As the Pennsylvania College Of Technology Diesel Performance Club’s Gio Barbarossa and TJ Buck rolled into the Maple Grove Raceway parking lot on Sept. 20, they already tasted victory.

In tow was the club’s 1959 Mack semi-truck, set to compete in the Big Rig / B1 class at the next day’s Keystone Truckin’ Nationals – an all-truck diesel-powered drag race and truck show. 

“We pretty much went into Maple Grove saying the moment we set foot on that track, we’ve already won,” Buck, the club’s vice president, said. “We didn’t care if the truck stalled and putted down the line.” 

It didn’t stall or “putt.” 

The Mack B-61, dubbed “Accelerated Learning,” won its first pass and six more until it finished the day No. 1 in its class (semi-trucks faster than 17.5 seconds) and set a personal best, traveling the quarter mile in 13.30 seconds at 106 mph. 

In the culminating “King of the Hill” event among the day’s five class winners, the truck finished second to last year’s winner, Dennis Harnish Jr. and his 2006 GMC Sierra pickup. 

It was the B-61’s second competition. It was Buck’s first behind the wheel. 

But it was not exactly an “overnight” success. 

“For our truck to pull in and park at the Maple Grove raceway has been a goal of the drag truck for over 25 years,” Barbarossa said. “As much as winning Maple Grove was a win because it was a national event, it was a win because of what it meant to be there as the Diesel Performance Club.”

The truck, which came to the college in the early 1970s to move heavy construction equipment, retired from that job and was donated to the club in 1998. 

Since then, hundreds of students have contributed, all with the support of diesel equipment technology instructor and club adviser Mark E. Sones. 

“The concept of the drag truck was to serve as a marketing tool for our diesel and heavy equipment programs at the Earth Science Center, putting our unique vehicle and the Penn College name in front of thousands of truck and equipment enthusiasts at each event,” Sones explained. 

In the same year the truck was donated, Brad R. Conklin began his first year as a student in the diesel technology: Mack emphasis major. Conklin, now an instructor of diesel equipment technology, was interviewed in a local TV news segment about the project in 2000. At the time, the club expected to see the truck competing on the drag strip the following year. “It puts motivation into you,” Conklin told the interviewer. Diesel equipment technology instructor Jeremy R. Bell, who graduated in 2008, is also among those who worked on the truck in his student days. 

Over the years, interest among students has varied, and for several years, Accelerated Learning sat dormant, until a group showcased the B-model at the Motorama Speed Show at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in 2018. In 2019, it won the event trophy for Top Race Vehicle. 

When Michael J. Sormilic, who came to campus as a first-year student in electric power generation technology: diesel emphasis in Fall 2019, learned about Sones’ dream to enter the truck in drag races, he took the notion and ran with it, re-engineering the vehicle’s electrical and electronics systems. 

“I must credit Mike, a young man with boundless ambition and technical skill, for the spark that lit the fire of enthusiasm to put the truck and our club where they are today,” Sones said. 

Jake Spinosa, who began his dual-degree studies in heavy construction equipment technology: operator and technician emphases in 2021, joined the effort to bring the truck back to life. 

Sormilic graduated in 2023, with an additional degree in building automation technology. But before he left, the truck made its first trip down a drag strip during a test-and-tune event about an hour from campus at Numidia Dragway. Sormilic drove. 

By then, Buck and Barbarossa were students and had joined the club. 

“I wasn’t even there for it, and it was still an awesome day,” Barbarossa said. “It was an untested piece of equipment, and it performed much better than expected.” 

“Mr. Sones had convinced himself that this truck was going to be a 17-second truck,” Buck said. “And it came out and did 15.35, which is slow in the world of drag racing, but for a semi-truck, especially one from the 1950s, it’s impressive. Ever since that day, interest spiked. We re-engineer and test it, re-engineer and test it.” 

“That’s where the name of the truck came from,” he added. “What you learn in lab – how does the gear ratio change the top speed or the total torque output of the vehicle – you can apply that to the drag truck to see how you can make it either go faster or accelerate quicker. The things you learn in class, you can apply to something practical, and it brings home some of the things you learned.” 

In fact, the rear gear ratio is one of the first changes the students made in improving their drag-strip performance. Buck and Spinosa spent an hour in front of a white board in an Earth Science Center classroom plugging variables into equations to calculate the truck’s optimal speed. 

“In our minds, it’s so heavy that it shouldn’t move that fast,” he said. 

They also did fuel calculations, exploring the energy of fuel and what they could do to the diesel fuel itself. 

“Diesel is already the most energy-dense fuel available,” Barbarossa said, even compared with jet fuel. “But people still try to put more into it.” 

For the Keystone Truckin’ Nationals, the team used only a basic additive to improve the fuel’s lubricity and stave off wear and tear. 

The group faced challenges in getting the truck’s 1998 software to “communicate” with the vehicle’s other electronics. 

“The software is challenging to work with,” said Barbarossa, who earned an associate degree in electric power generation technology: diesel emphasis in 2024 and is pursuing a bachelor’s in building automation technology. “It’s outdated and very proprietary. That in itself was a huge learning curve for us: finding out how to access the correct information.” With support from Bergey's Truck Centers’ Don Evans and Kevin Alderfer, the club worked through the communication challenges. On the performance side, they reached out to Antrim Diesel Services in Greencastle, which directed the club to Limitless Diesel Performance, which had the correct hardware and software to help with the off-road tune and find more power. 

