Diesel Drag Racing Beyond the Strip: The Drag-and-Drive Experience

A Look Back, and What’s Coming in 2026

When you think of drag racing in the diesel world, the thing that comes to mind for most people is the top-level trucks—the ones competing at the highest level in events such as Ultimate Callout Challenge. These are the trucks that are single-purpose and custom-built for the drag strip. These pickups have every modification known to man, and not a single detail is overlooked, even down to the tire pressure. For many diesel enthusiasts, those over-the-top builds are undeniably impressive and worthy of appreciation, but they can be challenging to connect with. Sitting behind the wheel of one of those rocket ships is something that many enthusiasts dream of, but for most, that is where it stays—a dream. Trucks built to compete at that level often don’t feel attainable, and if you’re like me, you can’t picture yourself dedicating the time, money, and lifestyle required to compete at that level.

So where is a middle ground where you can dip your toes in the water and have some fun with minimal risk but also give yourself room to grow if you want to pursue it deeper?

I introduce you to the world of drag and drives—in particular, the events put on by Sick the Mag. Shows such as Sick Week, Sick Summer, and Sick Michigan Miles are multi-day, multi-location events where the objective is to complete your runs down the drag strip, then in the same vehicle, travel to the next track location on a set route that is typically around 200 miles to prepare for racing on the following day. These events require your vehicle to have a balance between streetability and on-track performance as well as reliability. If you push your vehicle to the limits, then you risk not making it to the next track. Be too conservative and you will be less competitive. This helps to level the playing field and opens up the door to a broader spectrum of competitors, and to me, it screams “street trucks”—vehicles with mild to moderate upgrades that are still driven daily. With these events, you can take that truck, compete, and then turn around and drive it to work on Monday. If you enjoyed participating in the event and want to become more competitive, then at that point you can continue to modify your truck. This gives you the ability to grow in the sport and compete at the level you want—from that daily driver street truck all the way up to a competition drag truck.

Throughout 2025, we were able to watch the team at Wehrli Custom Fab prepare for and compete for the first time in the Sick drag and drive events with its new drag truck. It really piqued our curiosity. In the fall of 2024, Ryan Wehrli had the opportunity to buy a customer’s truck that was a pretty well-set-up drag truck—a regular cab 2001 Chevy 2500HD that had already been converted to a short bed. The LB7 Duramax power plant hosted a short block with upgraded pistons, rods, and a Callies crank. Up top, the engine was fueled by a set of Exergy 200% over injectors and dual fuelers with an old-school compound setup that was technically an S400 over S500 kit.

Before the team at Wehrli put it on the track, they wanted to freshen up the truck with a few goals in mind. They wanted to refresh the engine with new heads, a fuel system, and a turbo setup to showcase parts from their current product line that you can get right off the shelf, thus proving their capability and availability. Next was to lighten up the truck with a goal of a 500-pound weight reduction. They pursued this goal by converting the factory brakes and hubs to a lightweight aluminum hub and Wilwood brake setup, performing a front and rear coil spring swap, swapping the transmission crossmember to a lightweight Firepunk replacement, and exchanging the heavy OEM seats for racing seats. And the final step in the plan was to make this a good-looking and reliable truck so that they would be able to complete these events without worries of breakdowns. In good fashion, you can say that they went way above and beyond their initial “We’re going to run this truck as is this year” game plan, as many of us do when trying to be responsible while justifying new projects to ourselves.

The debut event for the team was Sick Summer 2025, which took place on a set of tracks across Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The plan was to tech at 10.0 for the event, but after completing two mid-10-second passes, they were approached by tech and told that they would have to dial the truck down to 11.5 seconds or add rear downbars to the cage on the truck. Accepting the challenge, driver Dustin West and his trusty co-pilot, Ryan Wehrli, drove the truck 1.5 hours back to their shop, pulled the back glass out of the truck, welded in a set of rear down bars, secured a sheet of tin to the rear window area, and headed back to the track to re-tech for the event before starting on their route to the next track. Talk about earning some respect points prior to backing it up by finishing in 1st place in the Diesel class and 3rd in the Sick Week Freaks class!

At the 2025 Sick Michigan Miles event, we were able to follow along on the journey as we watched our friend Dustin compete on day 3 at Northern Michigan Dragway and join in on a majority of the route drive across the northern part of the state. When talking to Dustin about his drag-and-drive experience and what he enjoys about it, he told us that he loves the ⅛-mile racing and the small-track atmosphere. That humble small town and friendly feeling at these tracks and the places that you drive through on the routes are also enjoyable parts of the experience. Dustin’s favorite track was Northern Michigan Dragway because of its “outlaw racetrack vibes.” This track is in the middle of nowhere, down a dirt road, and in the woods! Some of these tracks are a change of pace as compared to the bigger complexes. With Sick Michigan Miles especially, Dustin enjoys the drives along the routes the most. He has a fondness for the scenery in Michigan, as there’s no shortage of lakeside roads, woods, and small towns to pass through.

Getting a behind-the-scenes look at the event and hearing Dustin’s perspective was enough to convince us at Cold Front Diesel to join in on the action. We are currently transforming our 2003 LB7 shop truck to compete in this year’s Sick Michigan Miles. Also joining in is Jake Maher from Calibrated Power Solutions in his current (yes, you guessed it) LB7 Duramax build. While these events typically draw only 4-6 diesel trucks, I believe they have tremendous potential for growth, especially among the “street truck” owners who are looking for a new challenge.