When the Park County Fair truck pull rolled around in 1979, Rick Johnson’s father was vacationing in California. So Rick decided to go ahead and borrow his dad’s brand new GMC pickup for the event.

“I go, ‘What could this hurt?’” Rick recalled.

He wound up winning both days of pulling, though Larry Johnson still wasn’t thrilled to learn that his work truck had been entered in the competition.

“He was a little upset,” Rick acknowledged. “But he got over it. And the next year, he went with me.”

The year after that, Larry and Rick both brought vehicles to the fair, adding in a GMC truck dubbed “Mighty Whitey.” Then, in the summer of 1982, they built Ol’ Rig, a modified four-wheel drive Chevy designed for pulling. The father and son duo spent the next couple decades traveling to — and winning — pulls across the U.S. and Canada with the two trucks.

Rick’s son Kory took up the sport as soon as he was old enough to get behind the wheel, and he joined Larry and Rick on the truck-pulling circuit in the 2000s. The trio became the first family to have three generations compete in the same class, with Larry competing up until his passing in 2008. Kory is now working to pass the sport on to his daughters as the fourth generation.

The array of Chevys parked in the Johnson Motorsports shop are a testament to the family’s passion. Ol’ Rig and Smokin’ Bowtie, which joined the mix in 1997, rest on one side of the building, sidelined by Rick and Kory’s current trucks, Bad Bowtie and Mr. Awesome. A gleaming 2013 COPO Camaro in the corner, meanwhile, represents the family’s more recent jump into drag racing.

Looking across the collection, Rick shared a certain amazement about everything that’s happened since his surreptitious trip to the fair more than 40 years ago.

“It’s been quite a journey,” he said.

A heavy sport

Known as “the world’s heaviest motorsport,” truck pulling involves hitching up to a specialized sled and seeing who can pull the heavy load the furthest. The sled starts out fairly easy to pull, but it offers ever-increasing resistance as it moves forward. In the Johnsons’ 6,200-pound truck class, the sled weighs 45,000 to 50,000 pounds by the time it reaches the end of the 320-foot track.

Kory calls it “the ultimate competition, men versus machines.”

“When you’re sitting behind that and you’re locked in and you’re wide open at 9000 RPM, that truck’s giving all it’s got. It’s just like a dog on a chain, I mean, everything is tethered to that sled,” he said. “... You are using everything that truck has and putting it into the ground.”

Truck pulling was once a popular event in the region. Beyond being a fixture at the Park County Fair, there were competitions everywhere from Casper, Douglas and Cheyenne to Billings, Havre and Fort Benton, Montana, and Dickinson, North Dakota. You could even find action in the winter months at indoor arenas in Casper, Denver, Salt Lake City and Reno. Kory recalls years that involved 15 to 20 regional events and just a couple trips out of the area.

But these days, the Johnsons spend May through October traveling to the Midwest, where the sport remains a big draw. This past summer, they brought their trucks to six multi-day pulls in Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa, shuttling Bad Bowtie and Mr. Awesome inside a colossal 94-foot-long hauler. 

Having to travel from Wyoming does put the Johnsons at a disadvantage. Some competitors “drive 300 miles and act like they’ve crossed the world and we’re driving 1,500, 1,800 miles,” Rick said. Those back East also have access to businesses that sharpen tires, work on gearboxes and build rear ends for the specialized trucks, while the Johnsons do all that work themselves.

High pressure

The vehicles must be finely tuned and ready to go ahead of each event, and drivers must be attuned to their trucks during their pulls.

“You gotta live it, walk it, eat it, sleep it,” Rick said.

Added Kory, “I’ve laid in bed at night thinking about what to change on those two trucks.”

Unlike other motorsports, there’s no practicing. A long trip culminates in roughly 15-second pulls, which comes with plenty of pressure.

“Every pass is the Super Bowl,” Kory said.

Things don’t always go according to plan, either. For example, at an event last summer, Bad Bowtie went airborne and was among roughly half the trucks in the class that suffered damage as a result of a bad setting on the sled, Rick said; it put his truck out of commission for weeks.

Finding time for the prep work, repairs and competitions can be a challenge. When the oil and gas industry has been really bustling, Rick and Kory have had to skip pulls and tend to their business at Johnsons’ Oil and Water Service. With expensive equipment and prizes that aren’t particularly lucrative, it’s generally not the kind of sport that allows participants to quit their day jobs; many competitors are farmers, others are truckers.

But success is still sweet, and the Johnsons have had their fair share. Kory earned his first win at a grand national event in August at Rockwell, Iowa, while Rick still revels in his victory at the 2016 National Tractor Pulling Championships; daily attendance at the annual championships, held in Bowling Green, Ohio, can top 40,000 people.

“You want to talk about walking around feeling good about yourself: A couple of hillbillies out of Powell, Wyoming, go out there and take out these guys that live up there and do it all the time,” Rick said of the win in 2016, which was the 50th anniversary of the pulling championships.

Added Kory, “there’s nothing better than kicking the rest of the class’s heads in on the dirt.”

But it remains a friendly competition, with drivers working to help one another out in the event of vehicle trouble.

“We don’t call them our friends: They’re our pulling family,” Kory said.

The next generation

Of course, it’s still not the same as the actual Johnson family. Kory has been immersed in motorsports since birth, going to his first pull at 5 days old.

“He had no choice,” Rick quipped of his son’s interest.

Kory’s daughter Livia now appears to be on a similar track: As a 6-year-old, she competed in several junior-level drag races at a Billings speedway over the summer. Before completing a racing clinic, Livia’s prior driving experience had been limited to Power Wheels and a four-wheeler, but she’s proven to be a quick study.

Kory, in fact, got a bit of a scolding when his daughter’s car zipped through the eighth-of-a-mile track in 11.77 seconds, which was faster than the youth are supposed to go; he’s since modified the car to slow it down.

Rick and Kory, meanwhile, have been racing the COPO Camaro, a limited edition race car especially designed for competition.

The Johnsons added drag racing to their repertoire when the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shut down the big tractor pulling events back East. It’s a different kind of sport, Kory said, and they’ve applied lessons from tractor pulling to drag racing while picking up new ideas from racing. Livia’s been learning, too.

“There’s times we’ve rolled up there to pick her up [at the end of a run] and she’s sitting there like a little pro — she’s got her visor up on her helmet and she’s analyzing her time slip,” Kory said.

He said the racing has given his daughter a big boost of confidence, noting she’s now much less timid on a four-wheeler.

“I watched too much ‘Roadkill,’” Livia offered, referring to the long-running Motortrend series that “pushes the limits” of various vehicles.

Livia appears to be destined to continue the family’s truck pulling legacy, added her mother Ashley.

“I think she’s already laid claim to grandpa’s truck,” Ashley said.

Two-year-old Ainsley doesn’t appear to be far behind, either.

“She is ready to be in the car,” Ashley laughed.

Whenever Rick’s granddaughters are ready to borrow one of his trucks for an event, they won’t need to sneak off with it like Rick did decades ago. In fact, he’d be willing to drive them there.

“It’d be good; I’d endorse it,” Rick said with a laugh, noting the positive impact the sport has had on his family since his covert trip to the 1979 fair.

“Who knew what that was going to start in life?” he mused.