Max Pippa pulls a 12,000-pound tow truck earlier this month during Lift for Hope Strongest Man competition at the Kansas Expocentre in Topeka.

Topeka ? Max Pippa sat alone in a metal folding chair in the R.R. Domer Livestock Arena. An energy drink and chalk powder were the only things around him.

Pippa, a 17-year-old Alton, Ill., competitor in the “Lift for Hope” – Topeka’s recent Strongest Man event – concentrated as he watched several other men of all shapes, sizes and ages take part in the dead lift for maximum-load portion of the event.

He had one thing on his mind: setting a new North American Strongman Inc. record in the teenage heavyweight division for the max dead lift. Despite having butterflies, Pippa strapped on a weight belt and got down to business. Before each heavy lift, he recited the Lord’s Prayer.

On his first attempt, Pippa lifted 550 pounds, blasting past the previous record of 525 pounds for competitors ages 13 to 19. On his second lift, Pippa lifted 600, and on his last attempt, he lifted 630 pounds.

Pippa, a senior at Alton High School, has been lifting weights and competing for two years.

“I got interested through magazines,” he said.

Pippa has played baseball and football and has wrestled in the past but said he wasn’t good at any of them.

“I guess I found a sport I’m good at,” Pippa said during a telephone interview. “I like it because it’s an oddball sport. I’m not a normal teenager. I would rather go pick up stones and tires than go drinking with my friends.”

Willie Wessels, president of North American Strongman Inc., attended the Topeka event and watched as Pippa set the record for a teenager.

“He’s definitely going to have a bright future,” Wessels said.

Wessels is impressed with the young competitor and said Pippa would probably be the second teenager to obtain a lightweight professional card.

“That’s very rare as a teenager,” Wessels said.

Pippa walked away with first place in the middleweight portion of the event.

Phil Stevens, who organized Topeka’s Strongest Man competition, said he also was impressed with Pippa.

The Topeka competition raised $2,161 for the American Cancer Society’s Camp Hope for children recovering from or battling cancer.

Twenty-two competitors from as far away as Wisconsin took part in the event, and more than 260 people watched.

“I think it went real well,” Stevens said. “We set a spectator record, too.”

It was a day of records. Sam Cox, a 19-year-old from Fort Riley, set a NAS record in the teenage lightweight division. He max dead-lifted 530 pounds.

“This was the first NAS record I set,” Cox said. “I tied another one in ’06.”

Unlike Pippa, Cox hadn’t set a goal of breaking a record. He just came to compete.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” Cox said.

Pippa and Cox each train three to four days in the gym, watch what they eat and stay away from steroids.

“I’m planning on doing this for the rest of my life,” Cox said. “I believe I’ve been given a gift, and if I don’t multiply it, it will be taken away.”