Thursday, August 26th, 2021
Take It 'EZ'
Celina's Kristie Secrest wins truck pull title in Bowling Green
By Tom Haines
Submitted Photo
Kristie Secrest's truck, "Nuthin' EZ 'Bout It" is shown at a National Tractor Pullers Association meet. The Celina resident recently won her division at the National Tractor Pullers Association's National Tractor Pull Championships at the Wood County Fairgrounds in Bowling Green.
Photos courtesy of Kristie Secrest
CELINA - When Celina's Kristie Secrest went to Bowling Green for the National Tractor Pulling Championships on Saturday, she had no particular expectations. She and her husband Brent had been going up to Bowling Green for the national competition since 2009, first with Brent driving and then as Kristie's crew chief.
So in their second race, when Kristie's pull of 322.075 feet was still standing after 45 drivers, it was cause for disbelief.
"Lots and lots of tears, lots and lots of disbelief, lots and lots of screaming," Kristie Secrest said of the team's reaction. "We talked about it (Monday) night when I came home from work and I said, 'Did that really happen? For people like us, does that thing really happen?' "
Before Saturday, the Secrests had peaked at 12th in nationals in the days when Brent and Kristie's brother Shane Slusser raced as a team. Slusser now works behind the scenes for the Secrests, along with their nephew Corey and a few other close friends.
Slusser and Brent Secrest were good friends before Brent and Kristie got married, and Kristie soon found her own role for their team.
"Both of them went from demolition derbies to truck and tractor pulling," Kristie said. "We started with the brush club, club Michindoh - Michigan, Indiana, Ohio is what it stands for - and my job, basically, was to clean the truck, keep tallies, and try to figure out who was who, because we were pretty much nobodies when we first came into it."
Brent worked his way up to the national level, pulling in the grand national circuit in 2015 and 2016 before moving to regionals when Kristie wanted to learn how to drive. She entered the grand national circuit last year after she saved up enough vacation time at work.
Although Kristie notched a second- and a fourth-place finish in Atwood, Tennessee, earlier this year, she placed 10th in the first session on Thursday and came into Saturday's race as the 18th hook, leaving a host of drivers with a chance to beat her score.
"It's a long process, it's a long day," she said. "You sit in your outfit for hours, waiting to go through lines, to go across the scales to get weighed, and then after you run, you know you did really good, but we still had 30 trucks to see if we were going to win."
With the win, Nuthin' EZ 'Bout It moves into top place in the grand national standings for two-wheel drives with two hooks to go, both in Hoopeston, Illinois.
The win and the strong year raise the Secrests' profile in the racing world, with the potential to bring in more sponsors or consider expanding. But with both working full-time jobs - Kristie as a clerk, Brent driving the semi the couple owns - adding a second truck to the team would be difficult.
"To take care of two versus just one, he says two's the work of four," Kristie said. "I would love it…He says no. I've tried to change his mind."
The Secrests' EZ DUZ IT pulling team runs a single truck christened Nuthin' EZ 'Bout It, in the 6,200-pound class with about 2800 horsepower and a 30-inch hitch, and they handle all the maintenance themselves.
Brent started with a two-wheel drive, and when Kristie started driving she stuck with it.
"A two-wheel drive is pretty cool because of the fact that the front end comes completely off the ground," Kristie said. "You don't want it to get certain heights, because then you'll ruin your hitch, so you try to do a balancing act - think of a teeter-totter, if you will."
In a sport that sees a lot of family business, the Secrests are very much in tune on the track.
"I know my husband's the best crew chief out there, because he knows exactly what to do to our truck," Kristie said. "So my job as the driver is to do the same thing over and over, to make his job easy to set that truck up for what I do. I just never had enough confidence as a driver to think it was possible for us to win the largest pull.
"You always hope and pray, it's kind of like our world."
Submitted Photo
Celina's Kristie Secrest, center, poses with her first-place trophy after winning the 6,200-pound Modified Two-Wheel Drive Trucks division on Saturday at the NTPA National Tractor Pulling Championships in Bowling Green. Standing behind her, from left, are Ray and Jake Shephard, Brent Secrest, Candi Eisman and Dale Barnett.
Photos courtesy of Kristie Secrest
