Golden State Diesel Fest 2022 – Truck Event

Dynoing & Drag Racing at one of California’s Largest Events

There’s a reason we keep coming back to the Golden State, as Northern California has become an unusual hotbed of diesel performance. There’s a big show contingent too, as lifted, lowered, and swapped trucks are numerous and well-executed. The dyno, provided by the Northwest Dyno Circuit, was spinning all day, as tons of trucks hit the rollers. There was drag racing, with numerous trucks on hand making 7, 6, and even 5-second eighth-mile passes. A vendors row was also an attraction, as everything from clothes, to turbos, to transmissions were available for interested enthusiasts.

One fun aspect of covering an event year-to-year is seeing the emergence and changing of trends. This year, probably one of the biggest new influences we saw was that of 6.0L Performance. A number of extremely hot Fords hit the dyno and track, where they respectively put down some of the best numbers and times of any vehicle in competition.  Another trend we’re starting to see more and more are short-bed conversions–especially with regular cab pickups. We’re not sure if it’s weight or aesthetics that drives the trend, but we’ve concluded they do look pretty cool. Finally, we’ve seen older trucks, swaps, and pre-98 (pre-smog in California) trucks than ever before. We can’t say that’s a bad thing!

In the area of competition, the dyno and drags both saw multiple vehicles vying for the quickest time or highest power number. At the end of the day though, it pretty much came down to two on the dyno and two on the track. The dyno saw William Eaves wildly modified 6.0L Ford with three 0.125-inch solenoids worth of nitrous lay down the gauntlet early in the day with a crazy 1289-hp pull! With Kenny Bruner’s Cummins having issues, his only other major competitor was the dyno operator himself: Kody Pulliam! Often these guys don’t get enough credit for having their own highly modified vehicles, but Kody didn’t disappoint, with 1,030-hp on fuel, and a wild 1,517-hp on the bottle.

On the dragstrip, the duo that was battling it out was the unlikely combination of Rick Fletes and his Duramax-powered Chevelle, and the race-only 6.0L Ford drag truck (yes another 6.0) brought to California by KC Turbos. Both of these rides would be running in the 5.90 Index class, which if you ask us, is smokin’ for a diesel! Rick led the charge with a 5.91 on a 5.90 Index, but the KC Turbos truck proved it had plenty of juice with a 5.77-second pass! Both teams decided the overall crown would be won in a best 2 out of 3 race, and although the big Ford would win the final race, a broken nitrous controller took them out in the second race and Rick won the first, so in the end, it was Rick Fletes who was the 5.90 champ!

When attending events like these, the main question we always get is “was it fun?” To that, we have to answer heck yes it was! The crowd was awesome, with more than 5000. attendees and the dragstrip and dyno were both open to “fun runs” for those who didn’t want the stress of competing. The Roseville police department even showed up and raced their police cruisers–one of the only chances you’d get to legally outrun a cop. The event left us nothing but smiles, and we’re definitely looking forward to October when sled pulling will be added to the festivities. But for now, we sign off from the Golden State, and we’ll see you all in a few months for the next one!