BACKGROUND

Age: Somewhere between 55 and 75 (no one’s completely sure)

Occupation: Backyard mechanic, small-engine whisperer, part-time chaos generator

Known For: Starting anything with an engine using a pull cord—even things that shouldn’t have one.

APPEARANCE

• Long, scraggly beard that permanently smells like gasoline and campfire smoke.

• Wears an oversized trucker cap that hides eyes squinted from decades of engine fumes.

• Always in a grease-stained tank top and old riding gloves with the fingers cut off.

• Rides a ridiculously small minibike that rattles like a toolbox in a dryer.

• Usually seen yanking a starter cord attached to something questionable.

PERSONALITY

• Stubbornly inventive: If it has moving parts, Pete believes it can be pull-started.

• Fearless in a reckless way: Safety manuals are, in his words, “suggestions written by cowards.”

• Surprisingly kind: Will fix a neighbor’s mower for free—then modify it so it does wheelies.

• Laughs like a two-stroke engine: loud, smoky, and slightly alarming.

CHILDHOOD

Pete grew up in a little hill town outside of Boxley, Arkansas where broken machines outnumbered working ones. His father ran a scrap yard, and Pete spent his childhood pulling apart lawnmowers, chainsaws, and old motorcycles just to see what made them tick.

At age 12, he discovered the magic of the recoil starter. The idea that you could yank a cord and bring a dead machine to life fascinated him. Soon he was attaching pull cords to everything:

• minibikes

• generators

• shopping carts with weed-trimmer motors

• an unfortunate washing machine

By his twenties, Pete had become a local legend. If an engine refused to start, people said:

“Call Pete. He’ll pull the soul back into it.”

But Pete’s biggest creation was the micro-bike he rides in the illustration—a ridiculous Frankenstein machine built from:

• a chainsaw engine

• a minibike frame

• scooter wheels

• and a pull-starter mounted on the handlebars

He calls it “The Resurrection.”

SIGNATURE MOVE

Pete’s trademark move is the rolling pull-start:

1. He coasts downhill.

2. Stands up on the pegs.

3. Yanks the starter rope like he’s trying to start a lawnmower possessed by demons.

4. The engine explodes to life in a cloud of smoke.

It works… about 60% of the time.

REPUTATION

Among mechanics and backyard engineers, Pete is both admired and feared.

People say:

• “If Pete fixed it, it’ll run forever… or explode gloriously.”

• “He can start anything.”

• “Just don’t ask what he did to make it work.”

FUN FACTS

• Claims he once pull-started a jet ski on dry land.

• Keeps a crate of spare starter cords because he snaps them constantly.

• Drinks cheap beer while tuning carburetors “by ear.”

• Insists electric vehicles are “just engines waiting for a rope.”