1977 Keystone Raceway Park, New Alexandria, Pa.  on route 22 east of Pittsburgh.  Chuck Passmore, who was the founder of Diesel Injection of Pittsburgh, took me to my very first semi truck drag race.  After many years of street, drag, road course and hill climb racing of Corvettes, I was amazed at the speed of the class eight trucks and how well the owner-operators could shift the gears while smoking the tires coming off the line.  At that time I was not involved with Cummins engines.  However, I was in the management side of the trucking industry.  After speaking with the owner operators at the semi-truck drag race it was clear to me that these men loved performance and have raced drag cars, stock cars, motorcycles, boats and snowmobiles during various stages of their life. 

The Mike Gentile family of Pittsburgh, Pa, owners of a fleet of tri-axle dump trucks and Keystone Raceway Park, sponsored this annual event.  Because of the generosity of the Gentile family I knew that the diesel engine business that I was about to take over from Chuck Passmore was something I would enjoy for the rest of my life.

Twenty-three years later we have drag raced in the U.S., the island of Malta, road raced in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and pulled sleds at county fairs all over the eastern United States.  Do we love high performance diesel engines?  You bet we do and we receive a tremendous amount of pleasure by making you thrilled with the performance of your diesel engine. 

Now it’s our turn to sponsor the first semi-truck drag race in Salem Ohio on August 18, 2001.  Joe and Betty Jo Seamen of Missouri, an owner –operator and semi-truck drag racer, is the promoter of 14 truck drag races in the eastern United States.  The Seaman’s can be reached at 417-426-5918 for more information.  Along with Diesel Injection of Pittsburgh, the other sponsor will be Lucas oil.

Even if you choose not to race your truck please come and support the owner-operators that are racing and visit the booth of the sponsoring companies.  We will have performance Cummins engine parts available along with the Pittsburgh Power diesel engine computers for the N-14 Cummins and the 3406 E Caterpillar engines.  This computer will increase the horsepower by 175 over the stock engine.

Dodge Cummins Pickups:  This is the first time that we have written about this great truck in a class eight-truck magazine.  However, we have driven, owned and hot rodded the “B” 5.9 Cummins since its inception in 1989.  It was a joint effort between Diesel Injection of Pittsburgh and a few performance Cummins engineers that made possible all of the performance parts available for the “B” 5.9 engine. 

Whether it’s in a pickup truck, motor home, boat or industrial equipment, the engine lives very comfortable with an additional 80 to 100 horsepower.  The stock “B” engine in a Dodge has a base horsepower of 160 and now a top horsepower of 245.  The mechanical engines were 160 to 215 HP and with our engine enhancements for working pickups the horsepower would increase to 280 to 320 horsepower.  By the way, we have never had a “B” or “C” 8.3 liter engine fail when properly set up by our technicians.  For pickups that were toys not towing heavy trailers we are able to extract 400 HP from the 5.9 liter Cummins engine.

August 17^th and 18^th western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio were the place to be if you enjoy high performance diesel engines.

New Castle Pennsylvania farm show and semi truck pulls, total domination by the KTA, 1150 cubic inch Cummins engine.  Doc Snyder, of Snyder farms, took first place driving his KTA series Cummins Peterbilt called “Mr. Nasty”.  Aimee Lindsay was in second place also driving a “KTA” in a Peterbilt and Pat Riggle of Riggle trucking Apollo, PA. was in third place in a “KTA” powered Kenworth.

My very good friend, Jerry Hairhogger, came to pull for the first time in his 1973 extended hood double bunk KTA Kenworth.  Unfortunately his clutch would not hold the 1,200 horsepower produced by his KTA Cummins.  We hope to see Jerry back with a stronger clutch.  Jerry is the Godfather of high performance trucks in western Pennsylvania.

Saturday August 18^th, Quaker City raceway in Salem, OH. hosted its first time ever “Diesel Drags” which is promoted by Joe and Betty Jo Seaman of Missouri.  It was a beautiful day and 77 trucks came to drag race.  Smith transport of Roaring Springs, PA. stole the show with their highly modified 12V71 Detroit Diesel.  Jeff Musselman drove the Tornado I cab over for a best time of 13.54 seconds at 107.92 mph and Galen Hoover drove the Tornado II conventional Pete for the fastest time of 12.97 at 105.39 mph.  These two trucks ran side by side doing awesome burn outs filling the staging area with white tire smoke. 

