Bobby sustained a serious head injury, and like most people with head trauma, the jolt to the brain came with some pretty bad side effects. One that he experienced was an increase in anger, which inspired the name “Rage,” for his Dodge. It didn’t start out as a highly modified Megacab, either. There’s actually another story as to how Bobby purchased the pickup.

On the last day of December 2005, Bobby picked up a 1500 Megacab 4x4 with a Hemi. With plans for a second child in the works, Bobby and his wife decided the family needed a truck with more room than his current SRT-10 Quad Cab provided, so they went Mega. The SRT-10 was loaded with performance parts. He had also owned other high-performance vehicles, including a Viper, so speed wasn’t his main concern. A couple days later, an ’05 Cummins with an Edge programmer, injectors and other tweaks blew the doors off his new pickup. Within a week, the guy who had never considered owning a diesel was at his former employer calling in some favors. Two hours later, he was driving off the lot in an ’06 Inferno Red 2500. “We came to an agreement for them to take back the 1500 without me taking it in the shorts too bad,” says Bobby. “It pays to have friends in the car business.”

Immediately, Bobby had the bed sprayed by Jesse at Ultra Truck Works in Sacramento, Calif. Then came a 6-inch lift, custom wheels with 37s and a Superchips programmer. Bobby beat on the truck for a year until the transmission was fried. His friend Dusty, a tranny tech for Dodge, pulled the wasted automatic, rebuilt it while also adding an ATS Five Star converter, valve body, billet plate and billet input, output and intermediate shafts. Before it went back in, a deep pan from Mag-Hytec was also installed.

Having gotten a taste of the potential performance, Bobby put the new beefy transmission to good use by adding a larger Industrial Injection Phat Shaft 66 turbo with the wastegate set at 45 psi. A MBRP True Duals turbo-back system handles the exhaust. The manifold was taken off, mildly ported and polished. A set of Dynomite Diesel Performance 90-horse injectors were dropped in and an intake from AIRAID was installed.

The truck stayed that way until summer 2008 when Bobby decided to, “take what I considered a fairly stock-for-my-standards truck and turn it into an eye-catching show truck that was also capable of any real world duties including towing, off-roading, dragging or whatever I chose to use my truck for, including daily trips to the market and Home Depot.”

Bobby gave himself a 3 1/2-month timeframe for the build, planning to debut it at the 2008 SEMA Show. The first step was upgrading the suspension to something bigger and more heavy-duty. Because he wanted it to ride as nice on pavement as it could perform on the road, Bobby called Jeremy at Pure Performance/Rock Crawler in New York and was set up with its 8-inch Desert Race suspension that runs coilovers in the front and rear. The kit suspension system was ordered raw so everything could be powdercoated to match down the road. Jeremy also recommended custom-tuned King Racing coilovers built just for the Pure Performance kit and a set was put on order.

In the downtime while waiting for shocks and the suspension to arrive, Bobby sat down with James Dean of James Dean’s Rebel Design in Sacramento, Calif., an award-winning custom motorcycle painter/builder. They picked a powdercoat color called Black Vermillion Pearl for the Road Armor Bumpers, and used it to match the black painted on the truck. As for the design, both Bobby and James had a bit of a painter’s block until 3 a.m. on morning. Bobby was hit with the idea of calling the project “Rage.” With the concept decided, James went to work applying the paint, graphics and tailgate mural, all using House of Kolor paint.

SEMA was just over a month away when the truck came out of the booth, still with a lot of work to be done. The only tweak made to the stout setup under the hood was an Edge Juice with Attitude running a custom tune. From there, the truck was sent to Rod at Car Audio Innovations in Roseville, Calif., where the stereo was installed. Rod put a Kenwood DVD/Nav screen in the dash, along with Infinity Kappa component speakers in the doors and a pair of JL Audio 12W6 subwoofers in a custom enclosure. The entire system uses wiring from Audison and is powered by a single handbuilt 1,500-watt, five-channel Audison amp.

Audiovox helped out with an overhead monitor and headrest screens that are surrounded by custom three-tone leather seats made by Katzkin. DealerWorks in Rancho Cordova, Calif., was able to install the video system and leather interior in less than a day, a helpful turnaround considering the condensed time schedule.

The exterior was painted, but still needed some finishing touches, like the SRT-10 hood and Bushwacker fender flares. Bobby also made a call to RBP and had a one-piece stainless grille shipped out raw so it could be powdercoated. RBP also supplied 20-inch 94R wheels in black with chrome inserts. Bobby has run Toyo tires on all of his previous trucks, so the choice was simple: 40-inch Open Country MT tires. A Warn M12000 winch was put in the front Road Armor bumper and a Warn 9.5TI found a home in the rear Road Armor bumper before they were installed.

Less than two weeks left, and the lift arrived at Bobby’s shop. It was sent to Class A Powder Coat and picked up with five days left. WFO Concepts in Grass Valley, Calif., had never seen the Pure Performance suspension system before, but Beau at Trevor said they would get it done in time and they did. Only one day was left and Bobby spent the last 24 hours with his friends from Ultra Truck Works burning the midnight oil, getting everything they could finished before the deadline.

We met Bobby at the SEMA Show, and that’s where we photographed his truck. There were a few things he didn’t have time to install, which he is now running. The Ram now has a rack and light bar from ORU with PIAA RS800 lights, CFM Plus intake manifold and he’s getting heady to add ATS compound turbos along with ATS Subzero intercooler, dual CP3s, exhaust manifold and head studs. It’s all been a life-changing experience for Bobby.

“I love my Harleys and my fast cars, but diesels have become my new love. Reading more into diesels, and always having a love for anything customized or automotive, I decided to venture into starting my own company,” says Bobby. “At the end of 2007, I started building Diesel Performance Group. Right now it’s a small-performance shop that mainly deals with building customized trucks, mainly diesels and general parts and accessories for trucks and SUVs. But we will soon be expanding our business to online and offering a full store and catalog with parts and accessories for most diesel and light truck and SUV applications.”