In the past there were only two places that held Quebec style uphill, side by side, semi-truck drag racing.\u00a0 Now there is a third \u2013 Kuhnle Motorsports Park in Thompson, OH.\u00a0 In January 2022, Kuhnle Brothers of Newbury, OH bought Thompson Raceway Park.\u00a0 This raceway has been a dragstrip mecca in central and northern Ohio for over 65 years.\u00a0 Often referred to as simply \u201cThompson\u201d by many, my dad took me there a few times when I was little, but I hadn\u2019t been back there since.<\/p>ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder
Over the past six months, Kuhnle Brothers has invested a lot of money and time in the raceway, which is now called Kuhnle Motorsports Park. Investments in the track have been made to include new LED lighting, an increased pit area with lots of pavement, and a new uphill drag racing track. They are also building a truck pulling track, which should be ready this October (2023).<\/p>
Wanting Quebec style uphill, side by side, semi-truck drag racing events which included both loaded and bobtail classes, Kim Kuhnle scheduled their inaugural event, called Unc\u2019s Semi Stampede, on June 30 to July 2, 2023. The name \u201cUnc\u201d is in honor of Kim Taylor Kuhnle, known as \u201cUnc\u201d by family and friends. Obviously, the public wants more events like this because it was reported that over 6,000 people were in the stands to watch the races.<\/p>
The first day of the event (June 30) was practice day. Gates opened at 6:00 AM and practice runs started at 10:00 AM. The weather was ideal for the event, with temps in the low 80s, and partly sunny and hazy, mostly due to the smoke from nearby Canadian wildfires. This first day saw non-stop action which lasted all day. During this time, we were all learning who was who, and who to pay attention to when the racing began.<\/p>
All told, there were 74 entries that were from Canada, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri. The longest race entry came from San Antonio, TX, which was Rick Hernandez and his 2001 Pete 379. Roger Kral, a veteran driver at Kuhnle Brothers (who celebrated 50 years of driving with Kuhnle back in November 2021), took a few laps down the track, as did many of the other Kuhnle drivers. As the day ended, a bunch of Canadian entries showed up (they came together in one big group).<\/p>
On the second day of the event (July 1) racing started at 9:00 AM, and there was plenty of action throughout the day. Trucks also began rolling in for the truck show. Some trucks came from the local area, while others came all the way from Somerset, PA. Todd Gribble brought out his newly updated 2012 Peterbilt 389, Chad Walker brought out his 1985 Peterbilt 359 that was recently stretched, and Chad\u2019s cousin brought out his teal colored 1973 Peterbilt 359. NAST showed up with some trucks, along with the local ATHS chapter, and parked them in the staging lanes of the drag strip by the spectator entrance. The truck show area also had vendors and a variety of food options.<\/p>
Temperatures on Saturday were in the mid-80s, but later in the day the rain came. Racing slowed down a bit, but still continued. One thing that was great was the fact that there was a shuttle that took spectators from one end of the facility to the other. Murphy Tractor & Equipment supplied the tractors, and the Geauga County Fair provided the people hauling wagons. The guys that were driving the shuttles never stopped in the rain. They were still going, even though they were exposed to the rain on the old farm tractors they were using to pull the shuttles. But, regardless of the rain, they continued to shuttle people all day.<\/p>
On the last day of the event (July 2), the Final Eliminations were to be completed rain or shine. This was a rain or shine event. There was no rain policy, meaning the rain wasn\u2019t going to stop the event. It slowed it down a bit, but the event carried on. I talked to a family, and they were sitting in the bleachers when it was raining, and it didn\u2019t bother them one bit. These folks were truly some diehard semi-truck drag racing fans, no doubt! The event was completed on schedule, and the rain finally cleared out in the middle of the day.<\/p>
This is mostly a male dominated sport, but there were two women entered in this event. Tammy Zimmerman of Clinton Township, MI (a veteran driver for Kuhnle Bros.) was the first woman to compete in the Big Rig Challenge in Onaway, MI, and she was competing at this event, as well. Chanelle \u201cCha-Cha\u201d Beaudin-Cobb of Montreal, Canada, and her 2003 Peterbilt 379 was the other woman entered and competing at this event. It was cool to see the ladies give the guys a run for their money!<\/p>
With this first event now under their belts, Kuhnle immediately began planning their second event \u2013 which is being called \u201cUnc\u2019s Fall Brawl\u201d and will be held on October 6-8, 2023, again at Kuhnle Motorsports Park in Thompson, OH. They are claiming this event to be \u201cThe Ultimate Uphill Showdown,\u201d and said, \u201cWhen the smoke turns black, there is no turning back!\u201d For more details or to register for the next event, please visit www.kuhnlemotorsports.com<\/a>. And the racing winners for Unc\u2019s Semi Stampede 2023 were:<\/p> A CLASS (BOBTAIL): A CLASS (LOADED): B CLASS (BOBTAIL): B CLASS (LOADED): C CLASS (BOBTAIL): C CLASS (LOADED): MECHANICAL (BOBTAIL): MECHANICAL (LOADED): FREE FOR ALL (LOADED): In the past there were only two places that held Quebec style uphill, side by side, semi-truck drag racing.\u00a0 Now there is a third \u2013 Kuhnle Motorsports Park in Thompson, OH.\u00a0 In January 2022, Kuhnle Brothers of Newbury, OH bought Thompson Raceway Park.\u00a0 This raceway has been a dragstrip mecca in central and northern Ohio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":40679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-show-reports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40678,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40569\/revisions\/40678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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