My hat is off to Barry Smith for the show and display that he has put together for semi truck drag racing. 

CFI of Joplin Missouri was there with their T-2000 Kenworth powered by two Signature 600 Cummins engines.  Driver Mike Goucher ran for a time of 13.44 seconds at 107.92 mph.

Now on to the working class trucks.  Sonny Trapp took home the first place prize money with his 86 cab over Freightliner powered by a twin turbo NTC 475 Cummins engine that produces 900 plus horsepower.  Diesel Injection of Pittsburgh supplied the parts and Willie of Diesel Rite, Brooklyn Park, Maryland assembled the engine.  His time was 15.17 seconds 86-87 mph. 

Sonny has 16 tri-axle dumps and five tractors in his small fleet.  His trucks are extremely clean and neatly detailed.  Sonny’s daughter Jodi drives a 1999 Peterbilt tri-axle dump powered by an NTC 750HP. Cummins also from Diesel Injection of Pgh and Diesel Rite.  This truck was built from a glider kit.  Jodi stands 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds and doesn’t mind taking a day off from driving to get her nails done.  The Trapp family brought fifteen people to the track from Maryland to watch the races.  A true racing family.  If there were two words to describe Sonny Trapp it would be clean and consistent.  Second place went to Billy Prest of New Brighton, PA.  Billy drives an A model Kenworth with a 400 Cummins engine.  Billy is an avid weekend drag racer. 

Third place went to Bobby Springer of Aliquippa, PA.  Bobby’s truck is a 1976 Freightliner conventional powered by another NTC 1000 plus Cummins engine.  Diesel Injection of Pgh. supplies the parts and Bobby does the wrenching.  This truck is a sled puller and won first place in Butler, PA. the previous week.  Bobby Springer is a great competitor.  He owns five trucks and started wrenching on the trucks with his grandfather at age 6.  When Bobby hooks into the sled he tightens the chain, then slowly rolls his right foot to the floor.  The tachometer is buried past 3500 rpm.  When the engine starts to shutter from excessive rpm he slowly releases the clutch and he is on his way for one wild ride with the left front tire 12 inches in the air.  This man is a real crowd pleaser at the local western Pennsylvania truck pulls.

Joe Seaman owned a single axle 359 Pete with an NTC Cummins engine producing about 800 hp, 3:42 Rockwell rears and a 9 speed direct transmission.  Joe was very gracious and offered his Pete to me to race.  I have never drag raced a class eight truck, only Corvettes, so with a few lessons from Joe I made two time trial runs.  It’s been 30 years since I sat in front of a Christmas tree to watch the lights descend from yellow to green.  Holding the engine at 2500 rpm, slightly nervous, I eased out the clutch on the last yellow light with a reaction time of .860 I was on my way with the tack buried at 3500 rpm.  Starting out in sixth gear I pulled the shifter as fast as I could, (remembering the days of my Hurst shifter) into 7^th gear.  With that 3500-rpm shift I felt the old Pete leap a full truck length on the truck beside me.  My motor was mashed, the tach bouncing on 3500, turbo boost was in excess of 40 PSI, 480 pounds of fuel pressure, Liberator mufflers screaming.  My adrenaline was flowing as fast as the black smoke was rushing from the twin stacks.  I was high on life and turned a time of 17.90 at a speed of 78.53 mph.  I could not stop with just one run so Joe let me take a second run.  The 4300 IHC in the left lane was driven by a gentleman that doesn’t like to loose, but what he did not know was the rookie in Joe’s Pete has no room in his vocabulary for second place, only first.  Again when I pulled that shifter into seventh gear I knew I had my second victory.  With a time of 17.64 and a speed of 80.36 mph I was reluctant to give Joe back his truck.  I’m ready to build an “A” model Kenworth with a KTA Cummins engine for drag racing and sled pulling.