Truckmania Brings out the Diesels!
California’s Largest Truck Event
Oh boy, oh boy! It’s Truckmania time again! For yet another year, California was able to host its all-truck event at Sacramento Raceway, one of Northern California’s premier tracks. The premise of Truckmania is simple: if it has got a bed….you’re in. What you do with your truck while you are there is your choice, but there are a host of events to choose from. There’s an enormous show n’ shine, a drag race, a donut pit, a burnout contest, a tough truck competition, and a sled pull that wraps up late into the night. Yep and all in all that’s 6 awesome events to choose from. That’s part of why the crowd is so big!
First up was the Truckmania show n’ shine, which had trucks lined up at 6am to get into the gate. With California there’s always a mix of old and new, along with a fair amount of swaps. Most of the newer rides (and there were plenty) were limited on engine mods, but had plenty of suspension modifications, along with ginormous (in some cases) wheels and tires. The older rides were centered around Fords and Dodges (aren’t many 6.5 Chevy’s around anymore) but the squarebody and OBS contingent was high. As far as swaps there were a couple Duramax muscle cars, some Cummins transplants, and even a Ford or two. We see an unusual amount of 7.3L Power Stroke swaps at this event, along with of course the ever-popular Cummins-anythings.
As the cost of older diesels keeps rising, we’re seeing fewer and fewer trucks in events like the Tough Truck Challenge, or donut pit. The pit has a screaming crowd for sure, but it also has walls, and most rides risking whipping their whips around and riding a barrier are (ahem) pretty cheap. Lots of beat up gas trucks and clapped-out Mustangs. With the Truckmania Tough Trucks it was the same thing–other than the purpose-built race rides (V8 Rangers and such) that were haulin’ around the off-road rink. The Tough Truck event was also open to Can Ams, RZRs, and you can bet some diesel owners took full advantage of this extra event. There were quite a few tip-overs, but most were low-speed incidences, and nobody was hurt.
Despite their heft, the dragstrip has always been one area where diesels have shined, especially in the full-size truck category. There were the usual number of lightly-modified trucks in the 13s and 14s (they run a full quarter-mile at Sacramento) but we were also impressed at the number of coal-burners that dipped into the 12, 11, and 10-second category. In other parts of the country this is sort of Cummins territory, but we were impressed that a number of Duramax-powered GMCs and Chevys were able to run an impressive number.
Now, about the Truckmania Burnout Contest. We’ve seen this type of stuff before, and often it has a lackluster amount of entrants who are OK with doing parking lot standees, but afraid to burn some rubber in front of a crowd. Believe us when we say with $1500 up for grabs, and a whole lot of gas and diesel trucks on spare tires in the staging lanes, we knew it was going to be wild. In perhaps the best burnout competition ever, there was a full two-minutes available for participants to let loose, and you’d better blow your tires. There was also a “showmanship” category, where literally anything went. We saw huge flags, steering wheels being disconnected and thrown out the window, and plenty of cowboy hats waving above the smoke. It was insane.
Tired yet?? Shoot we were beat by the heat, but we still had what many considered the main Truckmania event coming up–the sled pull. This wasn’t a small-town sled pull either, we saw some flip-body Super Stock trucks, and plenty of serious, dedicated hardware from Work Stock on up. Of course a number of street trucks got in on the action just for fun, and some of them did surprisingly well.
One of the unique features of the Sacramento pulling track is that it’s on a short oval course with a floating finish. It’s a rare occasion, but just sometimes one of the pullers will get out past 300 feet far enough that they’ll have to swing the truck around the corner like a Sprint Car, pitching the sled sideways at speed. It may not sound super professional, but let me tell you, nothing gets the crowd going like a 40,000-pound sled getting slung sideways. While there were a number of trucks in contention for the feat, in the end it was the high-strung “Gettin’ Lit” truck that did the job, dang near pulling it into the pits with a 35X-foot effort.
The Truckmania sled pulls went well into the night, which made the action nearly a 12-hour event, from 10am to 10pm. If you’re thinking of coming next year (and we’d recommend it) bring plenty of water and think about camping on Friday night (which the track was nice enough to allow). Yes, diesel action is still alive and well, even in California (no matter what you hear) and look on Sacramento’s Race Calendar for an earlier Truckmania, the Golden State Diesel Fest, which is currently planned for April 8th 2022.
