Conceptually, there is no simpler motorsport than pulling. Strap your junk to the weight sled, wait for the green flag and then drop a wrecking ball on the throttle until something blows up or you grind to a halt. In this video, you’ll see a vehicle that simply couldn’t be stopped. Running at what looks to be the end of the night, the machine hooked to the sled is a Euclid tractor that would normally have served as the power unit to a large bottom dump-style dump truck.
Euclid was an American success story for decades. Starting as a company that manufactured equipment around the turn of the 20th century It was family owned until the early 1950s when General Motors became the owner and really invested in research and development. Euclid’s share of the market exploded and it eventually got to a point where GM was brought to court on Anti-Trust charges due to their dominance in the heavy equipment market. They later sold the company.
During the time of GM ownership, virtually everything that Euclid produced left the factory in Euclid, Ohio with Detroit Diesel power. The machine in this video is no exception.
The tractor in this video has a V12 Detroit in it and what we really dig it that this is a rare showing of just how much raw grunt these engines have. Really listen to this thing as it gets rolling. The load on the engine is light until the weight box comes up and then you can hear it start to work and the driver leans into the pedal. Finally, the weight box it all the way up and the big Detroit is working as hard as it can at wide open throttle dragging all of the sled’s weight. There’s 50-60,ooo lbs of pure dead weight trying to grind itself into the Earth, but the big Euclid won’t be denied!
