Back in 2001 diesel pickup trucks could not run on the drag strips or pull at the county fairs. The originator of a diesel race association was Eric McBride of the DHRA (Diesel Hot Rod Association 2001-2008) started it all at the Gaston Lions Club Park in Indiana. We have kept the event alive and running taking it over in 2009 until 2019 when Covid hit and they shut down the park.
While shut down the Lion's Club did major improvements to the park with new track, club house, lights, sound system and grandstands. They continue to make improvements every year so we came back this year to hold the event again.
Unfortunately Thunder in Muncie had plenty of thunder and storms with 80 mph winds and a 1.5 inch rain Friday night. This set us back a couple of hours on Saturday redoing the track removing the mud. The Lions Club did a great job of giving us a great track for dirt drags and sled pulling for the day! It took them about four hours to rework the dirt track but we got the event done.
The positive of the storms it replaced the 100+ degree days with 90% humidity with a cooler day of 80 degrees and 40 % humidity. It was a beautiful all day with lots of sun and many smiles from people with their trucks.
The truck show had some great entries with beautiful builds with a few gasser models thrown into the bunch. The Best of Show for trucks is a young man who brought this 2001 Ram to the show ten years ago with rust spots so big in it you could put your fists through them. He has now rebuilt this truck to a SEMA quality truck with custom engine rebuild from local Haisley Machine and E&M Fabrication which includes a $12,000 paint job. It is a beauty that anyone would be proud of in the show circuit. The Best of Show for the Car category went to a young man who bought a burned out Jeep and rebuilt from the ground up using a 4BT Cummins as the drive train with complete custom fabrication on the body, bumpers and interior.
Make sure to look through the photo links at some of these builds, some of the best I have seen in quite a few years including the Best Worktruck with custom fabrication for every tool you can imagine.
The dirt drags was sanctioned by KOi Dirt Drags which I have met this year. They supply the race tree with sensors for the track and times. They ran on a 230 ft track with plenty of shutdown in front of them. This was delayed about 2 hours because of the rain received the previous night because it took the crew that long to make the track suitable for today's activities. Any other group would have called it quits with big puddles of mud everywhere but the pros at the Lions Club Park made it work for us.
Run after run the trucks ran through elimination for over 3 hours ending with a the most powerful trucks taking the wins. As you can see from the photos the takeoff is where they accelerate the most for the wins. Lots of power in such a short distance, many reaching 60-70 mph!
Starting out with tractors helped the track with lots of weight and big tires plus they put on a good show. The King of the Hill tractors came from local pullers who go down the track going up to 15 mph! Followed by Hot Farm tractor class and a couple of large exhibition tractors.
The pull for the trucks started with pure stock trucks and progressed into Hot Street Trucks with high power pulling the sled. See if you can see in the link photos the puller who had his favorite dog riding in the passenger seat (everyone cheered for him)!
The local 2.6 smooth bore trucks and the 3.0 smooth bore trucks put on quite a show with some powerful pulls many running well past the 300 ft marker. These are the trucks who pull 2-3 times a week locally so most know what they are doing when it comes to pulling. I saw names that pulled at Thunder in Muncie well over 10 years ago but with different trucks. Even though this location is a small venue compared to a fairground or even larger national events, remember this is where it all started! This location holds many memories for this weekend's participants. Even some of my staff has posted photos where they attended this event in 2003 with family members age 2-3 and they are now in their 20s (one even helps us tech at events at 23 years old)!
The finale came from a local who travels the country in a school bus with a 3 jet engine rail #7500 MOD Tractor, Don has pulled with us before as far away as Florida and can put on quite a show.
Overall it was a fun event even though delayed by inclement weather and we saw many friends and competitors I have not seen in many years. This is kinda like running at the track in Indy and kissing the bricks but here it is running the track and kissing the mud! Since 2001 it felt good to be back home again!
Photo Link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=DIESELMotorsports.US&set=a.668765785284873
A huge thank you goes out to the Gaston Lions Club Park, without their efforts we could have not put on the event this year because of the weather. Another thank you to our ongoing sponsors, crew and competitors who put on a great show.
Winners listed below:
Dirt Drag Winners - Thunder in Muncie!
Work Stock Diesel
1st Justin G
2nd Cameron
3rd Glenn L
4th Gage E
5th Shelby S
Hot Street Diesel
1st Eli C
2nd Justin G
3rd Gage E
Modified Diesel
1st James Benefiel
2nd Eli C
3rd Justin K
4th Cole T
Street Gas
1st Danny D
2nd Sebastian S
3rd Luke R
4th Larry F
Hot Gas
1st Danny D
2nd Brandon M
2 Wheel Open
1st Danny D
2nd Larry F
Open Trucks
1st Luke R
2nd James H
Show-N-Shine
Truck Best of Show –Michael Asher – 2001 Ram 2500
Car Best of Show – Cameron Bain - Jeep Wrangler
Sled Pulling
Tractors
#7500 Mod Tractor – Don Deane
King of the Hill
1- Darren Coulter – 297.29
2- Eric Strater – 279.56
3- Adam Starkey – 267.20
4- Mark Brinkman – 261.45
5- Dan Hiatt – 258.32
6- Dean Cummfer – 257.58
7- Meggan Starkey – 204.80
Hot Farm
1 Darren Bommer – 340.85
2 Phil Wolber – 339.87
3 Joseph Bommer – 332.41
Trucks
Work Stock
1- Hunter Clark – 294.54
2- Cody Cox – 284.32
3- Shelby Sandlin – 282.63
4- Jake Klingler – 77.73
Hot Street
1- Carson Gresh – 321.01
2- Mason Wirght – 308.08
3- Issac Sandlin – 301.95
4- Bob Thornburg – 282.75
5- Evan Klink – 279.50
6- Justin Koehler – 273.91
7- Morgan Griffith – 236.29
8- Brayden Arnold - 80.0
2.6 SB Truck
1- Damon Winland – 337.49
2- Evan Rusk – 335.96
3- Megan Shew – 334.32
4- Michael Landis – 331.10
5-Tory Barter – 321.62
6-Luke Asher – 319.29
7-Spencer Erb – 267.39
3.0 SB Truck
1- Jimmy Barclay – 322.52
2- Nick Stamm – 319.23
3- Erik Hucke – 318.33
4-Brian Shew – 316.99
5-Derik Amos – 314.95
6-Gregg Temple – 312.23
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