TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa dentist Mike Foley pulls a lot more than just teeth, including his 2,000-pound car.
Foley loves showing off the power of his jaws, and you could say it all started with his favorite movie.
“The easiest thing to find in Florida is shark teeth,” said Foley. “So we’d go to the beach, we’d find 15, 20 shark teeth every time, and that’s pretty much what hooked me on teeth.”
After collecting thousands of shark teeth as a kid, Foley decided to move on to human teeth as an adult—not collecting, but cleaning, at Friendly Smiles Dental Care in Tampa.
“It was an easy transition, you know, it's funny, I end up talking to my patients about my shark tooth passion quite often,” said Foley.
He even made some shark dentures, which ended up in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
“I was always inspired by their weird oddities, so a lot of my collection revolves around what they have,” said Foley.
However, his latest hobby is the craziest yet: pulling his car with his teeth. He got the idea from an old acrobatic circus performance.
“They would bite on this leather bit and they would hang from their teeth and so it was called the Iron Jaw because you needed a strong jaw obviously to be able to support that,” said Foley.
So using his dental expertise, Foley decided to make his own Iron Jaw, but instead of hanging, he’s pulling.
He said the first time he tried pulling the car with his teeth in the back of his head, he realized it could jeopardize his entire career.
“Of course, of course, I don’t want to be a toothless dentist. I think that would be bad for business,” said Foley.
Foley isn’t concerned about breaking teeth as much as he is about breaking records. The Guinness World Record for pulling a car with your teeth is currently 100 feet in 17 seconds.
“Right now, the record is held by a Russian guy who is much bigger than me, and he looks tough. So if I’m going to beat the record, I’ve got my work cut out for me,” said Foley.
He said pulling the car 100 feet is not the problem; it’s the 17-second time. Right now, he can pull 100 feet in about 30 seconds.
While he still has work to do, he hopes to beat the record by the end of the year.
