The truck and tractor pull circuit, where these types of vehicles pull a heavy drag or sled along a track in front of a cheering audience, is probably an overlooked market when it comes to wraps. However one wrap specialist has managed to find quite the success in this field.
In fact, to borrow a famous TV commercial slogan from years ago, they’re not just a provider—they’re also a client.
Race Wrapz is a family-owned wrap business that’s made up of Mick Broughton, his wife Christine, and their son Byron Peterson.
The shop is housed in Armada, Michigan—literally. Their office space and printing/laminating equipment are set up in the back of their fairly large home while a 30-by-40-foot building where they apply the wraps is located out back. (Note: They will also travel out to customers to wrap their vehicles, if necessary.)
The Broughtons have been doing wraps full-time for three years now, after dabbling with this skill set on-and-off as a hobby for ten to fifteen years.
Mick Broughton actually started out his career participating in truck pulling. In fact, he was quite successful in this motorsport for several years.
However, at one point, Mick decided to take a break from that circuit to pursue life as a semi-professional fisherman. He approached a good friend of his, Jordan Yankee, owner of ArcticFX Graphics in Washington, Michigan, and asked about doing a boat wrap for him.
“They predominately do snowmobiles,” says Mick. “He told me that he didn’t have enough time at that moment to handle my request, so he invited me to work with him on it. That’s where I learned some of the ins and outs of the wrap industry.”
Three years ago, Mick and Christine decided to go all-in with their skills and open Race Wrapz.
The couple credit classes taught by Dan Nava of Travel Wraps Graphics/IBOW Training and Dallas Fowler and Matt Richart of Digital EFX Wraps with helping them learn what they were missing and take their wrapping skills to the next level.
Today Race Wrapz handles everything for their clients—design, print, lamination, and installation (typically with two persons handling the install portion). They also provide a full service on top of wraps, which includes paint, body work, and more.
One of the main reasons the Broughtons are attracted to the wrap industry is its start-to-finish process. “You’re taking something that’s really a blank canvas and bringing someone’s ideas to life,” says Mick, laughing that lamination is still his biggest enemy as it “seems to have a mind of its own.”
As you can infer from this family shop’s name, a lot of their work is in motorsports—truck and tractor pulling, drag racing, circle track racing, fishing boats, etc.
In fact, the family has been back involved in the truck and tractor pulling market since 2021, frequently participating on the National Tractor Pulling Association’s Grand National Pulling Circuit stretching from north and south of Iowa and eastward from there.
They even partnered with Nava on their pulling truck, a 1969 Dodge W-200 Power Wagon truck with a fiberglass body, deemed “Shock Treatment.”
So why “Shock Treatment” for the name? Well Mick had the only Dodge body competing on the circuit, so his dad said people would be “in shock” to see it. He said they’d give their fellow competitors the “treatment.”
“A lot of the vehicles in our sport are one-off fiberglass bodies,” says Mick. “Some people choose to paint them, and some people choose to wrap them with different schemes. With us owning a wrap shop and the changing sponsorships in this field each year, wrapping just makes perfect sense.”
The couple called in Nava to remotely help with the design process, and they knocked out this new graphic design on the first try using a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator.
The central character of the wrap is a balding mad scientist handling an orb generating electrifying colors.
Mick confirms this character is based partly off himself. “He has my big goatee. And if there’s one thing about owning a wrap company, you can pull your hair out if you’re a little bit older and not tech-savvy with computers,” he laughs. “It’s just part of the learning curve.”
Race Wrapz ended up using over 210 square feet of vinyl in total for the “Shock Treatment” full wrap.
The Broughtons printed the design portion onto Avery® MPI SuperCast 1105 film with DOL 6460 Premium High Gloss overlaminate using their Roland DG TrueVIS VG3-540.
“We’ll print and install a lot of the two-wheel drive fiberglass body vehicles as one piece but just panel the graphics if it’s a regular-style vehicle,” explains Mick.
They also seamlessly utilized new KPMF super high-gloss black vinyl onto the remainder of the truck not featuring the design elements (which includes the truck’s carbon fiber hood).
“The KPMF material goes on smooth,” says Mick, “and there’s zero orange peel texture. As long as you prep the surface as if you’re going to paint it, you can put it on there and wrap it. It looks like a company has painted it, sanded it, and buffed it. It’s just unbelievable.”
It took Race Wrapz two days to install the wrap, as they used wrap gloves and a lot of squeegees for this powerful project. “There are a lot of curves and intricate case on this truck, so we tried not to seam a lot,” says Mick.
After pulling events have ended, they avoid washing the truck. “We’ll blow it off before we put it back in the trailer,” says Mick. “We apply detail spray and wipe it down to keep it clean.”
In the truck and tractor pulling community, this bold truck transformation “broke the Internet” and earned raves.
The couple plans to update their “Shock Treatment” truck wrap every year, and they’re already working on next year’s design. “We think it will be one that will be talked about again!” says Mick excitedly.
With their confidently growing skill sets, it would be shocking if it does not.
Photos shown in this story provided by Ryan Roossinck, Built Diesel Mafia, JP Pulling Productions, and Christine Broughton.
