Thursday, October 16, 2025

Build your truck from the bottom up for competition - DIESEL Motorsports!

 This article is about building your truck the proper way for competition, same rules apply for gas vehicles for years! 

BUILD IT FROM THE BOTTOM UP!

What does that mean? 

When you add performance bolt-ons in order to increase Horsepower, it feels great out on the street! Every man's dream is having more power beneath you when driving! It's an addiction once you start by adding bigger injectors, turbo, air-intake and so on etc. 

Killer  vehicle for the street but when you take it to compete be it the dragstrip or pulling track there are rules for safety. Rules made in order to keep your vehicle from blowing up during competition. OEM parts are made for the vehicle's intended horsepower, when you add all the extras you have exceeded those specs for safe operation.

The standard for competition parts are the SFI Foundation which regulates all race parts and organizations such as NASCAR, Formula 1, NHRA and even DIESEL Motorsports. If you read our rule book online (free) you will find many references to SFI approved parts for our vehicles doing more than 12 sec in the 1/4 mile or 7.80 in the 1/8th mile. 

This past weekend we had a very fast truck that competed with our regular heads-up class. Great truck and driver as well, he was very proud of building a truck to 1400+ HP to compete. It blew up going down the track, produced a big fireball and totaled his drivetrain. He didn't notice or could tell so he didn't pull over and spread oil, fuel and antifreeze all down the track. It took the track crew 1.5 hours to clean it up and they said it was the worse they had seen in cleanup in their 27 years (parts scattered all down the track).



On clean up we found parts of the flexplate/flywheel on the track and it was OEM rated not the SFI spec required. It is hard to tech this because of it's location. The young man was lucky it chose to go forward when exploding and not back into the cab. There are many parts on the bottom end that need to be replaced when building for HP! Dampers are required after 4800 rpm, crankshafts, cams, Torque converters, headbolts are specified needing replacement as per SFI specs! In other words read the rules first before bringing your truck to compete or before you start building.





Gas competition vehicles found this out years ago when they started to blow up on the tracks, then they started building their engines and drivetrains from the bottom up in order to handle the extra power!

I don't want to discourage people from working on their trucks for performance but think about what you are building before it blows up! A lot less costly if you start from the bottom up. Many of our sponsors have those very parts in order to keep you safe and running while enjoying your truck.

From what I was told the young man had 72,000 miles on the truck and it ruined everything including the engine, transmission and the backend of the truck from fire. A hard lesson and I hope this young man the best on his rebuild.

Starting next year the trucks running heads-up will be required engine and transmission blankets by most tracks. It keeps the tracks from massive cleanups, the materials needed to cleanup a oil down is close to $2000! As many of you already know our trucks carry double the oil and fuel of most gas vehicles.



Something to think about when tearing down for the winter and rebuilding those trucks for competition! 



Tuesday, October 14, 2025

301 Street Car/Truck Race Benefit - 2025 Review!

 The 301 Street Race group from mid-Missouri put on a great BENEFIT event this past Sunday at the famous MO-KAN Dragway near Joplin MO! Over half of the money made at the event went to the local Children's fund for Christmas toys. All types of cars, trucks, diesels and rods went down the track for the entire day. The racing was delayed shortly by a diesel truck fire and blowup on the track which took them over an hour to clean up! I have another blog coming covering this incident and how to build race trucks.



It was a beautiful day on Sunday with sun and clear weather all day! MO-KAN knows how to treat racers and it was good racing clear into the evening hours. DIESEL Motorsports gave out many awards for the Car/Truck Show including the winners of the diesel truck classes.




The amount of family members who came this weekend showed me the entertainment value is still there! The MO-KAN track has great food and things to do for everyone. I saw from the registration that people came from the 4 state area to race one last time as many of the tracks are closing for the winter.

This race was a benefit put on by the 301 Street Race group and we want to thank all of the workers who provided the great day!

Photo Link:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...

301 Street Car/Truck Race Winners
Small Tire
1 – Austin Martin
2 – Richard Mahew
580 Index
1 – Don Howe
2 – Gary Watts
Diesel Truck Hds-Up
1 – Preston Hill
2 – Tim Morton
Jr Dragster
1 – Coltan Kootz
2 – Kelbie Newport
NA Small Block
1 – Jesse Hoog
2 – Scott Congrove
Mean Street
1 – Mike Sleeper
2 – Boo Kvamso
Truck
1 – Scott Congrove
2 – Jim Baker Jr
6.50 Index
1 - Dylan Dacus
2 - Allen Watts
ET Diesel
1 - Levi Shrable
2 – Vince Neiderhauser
ET Bracket
1 - Jim Kleine
2 - Kory Petty
NA Big Block
1 - Don Howe
2 - AJ Spiva
Big Tire
1 - Scott Congrove
2 - Wayne Forgey
Show-N-Shine
Best of Show – Amanda Stone
Best Truck – Dallas Belisle

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

DIESEL Power Plus Showdown 2025 Review - DIESEL Motorsports

DIESEL Motorsports wants to thank DIESEL Power Plus Showdown for inviting us to be a part of the Benefit Show for the #118 Foundation which funds county fire/rescue for Mid-Missouri! It was a beautiful day for the October 4th event which included Car/Truck/Semi Show-N-Shine along with evening sled pulling with tractors/trucks from Mstpa! The local crowd really showed up to support this benefit event which resembled a county fair and plenty of activities for the children.








