Dirty Hooker Diesel’s Triumph at the Ultimate Callout Challenge

The Incredible Story of Dirty Hooker Diesel’s Come-From-Behind Victory 

Photos by Dustin Korth

By the time this magazine hits your shelf, the dust will have settled, the pit tents will be torn down, and the teams from this year’s Ultimate Callout Challenge will long be past back to their day-to-day lives. For some, the event will have ended in complete heartbreak, an unfortunate story of events that they prepared for all year. And yet for others, the weekend will be something that they’ll share with their kids and grandkids for the next several decades. See, winning the Ultimate Callout Challenge is no small feat. It requires grit, dedication and quite literally a small village of supporting staff. From the guy in the seat hitting the loud pedal to the guys in the pits ensuring the truck is ready to go no matter the cost (or lack of sleep over the 3 day event), it takes a crew that is unapologetically obsessed with the sport.

Every year Ultimate Callout Challenge brings some incredible stories of dedication, teamwork, and community, and with that we thought it would be fitting to do a callback to one of the coolest stories to come from UCC in the last few years—the comeback kid story of Dirty Hooker Diesel’s incredible win in 2023. Over the next two part article we’re going to tell the story of how one team from a small town in Michigan overcame all odds, kept pushing, and ultimately came away with a well-deserved win. Article writer and photographer Dustin Korth was fortunate to not only be present at the event, but to follow the DHD team around all weekend and document the insane story that became the 2023 UCC win.

The weekend started just like any other Ultimate Callout Challenge. I made the 6-hour trek from Northeast Wisconsin to Brownsburg, Indiana mid-morning. The weather was beautiful—mid 70s and sunny with just a few clouds in the sky. As my LBZ Duramax hummed down the highway, I began to think about just how excited I was for the event. Ultimate Callout Challenge is arguably my favorite event of the year. The environment, the crowd, the horsepower, the whole event is just something incredible and I love every second of it. As I rolled into the event, I met with the DHD team and made some introductions. My LBZ was set to be a part of the DHD booth in the vendor alley of the event,

so we established what time I needed to be there tomorrow, and from there I spent some time around the team as they were unpacking for the big weekend. One thing that immediately stood out to me was how tight knit these guys were—ot only with their own team but with everyone around them. Team/business owner and chief of the whole operation Tony Burkhard could hardly take a trip into our out of the race trailer without someone stopping him, shaking his hand, and asking how he was doing. This being the first time I had met Tony, it became extremely clear to me that the man was not only well-known, but well-respected— a feeling that would continue to ring prevalent throughout the rest of the weekend. After a short while of unpacking the trailer and setting up the pit box, as well as a  massive white tent with a portable 4-post lift that they transport with them to every event, they rolled out the star of the show: The Last Minute Hooker. In case you haven’t seen it, Last Minute Hooker is the DHD Ultimate Callout Challenge flagship truck—a cat-eye Silverado with enough power to move a small house. I didn’t know it at the time, but this truck would become somewhat of an emotional attachment for me over the course of the weekend.

The highs and lows I would feel with this thing would be so extreme that at one point, I think I may have even teared up. It was a beautiful piece of machinery with enough character to write a book. White in color, the front fender was still burned and scarred from a mishap on the Dyno just a few years earlier. The stance was low and wide, and there was no doubt this thing was her to party as soon as it fired up. As they dollied the truck across the grounds pushed by a smart car fitted with a pushrod system, the feeling of this being an incredible weekend began to sink in. As the sun set, they wheeled the truck up to the staging lanes, the Indiana sky painting an incredible watercolor sunset. As Tony, his son Tyler, and fellow O.D.S.S. competitor Derek Rose sat on the pavement going over some setup information on a laptop, the feeling of reality hit me. I was here, I was with an incredible team, and unbeknownst to me at the time, I was in for a LONG weekend of trials, tribulations, and heart breaking success. It was real, it was raw, and it was time to go racing.

Stay tuned for next month’s issue as we find out how Day 1 of Ultimate Callout Challenge went for the DHD team. Experience our first hiccup of the weekend, and begin to understand that this weekend is going to be one for the history books.