-year truck to be invited to compete in the national championships," he said, calling the event "the granddaddy of them all" in the truck-pulling world.

Powered by more than 1,300 horsepower and a Pro-Fab transmission, the Dixie Chopper truck burns seven gallons of alcohol fuel per run. Its distinctive design features blades of grass stenciled along the bottom of each door panel, while the weight box up front has been made to look like the bottom of a 72-inch Dixie Chopper mowing deck.

The National Farm Machinery Show is the world's largest indoor farm show. Dixie Chopper will again have a booth in hte Kentucky Exposition Center, displaying its line of zero-turning radius lawn mowers, including the new 74-inch Xcaliber model.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: