The 18 cylinder Curtiss Wright powered modified tractor called Wild Star of Jos Becker from Colmar in Luxembourg will have a new home in 2023. After 29 years under the Luxembourg flag, Jos Becker has decided to sell the tractor to a new owner in Northern Europe in the fall of 2022. The deal was perfectly made in November.
The 3.5t/7700lbs radial-powered tractor was built by the Roude Leiw Pulling Team from Luxembourg. The team around Serge Jacoby, Jim Arendt, and Georges Arendt decided to build a new tractor in 1991. After some years with natural aspirated Chevy small blocks and Ford V8 engines in the modified class, the team needed more power, because the power range in European pulling was already growing massively.
The first thought was to purchase a top tractor with blown V8 engines. Getting a top tractor by using V8 engines seemed to be rather easy, but it was too expensive, and the plan was discarded again. After the old multi-V8 tractor was sold at the end of 1989, the team started to search for a different kind of engine with more power. It took quite a while before they found something which was very nice for them. They found somewhere a used 18-cylinder Curtiss Wright R3350 power plant with around 4000 hp from a Super Constellation airplane. The engine was purchased and completely overhauled by the old owners. On Christmas Eve 1991, a totally overhauled Curtiss Wright R3350 engine arrived in their new workshop in Vichten.
Another nice feature of the engine was the turbo-compound system. That means the engine was supercharged in 2 stages. After Christmas, they started to build the new Roude Leiw modified tractor for the 3.4t modified class. The tractor received a homemade 4 square steel tube frame with a shortened modified semi truck planetaries rearend and a homemade driveline. The building of the new Curtiss Wright-powered machine took longer than expected. The new tractor was released for the first time in front of the crowd at their home pull in Bettborn, Luxembourg in 1993. Unfortunately, the new Roude Leiw wasn't ready to run in front of the sled, because some parts for the tractor were not done yet.
In 1994, the Roude Leiw did his maiden run in front of the sled for the first time. Due to a lack of events in Luxembourg, the team around Serge, Jim and Georges competed in some pulls outside of Luxembourg in Germany.
During the next years until 1996, the Roude Leiw Team competed in different events in Europe. In 1997, the team competed for the first time with their Roude Leiw at a European Championship, and it was not so bad. Serge Jacoby did two nice passes in front of the De Stille Genieter sled from Belgium in Erkelenz-Holzweiler, Germany. The first pass of the radial-powered tractor was the best.
Serge missed the Full Pull by just 1 m and 12 cm. In the 2nd pass, he couldn't repeat his performance from his first attempt and missed the full pull by more than 18 m. The reason for the bad second attempt was a not perfect running engine. But all in all, the team was pleased with their performance and finished in a nice 7th place in front of some much stronger tractors like Starlight Express from Great Britain and Iwan from Germany.
In 1997 and 1998, the Roude Leiw Puling Team got the opportunity to compete in the BKTV/NTTO B-Division Championship (today NTTO National) in the Netherlands and Belgium.
A first victory in the 3.4t modified, and some podium places, proved that they got the Curtiss Wright engine under perfect control.
Another milestone for the team with the Roude Leiw was the invitation to the European Superpull in Ahoy, Rotterdam in 1998. Serge managed a nice full pull at the Indoor Pull in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, due to technical problems, he couldn't make a pull in the finals.
In 1999, after 2 years of competing in the Netherlands and Belgium, the team decided to compete again at the German Championship events with the tractor. The team also signed in the Roude Leiw for the German Championship. Over the season, the team struggled a lot with backfires on the engine and the Curtiss Wright power plant didn't ran well. Before the event in Verl, the team decided to dismantle the turbo compound system on the Curtiss Wright engine. Without that system, the engine ran now much better and a nice 4th place was achieved in Verl, Germany.
But the biggest success for the team was the result at their home pull in Bettborn, Luxembourg.
The Roude Leiw ran very well and Serge did two great passes in the 3.4t modified. In the end, he finished in a nice runner-up position behind the twin Allison called Q8 Popeye from the Netherlands. For the new millennium, Serge, Jim, and Georges had to make some changes to the tractor. Due to the new safety rules, the tractor received a new homemade 2-bar steel roll cage and the fenders got a new paint job.
For the next 4 years, the Roude Leiw Team competed with the tractor in the German Championship, in the European Championship in 2000, 2001, and 2002 and of course at their home pull and Euro Cup round in Bettborn.
In 2001, the team won the first round of the German Championship in Weseke and a runner-up place was achieved in Verl 2001. Another big success was, at the International 3.5t modified competition in Bettborn, Luxembourg a nice 3rd place was achieved in a field with a lot of top tractors in 2000. Already during the 2003 season, the Roude Leiw Pulling Team had decided to build a new Curtiss Wright-powered tractor for the 2.5t light modified class. After the new tractor was ready in the summer of 2004, the guys concentrated more now on the new light modified tractor Roude Leiw Junior to get it competitive for the future. After the event in Bettborn 2005, the Roude Leiw Team sold the tractor to Jos Becker from Colmar in Luxembourg.
But, Serge Jacoby, Jim Arendt and Marc Gaub still helped Jos Becker during the season on the tractor. After the tractor was sold to Jos, Roude Leiw was renamed into Wild Star. From 2006 until the end of the 2022 season, Jos Becker and his Team competed with the tractor mainly in Germany in the German Championship, but also in some other events in Austria and France. His biggest success with the tractor was in 2011. With some great results during the year, he finished 3rd in the German Championship point standings. Already in the beginning of 2022, after 16 years of tractor pulling, the 72-year-old announced that he is thinking about stopping with tractor pulling and selling the tractor at the end of the 2022 season.
After the 2022 season, the Wild Star was displayed for sale. In November, a few months later, the tractor was sold to Anders Nilsson from Visby on the island of Gotland in Sweden. Anders wasn't active in the pulling sport or had owned his own pulling tractor before. He only followed the sport before he purchased the Wild Star from Luxembourg. But his son Filip Nilsson has been active in the pulling sport for a couple of years now. He is a team member and co-founder of the ASA Pulling Team from Visbyslätt, in Sweden. He also drove the Massey Ferguson 4.5t farm stock/super sport tractor called ''Narfe'' of his teammate Erik Franzen in the past. The new owner, Anders Nilsson from Sweden, has planned to compete with the old Wild Star tractor in the Swedish Championship in 2023.
We wish Jos Becker and the Wild Star Pulling Team a happy retirement, and we hope we meet them again sometime at a German pulling event as spectators in the future!
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