Good bye Jan

I have been thinking quite a bit whether I should write something about Jan or not.

When I got the message on sunday evening, I was done for the rest of the day (I actually got two and was still hoping for the best until I got the second one). My father, one of the first tech officials in Europe who had been fighting for safety from day one, also stayed up with me that night and couldn't believe it either.

For those who have not followed the European Circuit from day one, it's hard to understand what a loss this is to the Tractor Pulling community (not to even speak about the family).
But I think you need to know - and that's why I have decided to write a little, even though I have tears in my eyes.

Jan van Alphen probably was the most legendary, still competing puller we had in Europe.

His tractor had the registration number 3 in the dutch competition, means Popeye was the third dutch modified tractor and Jan was one of the pioneers of tractor pulling in Europe.

He started out with a DAF semi engine, then switched to twin Detroit diesels and in 82 started with Allison power through his good connection with the canadian V12 gang around Frank Verheyn and Art Helm.

When my dad took me to the pulls as a little boy, there was one guy my father and his team mates knew they couldn't beat: Jan van Alphen.

When Popeye entered the track, we knew we would be second that day.
I very well remember the first german "Trecker Treck" magazine with this photograph of Popeye's Allison sticking out of a cloud of dust with just two words below the picture "European Champion 83"

The first time I really remember seeing him was in Sottrum 1984 where he made us look like total idiots putting something like 30 m on our Green Monster in the Pull Off.
Then the European Championships 1984 at Hamm: Nobody could even come close to Popeye.
A year later on the Flevohof, where Jan was the first one to run an Allison on methanol, laid down one hell of a run but had technical difficulties afterwards and another legend, Peter Daniels, could capture the heavyweight modified title.

Then came the days of Eugen Kiemele, who, despite all his "Yankee Arias power" didn't stand a chance against Jan's twin Allison machine at the European Championships at the Flevohof in 89.
Then all those countless battles he fought with the 3rd Popeye with Brian Armistread, Eugen Kiemele, Cees Zysling, Ko de Regt, Dave Prince and my team in the 90s...

Never will I forget the bus loads of Popeye fans in the Ahoy stadium, making it look like the local football team just won the dutch championships in there.
Coming the new century, pretty much all of his old competitors had given up, retired, downscaled or passed it on to their sons, but not Jan.

He was the "godfather" and still in the seat in the top leagues every weekend after all those years, fighting with the second generation of pullers.
Of course he had his son Johnny driving the tractor in the 3,5t class and helping in the workshop, but for the heavyweight battle, Jan still climbed on board the triple Allison machine and this man was unbelieveable tough to beat anytime.

He was not a great experimenter. I remember long discussions about fuel systems and Allison tuning with him and rarely did we agree on something.
He always stayed conservative and in the end wrecked a lot less Allisons than most other teams (especially mine) in all those years, always having "this" smile on his face after having laid down a good run, knowing he could do it over and over again while others were dragging their engine internals off the track...

Never a rich man, he had the will to be succesful and worked hard for it, being a very proffessional ambassador for the sport (was there a country he did not pull in??), helping to increase the level of the sport on and off the track and was rewarded with one of the best (and well deserved) sponsor deals in tractor pulling for more than a decade, showing us all, that hard work can get you there.

But even when times got tough and Q8 stopped the sponsorship, Jan kept going strong and didn't show any signs of backing off, making me wonder where he took all that energy from to continue, knowing his wife Thea wasn't well at all for a long time.
A good example of his encouragement was, how after the team had this accident with the tractor falling off the truck earlier this year, the first thing they did was to fix the tractor and get back on the pulling tracks and kept to compete all over Europe, even though there was very little chance they would catch up in the points. But two top 5 finishes at the last Euro Cup events showed you couldn't count him out.
He maybe didn't have the strongest tractor anymore, but it was reliable and if there was a way to make a Full Pull with finding a better trail in the track, Jan found it!

He still had so many plans, having just bought a new truck and working hard to get his beloved Allisons equipped with turbochargers to show them all what they could do - and now he just isn't able to fullfill his plans anymore.

Jan, we have always been competitors on the track down to the last rpms of our beloved Allisons, but we always could shake hands afterwards and look each other into the eyes. When I was at the dutch pulls on my own or we had struggled at the international pulls, I always kept my fingers crossed for you to give them V8 folks hell.
I will sorely miss a legend and hero from my childhood days, an Allison puller and an extremely fair and tough competitor.
You'll be alive in our memories and may your spirit be around for a long time to come at the tractor pulls. Today's pulling needs more of it...

Rest in peace