The large crowd in the evening filled the grandstands along with the lawn seats plus the special arena truck spots. They got to see a fun show of pulling including a special dinner special and local fair food booths. There was plenty of things ofr the kids to do during the day including bounce house, bucking bronco, games, and a petting zoo with exotic animals.

The car/truck/semi show was first for this event and we saw quite a few polished up semis from local trucking companies, plus many different cars and trucks. It is always fun to talk with the builders to find out what they did to build their custom vehicles.

The #118 Foundation brought fire trucks from 6 different towns along with other emergency vehicles for the kids to look at and talk with the emergency works.

Winners listed below:
DIESEL Power Plus Showdown Winners 2025
Car/Truck/Semi Show
Best of Show Semi – Criss Cross Trucking – 1977 Peterbilt/Delta Dawn
Best of Show Truck – Hayden Dowell – 2020 Dodge Ram/Problem Child
Best of Show Car – Jamie Kost – 2015 Corvette/Sunrise Orange
Cars
Best Muscle Car – Daniel Wininger – 1998 Mustang
Best Import – Jordan Rissler – 1992 Mazda Miata
Best Jeep – Angela Karr – 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT
Best Mustang – Wes George – 2009 Mustang/2nd Chance
Best 4x4 – Wes George – 2004 Jeep TJ/Rollover
Best Motorcycle – Daniel Wininger – 2010 Honda Fury
Trucks
Best Vintage – Darrell Schultz – 1984 Dodge D100
Best Chevy – Kurt Howard – 1980 Chevy Luv
Best Lifted – Justin – 2011 Ford F250
Best Truck Engine – Mike Cumpton – Ford Tuff Pulling Truck
Best Street Truck – Jeremy Berry – 1999 Chevy K3500
Best Rat Rod Truck – Ralph Booth – 1986 Ford F350
Semis
Best Engine – Mitch Moore – 1998 Peterbilt 379 Cummins
Best Commercial Truck – Champion Towing – 2016 Peterbilt 579/Red Rock 2
Best Work Truck – Arlin Rissler – 2016 Peterbilt 389
Best Patriotic Truck – Glenn Porter – 2005 Peterbilt 378
Best Semi Appearance – Charly Idlewine – 2018 Peterbilt 389
Best Semi Hauler – Barry Lee Weaver – 2015 Peterbilt 389
Sled pulling
PSD - 2.6 ProStreet Diesel
Chris Moretine 1st Smokin' Goat Reloaded 312.22
Jeff Oermann 2nd Red Line Ram 310.61
Justin Newkirk 3rd Hicktown Hooker 308.74
Matt Brown 4th She Said No 307.97
Logan Burkey 5th Burkey Farms 304.25
Jonathan Hege 6th Shot In The Dark 301.28
Ben Johnson 7th Deception 156.6
Kevin Pipal 8th Side Piece 87.45
HS - Hot Stock
Mike Lefevre 1st Raised On Red 298.09
Jason Gudde 2nd Honeymoon Funds 297.79
William Rehkop 3rd Burnin Green 297.12
Dale Alwood 4th All Deere'd Up 296.31
Kaden Hudson 5th Twintrouble 291.3
Art Sims II 6th Full Rut 288.54
LLS - Light Limited SuperStock
Rob Koll 1st Rated R 317.39
Brad Summers 2nd Summer Storm 303.23
Zach Goeller 3rd Bullet Proof Not 302.53
Kyle Brockhaus 4th Bettin' On Red 298.78
Jerry Volkart 5th Hot Iron 269.86
Bruce Lange 6th The Sound of Freedom 264.73
LM - Light Modified
Daryl Kisker 1st Red Thunder 322.96
Scott Bracken 2nd The Outlaw 304.08
Danny Metcalf 3rd Plowboy Express 300.13
Jim Bracken 4th Outlaw Red 289.73
Craig Ogle 5th Anything Goes 285.87
Dawson Addington 6th The Joker 279.47
Tim Light 7th Tail Spin 237.13
LPF - Light ProField
Scott Burr 1st White Lightning 315.49
Jim Levy 2nd Modified Massey 305.18
Cody Goeller 3rd Fighting Cock 296.52
PF - ProField
Randy Lefevre 1st High on Red 318.62
Jason Gudde 2nd Disposable Pursuit 316.78
John Shorten 3rd Old School Binder 316.06
Dallas Swisher 4th Smokin' Swishers 315.84
Connor Jaegers 5th Rooster 314.35
Rick Johnson 6th Show Me Deere 314.2
Art Sims 7th Osage Deere 288.42