Power outages during summer are a fairly common occurrence, but at the August Blackout there were no shortages at all. Massive amounts of torque and horsepower were in abundance as hundreds of oil-burners gathered in Edmonton, Alberta, for an event hosted by NADP (North American Diesel Power). This company provides diesel and drivetrain upgrades for every domestic make of pickup, both north and south of our common border.
But Canada seems to be made for diesels. Especially Alberta, where the plains roll endlessly to the horizon and the tar sands hold more crude oil than Saudi Arabia. The huge size of those reserves is no exaggeration and helps to explain, in part, why Canadians are such big fans of diesel power. They rely on hard-working, dependable diesel trucks to get them to the oil fields and back in harsh weather, not to mention to aid in cultivating the enormous expanses of farmland. All of which helps to explain the sudden popularity of this diesel truck event, now in its second year.
Judging from NADP's performance machines that roared down the dragstrip, there's clearly a bias toward Cummins-powered Dodges. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it did throw down the gauntlet to Ford and Chevy owners, who gamely jumped into the fray.
At the end of the day, though, the winner of the Drag Wars was Mike Drever's champagne-colored '04 Ram 2500. An oil-driller by trade, he came all the way from Medicine Hat-about a six-hour drive-to show just how quick a street-driven Ram can be: 11.52 seconds at 118 mph in the quarter-mile, to be exact.