PORT ANGELES — Eric Andersen admits that he picked himself an expensive hobby.

It’s an unusual one at that. Drag racing big rigs.

“I spend a lot of money on something useless. But, it’s fun,” he said. “You could buy a lot of food for what I’ve put into this thing.”

His interest has been expensive for the Port Angeles professional freight hauler, but it’s paid off with hardware on his shelves. On Aug. 5, Andersen brought back his second-straight first-place Lucas Oil Big Rig King of the Valley award at the Thunder Truck Drags in Woodburn, Ore., with his 1977 Kenworth rig.

He won this year with a speed of 77.78 miles an hour, a reaction time of 0.269 seconds and an elapsed time on the quarter-mile track of 15.867 seconds.

He decided to get involved in big rig drag racing several years ago when he saw a kid at Forks’ West End Thunder races driving a big rig. He thought it was cool, so he looked into it himself and bought an old Kenworth for just $1,200.

“Jeez, it was just horrible,” he said. Eight months later after a considerable amount of work and expenses to rebuild the engine, he had his racing rig.

The rig has an automatic transmission (Andersen said he has seen one driver at Woodburn driving a stick transmission in a big rig) and one of the biggest modifications is forcing more fuel into the engine to make the truck faster. Andersen can get his rig up to 88 mph.

Another modification he had to make was to add a bunch of weight to the back of the rig (with the weights coming off an old school bus) to make it more stable on the drag strip.

“It does really well. You’d be surprised at how well it handles. It’s all street legal,” he said.

He’s been going down to Oregon for the big rig drag races for seven years now. He said it’s been a steep learning curve for him to get the techniques of drag racing down.

Two years ago, he blew up the engine, breaking two rods. It might have been a blessing in disguise because after he rebuilt the engine, him and his rig are now both good enough to have won the Woodburn event two years in a row. Andersen said there’s a bit of luck involved, as some very good riders end up disqualified when they “red light” on the track.

“They’re really a good bunch of guys down there,” he said. “It’s a bunch of rednecks down there just trying to break stuff,” he said.

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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or plabossiere@peninsuladailynews.com.

Eric Andersen of Port Angeles races at Woodburn, Ore., on Aug. 5 during the Thunder Truck Drags. Andersen is in the rig on the right.