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The NHRDA Season Begins In California With The Spring Nationals

The NHRDA Season Begins In California With The Spring Nationals

This year’s NHRDA season kicked off on the West Coast, at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, California. The Spring Diesel Nationals was spread over two days this year and included sled pulls, a show and shine, and dyno testing as well as a full day of drag racing. Perfect weather allowed for good track conditions and some great passes down the quarter-mile.

Most competitors arrived in Bakersfield from all over the country early Friday afternoon as the sled pulls started that evening. Drag racing and the rest of the festivities took place the following day. It was a great event this year and we can’t wait for next year. Who knows, we may actually have our own truck to race in 2016. DW

Russ Prescott’s “All Jacked Up” is a 1979 Ford with an International DT466 engine under the hood. The DT466 is not an engine we see regularly at these events so Russ’s truck was a fun one to watch run.
Les Szmidt from Silver Bullet Tuning brought his extremely hard-running 2.6-class, 970-rwhp Dodge to Bakersfield, where he won the Exhibition class with a 347.89-foot effort.
John Esteves brought his 1,000-hp 3.0-class “Smokin’ Max” to the pulls, where despite a slow start, he still cranked out a 324.54-foot effort—enough to earn him second place in the 3.0 class.
With massive burnouts and 11-second passes, Wayne Talkington’s Lucas Oil-sponsored semi is a crowd favorite, and moves down the track quicker and faster than 9,500 lbs. ought to.
Vintage tractor racing is huge in the central California valley farming communities. The Minneapolis Moline G1000, like the one seen here, was only manufactured for a few years in the late 1960s. OEM horsepower ratings were around 100 hp. We’re sure this one is packing more than that.
One of the nastiest turbo explosions we’ve ever seen came when Brown’s Diesel’s “Ace of Spades” Dodge hooked to the sled with three stages of nitrous. Even with a large external wastegate, the 76mm Garrett still popped, thanks to more than 1,100 hp worth of fuel, air and nitrous. Even after the turbo explosion, the truck had enough momentum to coast another 40 feet with the sled in tow, ending around the 220-foot mark.
Jefferson State Diesel brought out their above-ground dyno. It was, as expected, loaded all weekend.
The finals in Super Street had number one qualifier Daniel Pierce (near lane) against “Idaho” Rob Coddens in his “Max’d Out” truck. Although Rob’s compound-turbo Duramax had run nines earlier in the day, a traction-limited 10.40 was no match for Daniel’s Ram, which ran an astounding 9.22 at 152 mph to take the win. Although he was unable to back it up, 9.22 is faster than the current national record.

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The Show ’n’ Shine this year was mixed into the pits, so it was not what we expected it to be. But we still saw a ton of extremely nice rigs. One of the coolest had to be this 1950s school bus with a compound-turbo 12-valve Cummins under the hood.
We spotted Larry Stawn’s 1930 Ford (or “Fodge” as he likes to call it) in the parking lot before the day started. It’s extremely clean but isn’t what you’d think. It’s a late model Dodge chassis complete with 12-valve Cummins and a fully restored Ford mounted on top. Larry piloted his “Fodge” to a second place finish in the Super Diesel class with a 12.14-second pass at 106.93 mph.
The 6,000-lb Super Street class had some serious competition, and saw some of the fastest trucks at this year’s Bakersfield event. Here, Nick Zischka’s single-turbo, fuel-only Ram (far lane) knocks out a quick 10-second pass. This was no match for Truck Source Diesel’s Cummins-powered nitrous-assisted Ford, which clicked off high nines the entire day.
Mike of Dmax Store brought out his new toy, an LMM-powered GMC, to compete. It was one of the cleanest, most well built trucks we saw all weekend. Be careful if you see this truck on the road, it’s a sleeper!
Vendors such as PPE, Industrial Injection, ATS, XDP, BD, MBRP, Dmax Store, and many more were there to show off their goods.
Adam Aquino and his 2007 Cummins-powered Ram had a good day, taking first runner-up in the 10.90 bracket.
Here Bryce Jacobson pilot’s Industrial Injection’s 4×4 Duramax Chevy that was purposely built as a drag truck.
Bully Dog’s Ram came out to play in the 3.0 class. Driver Nick Adamson ended up taking the win with a 357.13-foot pull.

 

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