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Updated 17 hours ago
Herminie resident Mark Petros and “Public Enemy,” his 1975 Dodge Club Cab Power Wagon, are local legends in the world of sled pulling.
Petros approaches his craft like Buddy Rich, the legendary jazz drummer, who once said: “You only get better by playing.”
“You practice when you pull,” says Petros, a 30-year veteran of sled pulling.
Pulling means hitching the creamy yellow-white Public Enemy — with a 540-cubic inch engine, customized aluminum cylinder heads, single-plane manifold, modified carburetor and drive train — to a mechanized sled that holds a box carrying thousands of pounds of weight.
As the truck pulls the sled, the gear-driven weight box slides from the sled's rear axle forward toward the pickup truck hitch. This drives a pan located toward the front of the sled into the ground, turning it into a 65,000-pound dragging weight.
“You have one time to get it right. Your truck needs to be ready and you have no second chance,” he said. “If you screw up, you screw up. You get one shot.”
Petros doesn't screw up often. In 2015, Full Pull Productions, the largest independent promoter of sled-pulling contests, called him the “most proficient winner” in seven years. LandofthePullers.com said he has won more than 400 events, including four Full Pull Production championships, and has been the promoter's points champion for two years in a row.
Petros, 52, was first introduced to sled pulling at the Sewickley Township Community Fair in 1981.
“I'd see these guys messing around with their pickups and competing in brush pulls” — smaller, unsanctioned races. “When I got older, I said, ‘That's what I want to do.' I started working on my own truck.”
Petros runs in the Super Street/Pro Street class. The purse prize ranges from $450 for a first-place win at the bigger competitions to $60 at smaller events, like the Westmoreland Fair, he said. He could take $1,000 for winning a points pool run by Full Pull Productions.
Competing isn't cheap. Anyone hoping to go up against Petros would have to drop at least $25,000 on an engine. He competes against pullers who have deeper pockets than he does, and some who spend twice as much on their trucks get frustrated when they lose to “just a small-town guy,” he said.
But there's more to it than having the best engine.
“You could buy the best golf clubs and it doesn't mean you're going to be Tiger Woods,” he said.
Experience and knowledge are arguably more important: How will track conditions impact traction? How much acceleration off the line? How much air pressure should be in the tires?
“Every year, you kind of learn something a little more and give it a little tweak,” he said.
It involves a lot of trial and error, and tooling around with the truck provides some advantages, said Petros, who owns Greensburg Machine and Driveline.
“You're never too old to learn something. You never know it all,” he said. “The only way you get better is you gotta pull.”
Kevin Zwick is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-2856 or kzwick@tribweb.com.
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