The Drag Racing Fanatic

October 2021 Feature Seth Harper

This article originally appeared in our August 2021 issue.

Almost every diesel enthusiast can pinpoint what got them to become the modified diesel pickup owner they are today. Rarely does someone wake up one day and decide, ‘Hey, I want to pump thousands and thousands of dollars into my truck.’ More likely, it’s a passion bred from a young age. For 47-year-old Jake DeBruler from Leslie, Mich., it started with go-karting as a kid.

While Jake didn’t end up competing for wins in the Monaco Grand Prix like seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, he hasn’t lost his racing spirit. Every year his competitive family heads to Silver Lake Sand Dunes in Michigan with their eight or nine trucks for some sunshine, relaxation and yes, truck races up the dunes.

“We all get busy with our careers,” Jake said. “We all get busy with our jobs and our own families. We just don’t get a ton of time to spend together. It makes for a nice peaceful trip and doing what we all love to do. We all love building our trucks and running them because we’re all competitive. Drag racing each other or climbing the hills faster, whatever it may be.”

Jake says his 2014 Duramax holds its own in the races, pushing up the hills along with everyone else, but sand dune racing is just the tip of the iceberg for him. The real thrill comes from drag racing.

“I’m a drag racing fanatic,” he explained. “I really enjoy running my truck down different tracks and against different people, different competition, and obviously trying to beat the street cars that are a lot lighter and typically have more horsepower. The adrenaline rush is what I enjoy the most.”

His 8,000-pound 2014 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD has hit the 8.2-second mark on the eighth-mile and 13 seconds on the quarter-mile. It’s enough to give Jake the satisfaction of leaving street car drivers wide-eyed, wondering how in the world they just lost.

All Max’d Out

In 2014, Jake started taking notice of his boss’s Power Stroke at the sporting goods store he worked at. The work put into the build piqued his interest and convinced Jake to buy his first diesel, and the choice of which one was easy.

Jake’s dad worked and retired from GM so he was raised in that kind of atmosphere, plus the discount he received helped. Two of Jake’s nephews work as GM mechanics, truly making it a family affair and giving Jake all the help he would need on the build.

Modifications include a WC Fab high flow intake bundle kit, a Mishimoto radiator, intercooler and trans cooler, as well as Motor Ops tuning, an EDGE CTS2, Longhorn Fab shop traction bars and a DT750 Allison transmission with a Suncoast kit.

From Cognito Motorsports Jake got heavy-duty tie rods, a sway bar with end links and a stage four leveling kit. From PPE he has differential covers, upgraded oil and transmission pans to go along with FOX shocks.

The truck’s name came from Jake’s plans for the truck. When he eventually puts in Exergy 30 percent over injectors it will be maxed out, so people started calling it All Max’d Out.

A Pet Peeve

Any diesel owner living in a place like Michigan knows the damage salt can produce to a truck’s exterior. With loads of salt dumped on the streets to combat icy roads, it’s sure to mess up any new paint job applied in the summer months and can even damage the undercarriage of a vehicle. In fact, Jake says the salt has been his biggest challenge with the build.

“If you were to look at my truck you wouldn’t think it’s a Michigan truck,” Jake stated. “It’s not a truck where you think it comes from a salt environment. I take great pride in trying to keep up and get the rust off of it. That’s one of my pet peeves; I don’t like rust, but who does?”

It’s no small task for Jake to keep rust off All Max’d Out. During the winter months it involves constant car washes — which can get expensive. Each spring he cleans off any rust that does build up over the winter.

Jake starts by wire brushing the rust spots, followed by applying Hammered Brush-On Paint from Rust-Oleum. He’s tried lots of different paints and undercoatings and found Hammered works the best for him. The car washes, spring cleaning day and buffing it with two coats of wax a year is also a big money and time commitment but it keeps Jake out of the shop.

Theresa Kightlinger from My Body Shop Inc. in Stockbridge, Mich., says they always seem to have a vehicle in the shop that needs rust repair done and that the only way to fix it is by cutting out the affected metal and replacing it. It’s not cheap or quick.

“There is no real way to avoid it; however, you can slow it down by undercoating your vehicle as soon as you get it and try to keep the salt washed off it,” she said.

With All Max’d Out, Jake seems to have avoided what Theresa calls the unavoidable.

“My favorite thing about my truck is knowing that when I go somewhere, drive somewhere, stop somewhere,” Jake concluded, “I notice people looking at it. At the drag strip people come up to me and say, ‘You must store this in the winter cause there’s no rust on it,’ and I say, ‘No, it’s my daily driver.’”

Sources:

Allison Transmission

317-242-5000

www.allisontransmission.com

Cognito Motorsports

866-426-4648

www.cognitomotorsports.com

EDGE Products

888-360-3343

www.edgeproducts.com

Exergy Performance

616-551-4330