So I was in North Carolina over the weekend to announce at the NHRA Four Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway. I got to town a day early to hang out with Eric Yost of Drag Week and Big Gun Customs fame. He’s a total freak like the rest of us who is into small tire drag racing, stock car racing, trucks, and anything that burns fuel and makes noise. Listen, we cruised his flipping deuce and a half to lunch with a straight piped exhaust and tires that chew up Priuses and spit our Suburbans. During our action packed day we checked out his shop, visited an incredible metal working shop, went to the drag strip, and stopped by one of the neatest places I’ve ever been which was the Lohr family compound. What was so neat about it? The presence of a the actual truck family patriarch Ed Lohr raced in the 1980s Great American Truck Racing Series for one, a cab over with a hot rodded 700+ horsepower Cummins V8 that would rip huge burnouts in 7th gear, and a Diamond T promise we promise to keep you up to date on. The star of the show for me was the old race truck, which is the first of these beasts I have ever encountered in person. While the truck certainly was not a study in sexy tig welding or carbon fiber work, I was in love from the moment I saw it.

Ed Lohr raced this Corbitt truck in the Great American Truck Series during the heyday of the thing in the 1980s. Originally powered by the V8 Cummins that shoved me back in the seat power down the road in that cab over truck, it had the current inliner engine swapped into it during the 1980s while it was still being used as a competition truck. A straight 13-speed transmission was used to transfer the power from front to back and keep things honking down the track. Lohr’s son ryan was showing us the truck and telling us stories. There was a beautiful scrap book as well that we flipped through, showing the rig in all of its glory rolling on the high banks for an oval somewhere.

Ryan lit the engine off with the air starter and the big lump of iron sounded pretty mean and sure moved a lot of smoke! Apologies on the quality of the photos as I was blasting them with my cell phone, but the truck is really, really cool. This is a Corbitt, by the way. What’s that? Corbitt was a southern manufacturer of trucks that was in business from 1907-1952. This truck and frame actually date to the 1940s and there were several modifications done to make this a better candidate for racing. In some of the photos you may be able to see that there is a big aluminum “plank” that is sistered up to the factory frame rail (for strength we’re guessing) and secondly to get some camber in the front tires, the ends of the beam axle were cut off, steel plates with bolt holes were added to both pieces and then when bolted back together, washers could be used to space out the bottom of the plates so that when everything was tight there would be a wedge shape and that would force the bottom of the tire out, giving the truck some camber.

Of course there is the huge roll cage, which is basic, but very robust. The truck raced with the big aluminum fuel tank bolted right where it is in these photos which seems kind of crazy, but when you think about it, that is the best place. Ed is beginning the process to legalize the truck for road use in stuff like town parades and all.

We could ramble for hours but we wont. First, if you don’t know what the Great American Truck Racing series was, READ THIS. If you already know, check our these photos!