If the heart of the Association is it's members...the muscle must be the eliminator. Our eliminator was originally built and used by the mini-tractor pullers from Colby. Later, Todd Rahm got the ATV Pulling Association started and purchased the Colby eliminator and the old feed scale. They took it to a shop to have it lengthened 2 feet, making a total of about 12 feet. The club pulled another year on the sled in this condition.
By now the modified machines were getting more powerful and we con
stantly needed to throw more weight on the sled. Towards the end of the season it was just getting too heavy. Everybody was wondering just how much a single 3/4 ton axle could carry? After adding a truss under the axle to keep the tires halfway straight, we were putting about 9 to 10000# on it for a good blacktop pull. It was getting hard to stop the wheelers, even with no down pull on the hitch! We needed a bigger eliminator.
In 199?, the club hired Morris Krall to make some modifications to the sled and build a new scale from some digital stock car pads the club had purchased. After stripping it down and looking at what needed to be done, it was decided to go big. He added another 4 feet of length with tandem axles to help carry the extra weight. A lot of extra metal was also added... just for dead weight, so the clubs members didn't need to throw so many tractor weights on. Air bags were added under the front axle to keep the pan a
s light as possible, so the light classes could get started. The air bags also kept the pan from ripping up the starting line on dirt pulls. The dual axles with four brakes offer great stopping potential, even with over 6 tons of total weight on the sled!
We'll be making continued improvements to the eliminator for the future. Stay tuned for more news.
New for 2006 Season, the hydraulic powered SLAM BAR. We have a electric/hydraulic pump that powers a cylinder that is connected to a steel reinforced rubber pad that is timed to contact the pulling surface at a given point. This thing really works well. We also have a dirt pan with a grader blade attached to the same kind of cylinder setup. It contacts the ground at a steep angle to penetrate the clay and stop the eliminator fast.Here's a few pictures of the eliminator in action:
