By Paula Roberts
Derek Chapman pulls with Dirty Hooker at a recent competition. (Photo courtesy Christopher A. Mills) |
The grandstand and infield at Windsor Fair were filled to capacity Aug. 27 as thousands of fans flocked to the area to watch the truck and tractor pulls. Two local drivers, Derek Chapman of Jefferson and John Blodgett of Waldoboro competed.
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John Blodgett’s Midcoast Madness pulling truck. |
Chapman and Blodgett travel around the state, starting with the Presque Isle Fair in June and run their trucks through October with the Maine Start Truck and Tractor Pulling Association.
Chapman is having a banner year on the state fair truck pulling circuit this summer. With only five fairs under his belt, he has collected seven first places, one second and one third. “We have been doing pretty well this year,” Chapman said.
Chapman won the 2013 Points Championship. “I am hoping to win it this year too,” he said. “As long as the motor doesn’t break down we are in good shape.”
While winning is fun, Chapman said “winning is being able to drive it off of the track. It is an expensive hobby.”
He pulls against the Pelletiers, of the American Loggers television fame.
When he was just eight years old in 1984, his father John, of Nobleboro, started pulling a truck and did so for about 20 years. As soon as Derek got his license, he was driving his father’s truck. His mother Terry competed in the powderpuff pulls.
Eventually his Dad sold his truck, and Chapman did not compete for a couple of years. Chapman’s Dad still gets his hands dirty helping Derek. “He is my wing man. He still goes to every race, and races once in awhile.”
For the past eight years, Derek has been driving his own truck, a 1971 Chevy that is anything but stock. He calls his truck the Dirty Hooker, because “you are pulling in the dirt and hooking onto the drag. There is nothing dirty about it. Some people just have dirty minds,” Chapman said.
Derek Chapman holding his younger son Benjamin in front of Chapman’s Dirty Hooker pulling truck. |
Blodgett drives the Midcoast Madness truck.
Chapman competes in the 6200 pound 4×4 Super Stock class. He runs a bid block 488cc engine with a compression of 15-1. “The horse power is top secret, but it is between 600 and 1200,” he said.
The two tanks mounted on the front of his truck are for fuel and oil. He runs a dry pump engine and uses 116 octane racing fuel. His engine was specially built by Bob Stevens from Finish Line Racing. “He builds the motors for Greg Winchenbach (Crushstation Monster Truck); that is how I found out about him,” Chapman said.
Chapman won both the 5800 and 6200 pound classes at Windsor Fair. He runs his oil and fuel out front “to add weight to the front. You want the weight on the front wheels.”
Chapman has an engineering degree from Maine Maritime Academy. He worked on off shore oil rigs for awhile, before starting his own construction business. He now builds high end homes in the Boothbay Region.
Chapman puts his engineering degree to good use in designing his own hitch system. “There is a lot of geometry going on there,” Chapman said of the hitch design that he keeps covered up to keep his secret safe.
While the crowds were large by Windsor Fair standards, “at Fryeburg and Skowhegan you get four times as many people,” Chapman said. “There are typically 20 to 25 trucks in my class. There are 40 in my class at Fryeburg.”
Chapman is in hopes the Maine Start Truck and Tractor Pulling Association can work out a deal with Wiscasset Raceway to provide entertainment there next summer.
Chapman has three sons Samuel, Sullivan and Benjamin. “I am looking forward to the boys doing this someday too,” Chapman said of carrying on the family tradition of truck pulling.
