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Outlaw Diesel Revenge

More Than 100 ODSS Racers Do Battle At Lucas Oil Raceway

Shortly after everyone rang in the New Year, Firepunk Diesel announced the merger of its Outlaw Diesel Revenge race—an early stop on the Outlaw Diesel Super Series schedule—with the Ultimate Callout Challenge. This meant that, for the first time, a full ODSS show would take place at legendary Lucas Oil Raceway—but it also meant that one of the biggest diesel events of 2021 was formulating. In theory, everyone knew that hosting an ODSS event at the same venue was going to liven up the Ultimate Callout Challenge. In reality, it proved an absolute blockbuster of a weekend. Not only was there very little downtime on the drag strip, but some of the best ODSS racing we’ve seen took place in Indianapolis on May 21 and 22.

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Things kicked off Friday morning with drag racing lessons from the pros. Firepunk Diesel and several other ODSS regulars offered advice, tips, and tutelage to novice drag racers to help them better their game. After that, ODSS test and tune commenced for the ET Bracket, 7.70 Index, and 6.70 Index classes, followed by the pro classes (5.90 Index, Pro Street, Pro Mod, and Pro Dragster) making an appearance in early afternoon. From there, the normal ODSS timeline unfolded, albeit with U.C.C. drag racing mixed in, followed by the infamous S&S Diesel Motorsport-funded grudge races in the evening. Saturday, it was an all ODSS show, with over 100 racers hitting the track.

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By the end of the weekend, ODSS racers had put on quite a show. Some 17 entries made 5.90 Index as entertaining as it’s ever been. A second dragster showed up to challenge Scheid Diesel’s iconic rail. Dirty Hooker Diesel’s Pro Street Duramax dug even deeper into the 5’s. It all came down to the wire in 7.70 Index. And there was plenty of carnage, too, including a windowed block, a truck catching on fire, and an engine failure taking one of the quickest trucks in the world out of contention. Saying Outlaw Diesel Revenge was jam-packed with action would be an understatement. We’ll do our best to recap the weekend’s events in the following pages.

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Since becoming the first (and only) diesel to ever break into the 3’s, team Firepunk has had a tough time making the Hot Shot’s Secret-sponsored Pro Mod happy with big tires back underneath it. Despite their struggles, the record-setting S10 turned in a 4.28 at 184 mph (their best trap speed yet) and a 4.22 at 182 mph later on. Firepunk would go out in the second round of eliminations against Brett Deutsch due to mechanical issues, but their trap speed looks promising and the gearing change they’ve made seems to have helped with big tires in the mix. Look for team Firepunk to get into the 3’s on big tires soon.
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In Pro Street, Michael Dalton and the RLC Motorsports’ fourth-gen looked solid all weekend. Dalton went 5.31 at 142 mph in Q1, 5.19 (a new personal best at the time) at 143 mph in Q2, and followed that with an even quicker 5.18 in Q3. Without a doubt, the chassis tweaks made over the winter, the swap to PRS shocks, and the change to Hoosier slicks are paying off. In the semifinals, Dalton would be edged out by a hard-charging Tyler Burkhard.
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Brian Gray’s quick-staging, nitrous-huffing Pro Mod 7.3L is always a violent ball of joy to watch. On his first pass, Gray went 4.74 at 149 mph, and trapped 150.62 mph a short while later. Although he was put out by Ben Shadday’s split window, Wagler-Cummins Corvette in the semifinals (by just .29 seconds!), Gray is looking forward to getting his OBS Ford back into the 1.09-second 60-foot range—as well as dip into the 4.60s.
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When you think about diesel drag racing as an organized sport, Scheid Diesel’s rail has been around for most of that time, which is perhaps what makes ODSS events so great. You get to watch this piece of diesel history blaze down the track. On Friday, the breakage gremlins forced the Scheid team to fix the rail’s Lenco in the pits, but owner Dan Scheid and fearless driver, Jared Jones, returned to put up a 4.15-second blast at 182 mph that night. They backed it up with 4.15, 4.17, and 4.22-second passes on Saturday, culminating with the all-important win in Pro Dragster.
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Who knew Hollyrock Customs had a twin-turbo Duramax rail! Seeing another vehicle signed up in Pro Dragster is always a welcomed sight, and this Spitzer chassis version looks like it means business. It’s owned by Hollrock’s Mike Graves and driven by his daughter, Mattison. During qualifying, the rail went a best of 4.54 at 154 mph—a nice, smooth pass that the father/daughter duo will no doubt build upon.
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Saying that Brett Deutsch had an eventful weekend wouldn’t do him any justice. On Friday, his Duramax-powered, Pro Mod ’69 C10 turned in a 4.84 at 149 mph effort, then destroyed a front passenger side tie-rod while launching on Saturday. Once fixed, Deutsch would hang around in Pro Mod and eventually steal the win from Ben Shadday in the final, who had mechanical troubles. But even though Deutsch took the W with a subtle 6.24-second pass, everyone knew the truck was set on kill in a race where he was pitted against a low-4-second car.
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You’ve probably seen this wheels-up square-body Chevy on Drag Week or 1320 video in the past. Like you, we were ecstatic to see it show up in Indy. Now packing a common-rail Cummins along with smallish compounds, it’s as eager as ever to yank the front wheels off the ground and get down the track in a hurry. The old Chevy went 6.48 on its first pass of the weekend.
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With Stainless Diesel’s record-holding Pro Street Dodge on hand, there was a feeling that driver Johnny Gilbert would meet Tyler Burkhard in a bottom-5, high-4-second heads-up final. In the first round of qualifying, Gilbert put up a 5.81 at 152 mph, then ran a 4.96 at 148 mph for a cheering crowd in Q2. On Saturday, Gilbert would make the quickest Pro Street pass of the weekend—a blistering 4.87 at 155 mph.
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Back in the Stainless Diesel pits, team nitrous ace, Stephen O’Neal, refilled the nitrous bottles in preparation for an attempt at 4.70s. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be as the engine began to check out following the next qualifying pass. With a known hurt cylinder but not necessarily knowing how serious the engine failure was about to become, Stainless brought the truck up to the line against Aaron Reynolds for the first round of eliminations. Luckily, a trans-brake issue led to them not being able to get down the track, which potentially saved a huge oil down from happening at high speed.
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As tight as the racing is in 5.90, very few would’ve guessed Brian Jelich’s 7.3L-powered F-350 would be the number 2 qualifier (5.91)—especially up against 16 other tough competitors. But that’s exactly what happened. Jelich fought a couple turbo issues but still managed to make it to the quarter finals before Rick Fletes and his Duramax Chevelle took him out of contention.
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Nathan Wheeler struggled to get a good qualifying pass on Day 1, and losing his torque converter at the 100-foot mark in Q2 certainly didn’t help matters. But after a transmission swap prior to Friday night’s grudge race, he was able to edge out Rick Fletes and lay claim to the belt and $1,000 put up by S&S Diesel Motorsport. The next day, Wheeler ran a new personal best, a 5.28 at 135 mph, in the fourth round of qualifying. He would make it to the second round of eliminations before Michael Dalton put him on the trailer.
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There is a reason 5.90 Index is considered a “pro” class in the Outlaw Diesel Super Series. It is arguably the most exciting class ODSS has to offer—and with 17 racers signed up in Indy we knew we were in for some great, close racing. One look at qualifying and eliminations and it’s amazing both how fast and how close the racing is in this category. Here, Cody Fisher’s 8-second, full weight silver Quad Cab goes up against Brett Marcum in a tightly-contested race. Fisher would go 5.91 at 125 mph to Marcum’s 5.88-second breakout.
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One of the lighter trucks in the 5.90 Index field is the ’02 Dodge belonging to Adam Foltz. Over the winter, he ditched the rear Dana 80 for a Moser 9-inch, and also removed 4-Lo from the transfer case. Combined with a few other weight-stripping measures, Foltz dropped another 450 pounds off of the truck—and it now tips the scales at 3,995 pounds with him in the driver seat. Foltz didn’t get the win, but he did earn the number 3 qualifier position and turned in three new personal best 60-foots on the weekend.
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Austin Denny and his compound turbo’d, 5.90 Index 6.0L Power Stroke made the call to Indy, but it was a rocky first day of action. During Friday night’s grudge race with Cody Fisher’s nasty, streetable, 8-second third-gen Dodge, Denny made his quickest trip ever to the 330-foot mark, but windowed the block a few feet later.
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The next day, we stopped by Austin Denny’s pits to find his 6.0L’s block cracked and a gaping hole where a rod had exited through the bed-plate section of the crankcase. Incredibly, Denny and his team spent the night swapping in the engine he ran a month prior at Rudy’s Spring Truck Jam. Unfortunately, once back out on the track, they deduced that the converter had been damaged when the engine let go the night before, as Denny was unable to get the chargers to spool. He would ultimately go out in the first round of eliminations.
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For the past several months, Stainless Diesel has quietly been piecing together a masterpiece of a Pro Mod. Enlisting the help of Wagler Competition Products, S&S Diesel Motorsport, and HammerTech Racecars, no corners have been cut in this beautiful build. We hope to see their new Cummins-powered Corvette debut by season’s end, or at the very least next season.
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As eliminations heated up in 5.90 Index. Rick Fletes’ wheels-up Chevelle faced off against Austin Doidge in the semifinals. Fletes would run a 5.919 to Doidge’s 5.907, but the race was won on the tree and Fletes moved on.
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This is what’s left of one of the atmosphere turbos that used to reside on the Royalty’s Climate Change Pro Mod Dakota. At Rudy’s, one of the truck’s air guillotines sucked closed causing an overspeed scenario and plenty of carnage. At Outlaw Diesel Revenge, they showed up with a shield on the cab’s rear window to protect the driver in the event it ever happens again, but also reworked the guillotines to keep them from failing in the same manner.
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Robert Berry’s rat-rod was in Indy mixing it up in the 5.90 Index class, and thanks to some recent changes it’s sending nearly 1,300 hp to the ground now. His ’45 Chevy is powered by a common-rail Cummins with compounds, and the back-halved truck weighs just 3,700 pounds with the ¾-ton Dodge front half still in the mix.
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Firepunk’s Josh Scruggs wasn’t racing, but his Pro Street Dodge was in the pits for all to see. Scurggs’ new setup boasts a massive, 5-inch single charger from Wimer Fuel Injection & Turbo, as well as a masterful header fabricated by Cody Fisher. Once a converter that can bring the big tractor turbo to life quickly in staging is in the mix, look for him to go even deeper into the 4’s.
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The battle of the camper shells! Don’t be mistaken though, these two crew cab GMC’s were anything but slouches. They were part of a 42-vehicle brigade competing in ET Bracket. Totals for all other racing categories were 23 for 7.70 Index, 19 in 6.70, the aforementioned 17 in 5.90, seven drivers making the call in both Pro Street and Pro Mod, and two rails in Pro Dragster.

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