Featured Diesel-Powered Vehicle of the Week: Wade Moody's Rail Dragster

Duramax Diesel to the Max

For the past several Mondays we've been featuring various head-turning diesels to start our week. So far we've been highlighting vehicles highlighted by CarBuzz in a 2019 article titled Cool and Crazy Diesel Powered cars. Today the spotlight is on Wade Moody's rail dragster. 

If you have an eye-popping or heart-stopping diesel truck you'd like to see featured here, tell us about it so we can share it. 

Wade Moody who has created a lot of buzz indeed. By the time he was 32 he had been racing half his life. For sure, diesel engines seem to be part of his DNA. According to Diesel World, Moody turned to diesel drag racers in 2006 with a 4WD Cummins-powered Dodge Ram, competing in the Pro Street class. After winning a few championships at that level, he acquired an S-10 drag truck and moved into the Pro Stock class.

The truck had a powerful Duramax engine, which he fine tuned into another top dog racing machine. This truck powered him to championships in 2011, 2012 and 2013. A crash in 2014 put an end to this truck's reign as fastest diesel drag truck.

Despite this setback, Moody was fortunate in that the engine and Turbo 400 tranny survived. Once transferred into a new frame, he had the fastest Duramax-powered dragster in the known world. 

It was a three month build but fitting the Duramax into the rails proved to be a worthy ambition. By the end of 2015 the machine was doing test passes and the new configuration being readied for war. Even before it had all been worked out they were making passes of 7.02 seconds or 195.48 mph. None of these passes were under full power as they wanted to ensure things were tight. The were anticipating good things in 2016 and indeed achieved them.

With more refinement they became the first common rail diesel dragster to get down into the 6's with a first place win at the Midwest Truck Nationals. Time: 6.997 seconds @ 192.8 mph.

In July 2016 Brian Wagner of DragZine wrote a story about this achievement with additional details about the engine and the dragster. Wagner describes the ways in which Moody and his team squeezed out more power based on things they learned. Moody gave credit to his tuners John Jordan and Kroy Willis, "and all of the awesome products from the rest of our supporters that make it possible to go faster each season."

Check out this YouTube video in which Wade Moody talks about
all the details that went into this build.

The target they were aiming for was "Fastest Diesel in the World," a title owned by Jared Jones. His record pass of 225 mph a couple years earlier.  

Here are some links to the sources for this story and a pass on Moody's Facebook page.

Diesel World Story: The Fastest Duramax-Powered Dragster

Dragzine: Wade Moody First to the 6 Second Zone with Duramax Power

Wade Moody's Dragster Makes a Fast Pass on Facebook

CarBuzz: Cool and Crazy Diesel Powered Cars

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70-Year-Old Diesel Is A Thoroughbred at Pike's Peak Hill Climb

I heard about this last week and thought, "Cool." Now that I have more details, I realize it is a very cool story. The CarBuzz.com article by Sebastian Cenzo is titled 70-Year-Old Truck With 1,400-HP Just Broke A Pikes Peak Record. That's one hefty power plant.

When I was in school years ago I read a biography of Zebulon Pike, the explorer after whom Pike's Peak is named. When the U.S. bought the territory nicknamed The Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, Thomas Jefferson inaugurated several expeditions to the West, Southwest and Upper Midwest. Lewis & Clark's expedition across the Rockies to Oregon is probably most famous, but Zeb Pike's exploration of Colorado and the Southwest has left us with a piece of geography as famous as the Bonneville Salt Flats for race fans.

Like Bonneville, there's plenty of prestige associated with Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Minimizing weight is one key to success on this hill. That's not exactly easy to do with a 1400-horsepower Cummins diesel power plant. Nevertheless, "Old Smokey" showed that a 1949 Ford F1 doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else. Super-congrats to Scott Birdsall for showing the world what a diesel can do.

Cenzo's article goes provides details about Litespeed Racing's lightweight forged wheels and the compound turbo setup on the Cummins diesel. "When you can get up the legendary hill in just 11:24.065 for a new world record, you'd also be happy to sacrifice economy," Cenzo writes.

And then there's the black smoke. Or rather, the lack of it. This is a truck running biodiesel and it's up to 90 percent cleaner than traditional diesel, with little to no modifications for a modern diesel engine to run safely.

Here's a video from YouTube to give you an idea of what Scott Birdsall and Old Smokey as all about. Not the sharpest imagery, but you have full camera control, so you can look left, right, up and down. If you've never run Pike's Peak, this might be your best first look. Up, up and away.

Here's the full article by Sebasitian Cenzo:
https://carbuzz.com/news/70-year-old-truck-with-1400-hp-just-broke-a-pikes-peak-record