Monster Drag

The challenge In this semi final, those thrill seekers from Blackpool, The Big Dippers, meet Essex forklift fixers and fabricating fanatics, The Powerlifters, for one of the biggest builds in Scrapheap history. The challenge: to construct a super fast monster machine at least 5 metres long and weighing at least 5.5 tonnes. The Powerlifters Neil, Mark and Dave are true Scrapheap! These boys love their drag racing and hot rodding and are all forklift maintenance engineers in Essex. Bald, tattooed and pierced, Neil and Dave provide the main double act but gentle giant Mark doesn’t seem to mind playing the fall guy to the duo. Energetic and with a range of outside interests, The Powerlifters are hardworking, straight talking, great fun, and claim to be able to take on anything Scrapheap can throw at them! Team expert Steve Matthews returns to Scrapheap Challenge after providing expertise for Off Road Rescue in the last series. His team's machine famously broke in half, so we’ve invited him back for another try! Steve’s been building commercial recovery vehicles for the last 20 years – mostly out of scrap. He is a bus and heavy plant expert, but can turn his hand to anything. The Big Dippers The Big Dippers are Lancashire lads responsible for the maintenance of Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Dodgey (he loves car boot sales and ferreting in skips – should be at home on the heap then!), Steve and Brian (nicknamed Two-ey as he only has two front teeth) have been friends for years and have a wealth of experience. Dodgey comes from a family of mechanics, Steve is the electrics supervisor at the Pleasure Beach and Brian claims to be able to weld underwater. So as well as providing a constant level of cheeky banter, these guys are here for more than the ride! Team expert Andy Brookes owns his own haulage company and does all the servicing himself, so he knows every nut and bolt on a truck. He has just finished doing up a Ford Escort Mexico Mark I. The judge Mat Summerfield has had trucks in his blood for years and has been racing them since 1999. As well as building his own trucks to race, Mat's hobbies include restoring old vehicles.