Diesel club's vintage Mack truck wins big again

Penn College’s Diesel Performance Club has captured another first-place win in drag race competition. The club's 1959 B-61 Mack drag truck, known as "Accelerated Learning," won top honors in the "Big Rig Auto" bracket at the recent October Truck Fest at Island Dragway in Great Meadows, New Jersey. That win qualified the truck for the "King of the Island" bracket race, where it finished in second place.

"With big prize money up for grabs, this event drew nearly 1,000 trucks from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania for show and drag racing competition," said Mark E. Sones, faculty adviser of the club and instructor of diesel equipment technology. "With the help of over 20 PCT students cutting their Fall Break short to serve as crew and support, we had another enormous success."

Sones says the "ol' Mack truck" and its student driver TJ Buck "fought their way through seven rounds of drag racing to, again, earn the class No. 1 position on the podium! This win qualified us for the 'King of the Island' bracket race between the winners of all classes, where TJ and crew carved through the competition to finish runner-up (second place) for another podium finish in the money."

Those wins mirrored the truck's last competition at the Keystone Truckin’ Nationals, held last month at Maple Grove Raceway in Berks County.

At the New Jersey event, "Accelerated Learning" automatically qualified for a third race, the “Heads-Up Fast-8,” as it was the third-fastest truck on the property that day. In that competition, the Penn College entry made it into the final four trucks before being eliminated. It was "an enormously full day of racing," Sones added, "and another amazing weekend of racing and promoting our diesel/ heavy equipment programs."

The vintage Mack truck's best time at Island Dragway was 13.39 seconds at 106 mph.

"None of this consistency comes without relentless dedication of late nights and weekends," Sones said. "Just days before the race, Jake Beatty, TJ Buck and Gio Barbarossa modified the turbochargers and oil management system to improve reliability. With the cold weather soon upon us, our season is over. For the next step of evolution for the truck, with the assistance of Jake Spinosa and Michael Sormilic, we are installing a complete real-time data acquisition system and electronic dashboard display in the 65-year-old truck to improve engine monitoring and driveline operation. No such thing as the 'off-season'"!

Beatty, Spinosa and Sormilic are alumni. Buck is enrolled in diesel technology and heavy construction equipment technology: technician emphasis. Barbarossa is a building automation engineering technology student and graduate of electric power generation technology: diesel emphasis. Barbarossa is president of the Diesel Performance Club, and Buck is vice president.

In addition to Sones, the club was accompanied at Island Dragway by Ken Bashista, a diesel laboratory technician, and Brad Conklin, instructor of diesel equipment technology.