2006 Nor-Cal Diesel Rally

What do you get when a high-performance diesel shop and the National Hot Rod Diesel Association team up? A day filled with so much diesel power in the dirt and on the dragstrip that you forget it's 97 degrees in the shade. Joel Gooch and Harvey Grant, the men behind J & H Performance, designed their Nor-Cal Diesel Rally so it started with bracket racing, moved on to sled pulling, and finished with heads-up drag racing. Their plan went off without a hitch and finished on time (believe it or not) just as the blazing sun finally set behind the mountains to the west of the Redding Dragstrip.

One of the first quarter-mile runs of the day was the fastest-if you consider a 10.5-second pass in a 3/4-ton truck to be fast (and you should). Even with slippery track conditions, William Fletcher was able to push his '95 Dodge Ram on Hoosier slicks to more than 137 mph in just 1,320 feet. No one else could come close to that elapsed time, and the track conditions were sketchy, so Fletcher decided not to press his luck and called it a day.

The rules of bracket racing proved to be the great equalizer during the morning's dragging festivities. Mark Harris sped through an 11-second pass, but was knocked out of the NHRDA Pro 1 class competition because he creamed his dial-in time of 13.1 seconds. Paul Breedlove ended up winning that class with a 12.8-second run down the track.

It was a surprise to watch Pro 2 rookie Jeni Zaffram (wife of Diesel Power Challenge contestant Scott Zaffram) drive her nearly stock VW Golf TDI into the winner's circle. Jeni showed up at the track wearing shorts, so she had to borrow pants from a fireman to meet the dragstrip regulations. She may have felt silly wearing yellow trousers that belonged to someone else, but her dial-in time proved to be nearly perfect. Jeni worked her way through each bracket by using the giant head starts and crossing the finish line just clicks past her dial-in elapsed time. In the final round she crossed the finish line just 1/100th of a second past her target time. It was just about perfect, so she went home with a trophy, some cash, and 80 NHRDA points.

After a diesel drag race between the Matco and Snap-on tool trucks and a motorcycle stunt show, the sled powered onto the dirt and the trucks lined up. The hot and dry conditions sent dust flying in clouds that were attacked by blasts of black smoke from exhaust pipes as big as 6 inches. It wasn't long before the winner of the first Diesel Power Challenge, Nick D'Amico, set the bar by pushing his Chevy 2500HD with a new motor and turbo past the 300-foot mark. In fact, he went to 304 1/2 feet before he saw the red flag waving, and even then, he thought the official was stopping him because of a broken part. It was D'Amico's first-ever full pull, and he did it without nitrous and was using a motor with just 700 miles under its serpentine belt.

	Scott Vorhees caused an EPA...        read full caption Scott Vorhees caused an EPA alert as his "Big Bad Dodge" Ram smoked its way to first place in the NHRDA Super Modified class. The Ram uses a Pro-52 turbo that feeds into a Big Brother compressor along with a very healthy dose of water/methanol injection.	William Fletcher fought the...        read full caption William Fletcher fought the slick track and managed to complete the fastest run of the day. He took just 10.5 seconds to blast down the strip and finished at a speed of almost 138 mph.
	A father and son (both fans...        read full caption A father and son (both fans of Diesel Power) enjoyed looking at the trucks put on display by J & H Performance. Here they check out a clean twin turbo Dodge Ram with a giant wastegate and chrome intake.	Another J & H Performance...        read full caption Another J & H Performance truck on display was this '80 Chevy 3500 with a '93 Cummins engine under the hood. This daily driver has plenty of power-adding upgrades, including a modified turbo that makes 45 psi of boost, bigger injectors, and a Dynomite Diesel lift pump kit. The truck uses an NV4500 transmission with a Zoom clutch and an NP205 transfer case to send power to the wheels through the Lock-Right locking differentials in the Dana 70 rear axle and the Dana 60 front end. J & H Performance says the Cummins-to-Chevy swap will be available to the public.
These giant tool trucks battled...        read full caption These giant tool trucks battled each other to amuse the crowd. The Snap-on crew taunted the other team by dragging a Matco hat by a rope tied to the rear bumper, but the extra drag may have been their downfall. When the tire smoke cleared (umm...OK, there was no tire smoke) the Matco truck had won the race with a time of just 25.2 seconds.	Jeni Zaffram was driving one...        read full caption Jeni Zaffram was driving one of a handful of Volkswagens participating in the Nor-Cal Diesel Rally. These TDI cars did not venture below 15 seconds, but Zaffram proved an accurate dial-in time can lead to victory. She won the NHRDA Pro 2 class with a 17.77-second pass, just a fraction of a second slower than her 17.76-second dial-in time.
A motorcycle stunt show was...        read full caption A motorcycle stunt show was used to entertain the crowd in between events. One audience member was overheard asking, "Would you let your daughter date a boy who puts her on the back of a bike while doing wheelies like that?" The censored response we heard was "Heck no!"	Local repo man Gary Killian...        read full caption Local repo man Gary Killian brought his family to the Nor-Cal Diesel Rally in his '99 Super Duty with a custom 30-inch suspension lift over 49-inch Irok Super Swamper tires. Killian says the lift only took about two days of work and includes Bilstein shocks and custom Atlas leaf springs. A local sign painter sprayed the wild flames over the riveted metal theme that covers every inch of the truck's body. Along with some engine programming and fuel modifications, Killian has a single-stage nitrous kit with a remote control button mounted on the steering wheel.	Nick D'Amico made the only...        read full caption Nick D'Amico made the only full pull during the Nor-Cal Diesel Rally. His Diesel Power Challenge-winning Chevy 2500HD is now packing a rebuilt LB7 Duramax with an ATS Aurora 5000 turbo. He has ditched the nitrous system in favor of running on nothing but pure #2 Diesel-sure seems to work for him.