Rollin Coal in the news - small percentage of offenders!

Well now the rollin coal crowd has brought National attention to our sport! Gene and I have predicted this for years since it seems no one wanted to listen about the attention you were getting. It's like waving a red flag in a crowd and saying look at me I'm doing just the opposite of what you are asking us to do for the environment.

Six years ago NADM passed a "No Smoke" policy for the street trying to convince the few who do so that it would only draw attention and not highlight the true competitors in diesel performance. All of NADM's classes are trailered to the events for competition except a street class in drag racing and sled pulling, that's eight classes that are for unlicensed competition vehicles.

Some of the diesel performance items on domestic vehicles were developed by our original performance shops and picked up or copied by the big three auto makers. Just like the muscle cars of the 60/70s the performance out of those vehicles ended up on today's domestic cars.

BUT, there are always a few (1%) who wants to ruin it for everyone by pulling boneheaded stunts on the streets by smoking out a Civic with his windows down or smoking a crowd at a stop light and posting it on youtube.

It reminds me of the attention the muscle cars were getting by burning their tires at stop lights or holding illegal drags on the streets. This is considered more offensive because of the environment friendly atmosphere we live in today.

The diesel performance shops I know will not tune the lope tunes because it is considered poor tuning in the industry. You have to realize all of our diesel performance shops make money by doing maintenance on city/state diesel trucks such as plow trucks, dump trucks, and street cleaners. Not to mention the everyday family diesel that is used in construction, hauling and leisure.

Diesel trucks will not go away because of their valued use in towing and pulling, they still out perform gas trucks almost double the mileage and triple the torque when pulling.

If they go after competition vehicles for shows then they include a huge portion of our country's business such as NHRA, NASCAR, IHRA, NCMA, and may others that provide entertainment every weekend. In our small world of pulling it includes every small town sled pull that includes trucks and tractors. Those numbers are in the thousands across the Midwest during the summer, Missouri alone where I preside hold over 90 pulls from June to September.

So it only leaves a few kids who want to smoke off in front of their buddies or girls that is bringing the attention to our sport. We wanted to make it to mainstream but NOT in this manner. We wanted to legitimize DIESEL Motorsports by showing everyone how much $dollars can be made and are being circulated in the name of diesel performance.

I watch many of our competitors leave our events and do not see smoke coming out of their trucks, why? Because they have them tuned to get better mileage not heavy on the fuel which causes the smoke. My old 96 Dodge get 23 mpg on the highway and is a 3/4 ton, it has a few performance items on it but does not smoke.

Next time you see someone smoke on the streets tell them to stop it and get a better tune! Don't give the media something else to sensualize!

DIESEL Motorsports Mid-Year Report

Here we are at Mid-Year and people have been asking how is the diesel industry doing after last years EPA clamp-down?

After having a very successful Haisley Machine Thunder in Muncie I would say it has not effected the industry very much as far as fans, just as many competitors and even some new pulling trucks that were built over the winter.

I have talked to several diesel shops and they report being busier than ever with trucks lined up out side of their shops. This tells me that people are holding on to their older diesel trucks and not buying the new ones. Engine building is at it's highest right now for diesel blocks which is another indicator people are re-doing their older trucks and continue to use them for work and play.

What is hurting is some of the smaller .com businesses who relied on the bolt-on parts, many have failed to switch to engine performance parts to build more HP from the bottom up instead of bolting on to the outside. Face it though, the bolt-on parts eventually blew your engine up anyway!

You just can't bolt-on a part that increases your engine's HP to 800 when the OEM specs are for 400 HP - something is going to give and it was usually your engine, turbo, pump, etc.

So go back to what you were doing five years ago which was building stronger diesel engines and you will see sales coming in the door. The bolt-on parts are still essential in street trucks such as air intake, exhaust, lift pump, tuner, turbo and injectors. Just make sure your engine has strong internal components to handle the extra HP.

Manufacturers reported a brisk 1st quarter with a horrible May for sales which reflect in the National GDP for this last month, a 3% decrease which is the largest ever since the depression. That is why I have been pushing buy American made products in last month's Performance Business magazine and Engine Builder magazine. Be loyal to our manufacturers who hire the people who use your shop for repairs and maintenance.

As pickup truck owners keep their vehicles longer I think we will see more people switching to diesel because the engines last longer plus they are better at pulling trailers and loads. Even domestic autos have seen an increase of 39% for diesel autos since 2011, with more foreign diesels coming in along with the new Chevy diesel Cruze the numbers are only going to get larger.

Stick to business as usual, low overhead, heavy maintenance, upgrade and upgrade when possible, and buy/sell American products - steady work standards out weigh flash in any economy!

If you look at the pumps diesel is almost the same as gas, go figure since it takes less to refine diesel. People are more watchful of their dollars but they still don't mind paying for quality for their diesel trucks. 

I was encouraged by our last event and the next is showing an increase in interest already so I think the rest of the Summer will be okay when it comes to diesel trucks!