The Ultimate Callout Challenge started on Friday and we have finally made it to the finale of the biggest diesel event of the year. The standings have been shuffled around left and right and just as we had hoped, the final day will be the deciding factor in the end. Who can set their truck up in sled pulling trim and pull this ridiculously heavy sled the farthest?

After the drag racing and dyno competition, the standings were tight as ever, but because of some sort of breakage, only 13 trucks were still alive. Some of these guys are return customers and have the sled pulling figured out. It was only a matter of track conditions, really. Based on the sled pulling experts that were there, the track was in good shape.

Now, let’s take all of that power and yank this sled as far as possible.

Spool It Up And Let It Eat

Bringing up the rear of the sled pulling standings was Power Driven Diesel’s, Josh McCormack. McCormack’s goal for the weekend was just to finish. Even though he and his team were faced with issues, they fought through it and completed the Ultimate Callout Challenge. Struggling to get the truck to light, he still managed to pull it 174 feet.

Charlie Fish’s bright purple Power Stroke-powered machine seemed to struggle to get the sled to move too as it only managed to pull the sled 210 feet. Although that wasn’t the best pull of the day, they still managed to survive the gauntlet. Congratulations to Fish and his team for doing so.

In the 9 through 11 spots, it was all UCC rookies. David Petrick, Kenny Bruner, and event leader Justin Zeigler. Each of them had a good hook but just wasn’t enough to finish the day ahead of everyone else. Zeigler, an event favorite to win, sort of shocked the world when he didn’t quite get on top of those monster turbos and the sled brought him to a stop. This left the door wide open for the rest of the field to make up all of the points they earlier followed by.

In eighth place, it was UCC first-timer Turba Tom Borrell. Borrell brought up the boost and managed to pull the sled 293-feet. Just ahead of him were Evan Moser and Wade Minter. Both guys made great pulls but just wasn’t quite the distance the top half of the field did. Let’s talk about our top 5. These guys are either really good at pulling or they’ve just got a dialed setup. Or both.

Tony Burkhard, after killing it on the dragstrip and making a great number on the dyno, savagely pulled the dyno 319-feet taking home the prize for the farthest distance. This finished off a great weekend for team Dirty Hooker Diesel. Only a few feet behind was our second place through fifth-place finishers, Brian Shew, Trevor Peterson, Justin Andres, and Chris Buhidar.

The final pull of the day was Chris Buhidar. Leading up to this day, he was only a few points shy from Justin Zeigler and taking the lead overall. Watching closely at Zeigler’s pull, team Truck Source Diesel knew the door was open. They pulled the seld 299.65-feet which was enough for fifth place but made them miss the overall points mark and their first UCC win by only 27.9-points.

For those of you who want the math, that would’ve been a few hundredths faster on the dragstrip, a few more ft/lbs of torque and horsepower, and only nine or ten feet farther on the sled pulling track. It is a bummer to come this far and miss the mark by that much but you know they are hungry and I see them winning this show next year. They know what to work on and i expect to see that third place overall turn into a top-of-the-podium finish.

The overall results are as follows:

We cannot thank the Ultimate Callout Challenge team enough for letting us come and cover this savage event. We can’t wait to come back next year and see what kind of awesomeness happens. For more information about diesel events, truck features, and part reviews, stay tuned right here to Diesel Army.