2008 Texas Dyno Showdown

For the past four years, the Central Texas Chapter of the Turbo Diesel Register (TDR) has been holding an annual dyno event. The past three years have been held at American Racing Technology (ART) and the event has gotten bigger and better every time. For last year's coverage, see "Smokin' in Buda", July '07. We knew it was going to be a big event this year when we had visits from the local sheriffs one day, and the fire department the next.

A New Kind of Dyno Day
As this year's event kicked off, it was quite apparent the changes that had been made since last year. The ART facility was twice the size and it had made some preparations for dealing with the soot. The ART staff had exhaust tubing built to handle the smoke coming off of the trucks and direct it outside. While it was great in theory, after about five trucks, the tubing was in multiple pieces and they ended up abandoning it and dealing with the smoke.

Another change this year was where the majority of the action was. This year's show was really outside in the parking lot and the dyno contest was just a small part of the action. There were a few people that never even made it into the facility to see any of the dyno runs taking place. They simply camped out by the cul-de-sac where the big action was happening.

Attendance seemed much higher than last year, but there were fewer participants in the dyno event (66 this year compared to more than 75 last year). The spectators were far more interested in the burnouts and the truck tug-of-war competitions. This year also brought with it more prize money for those who were there competing in the dyno event. Cash payouts were given to Cody Allen for being the closest to 350 hp, John Fox for being the closest to 500 hp, and Justin Farrell for being the closest to 650 hp. But as the day progressed, there was more and more talk about the big horsepower competition that was held on Sunday.

Big Power Sunday
Romario Salazar started Sunday off laying down 736 hp with his '06 Silver Mega Cab, but shortly after that Gary Ziats pulled his recently built 7,000rpm Dodge onto the rollers. On his second run, the Cummins laid down 727 hp just before the turbo's turbine wheel exploded and threw chunks into the ceiling. Twenty minutes later, pieces of ceiling and turbine wheel were still falling. The explosion was so loud, and there was so much smoke, that a neighboring business a couple blocks away called the fire department, concerned that something bad had happened and the building might be on fire.

After an extended break to let the smoke clear and pieces fall, Will Underwood pulled his truck onto the dyno. Underwood had recently dyno'd over 900 hp and was a crowd favorite. He ended up having issues loading the engine enough to spool his twin turbos and laid down 633 hp.