“That was a lot of work: a chain of phone calls, asking favors of friends of friends, trying to find ancient information, almost,” Barbarossa said. “We’re working with old equipment, old technology in a modern world, and they are not compatible at all. We just do our best.” 

They do so in an application a big rig was not necessarily designed for. 

“They’re designed for pulling loads out of quarries or driving flat on the open highway all day: not accelerating from 0 to 100 in 13 seconds and stopping in the same amount of time,” Buck said. 

Throughout Fall 2023 and Spring 2024, the club continued testing, improving, and fixing each issue they found. 

“Our laptops have made many quarter-mile passes to acquire engine and transmission data,” Sones said. “Jake (who was next in line for the pilot’s seat) worked endless hours with Mike on improvements in vehicle reliability and safety.” 

Accelerated Learning was ready for its first competition. At Numidia’s East Coast Diesel event in June 2024, Spinosa pushed the truck to 14.16 seconds and 103 mph for a second-place finish. 

“That was the whole goal of the club: to go out and race, maybe win some money, support the club and advertise for the college,” Buck said. “And to learn from our mistakes and make improvements – accelerate our learning.” 

“After the June event, Jake Beatty (a 2022 graduate in metal fabrication and machine tool technology) and Jake Spinosa (who graduated in August 2024) spent the next six weeks of the summer working very late evenings and weekends after work and summer classes, as well as many weekends, updating the triple turbocharger system,” Sones said. “These upgrades to the engine compartment pushed the rear wheel horsepower over the 1,000 threshold.” 

That set the club up for Maple Grove and the Keystone Truckin’ Nationals. 

“What a day,” Barbarossa said. “The 60-plus students we had there, sponsors, family and friends from all around. There were a lot of people there supporting us. … Even when we weren’t racing, it was really cool to see the collaboration between alumni, freshmen, seniors. The atmosphere was indescribable.” 

By the end of the day, the club had even more supporters. 

Harnish, who bested Accelerated Learning in the finale to win “King of the Hill,” asked Buck to introduce him to the “Penn College family.” 

“He said it was awesome that we made it as far as we did. There are guys who’ve been racing for 30-plus years and have very expensive rigs, and we were running right with them,” Barbarossa recalled of the conversation. 

A few weeks later, after additional work by Barbarossa, Beatty and Buck to modify the turbochargers and oil-management system for improved reliability, Accelerated Learning again won its bracket and finished second overall at the October Truck Fest at Island Dragway in New Jersey. 

“It’s neat when you go to an event, and they remember you from prior events,” Buck said. “Everyone has a love for racing, and they like to see something unique do well. There’s a reason people don’t deviate from the path. When you do something different (like modernizing a 65-year-old truck), it shows what you can do if you don’t give up.” 

“In 30-plus years of traveling the nation to promote the college’s diesel technology major, the truck has been one of the most effective recruiting tools we’ve offered,” Sones said. Barbarossa has seen high schoolers who asked about the truck at Motorama and other events follow up with college tours. 

Many racers are pleased to see the young club members getting involved. 

“It’s hard to get people to come out and do something instead of sitting behind a screen all day,” Buck said. “When the veteran racers see we’re trying to keep the sport alive, you see a spark in their eye. It makes them happy to see everything they worked for when they were young is going to be continued after they’re gone.” 

That includes fellow competitors, like Craig Morris and John Sheppard, powertrain engineering mechanics for Volvo/Mack Powertrain in Hagerstown, Maryland, who have assembled one of the fastest trucks at major events, a 2007 Volvo VT800 that puts down quarter-mile passes in 12.30 seconds at 111 mph. 

“We often see them across from us on the starting line, but they are willing to offer advice on tires, pressures and suspension and are eager to introduce our students to the technology in their truck,” Sones said. “Another story of great fellowship is Al Fee, a competitor and the promoter of the Island Dragway event who has competed head-to-head with us and assisted us with a turbocharger issue. The competition is fierce, but we are always overcome with comradery at the racetrack.” 

More improvements are ahead for Accelerated Learning. 

“If anybody tells you a project is finished, they’re lying to you,” Buck said. “There are always improvements to do. There’s always more to do than just going faster.” 

The next step is replacing the engine control module and adding a data acquisition system (that project, which Buck said is completely custom work and “a hell of an undertaking for college students, let alone professionals,” has already begun), as well as preparing the club’s future leaders. They’ll have help with the ECM upgrade from Spinosa and Sormilic. And like those grads, Barbarossa and Buck plan to help after they graduate, Buck in May 2025 and Barbarossa in May 2026. 

“Just like the alumni, we have so much blood, sweat and tears into it, it’s like walking away from a kid,” Barbarossa said. 

They see the truck not only as a testament to club members’ persistence, but as a tribute to their adviser. 

“Mr. Sones is pretty much a father figure to TJ and me,” Barbarossa said. “He addresses himself as ‘Unkel’ Mark,” and he just will do anything and everything for you. If you have curiosity, he’ll cure it. If you want to learn, he’ll teach you. He loves to see the drive we have for the drag truck and the overall ambition and drive of the students in general.” 

The students describe a period when Sones taught at the Mack Powertrain facility in Hagerstown, and instead of a paycheck, he chose to bring home an engine for the B-61. (Sones points out that the vehicle is funded entirely by students’ efforts, fundraising, instructor contributions, and industry support. “We have not utilized college funding to support this project in any way, and this has been a long, expensive road for several of us,” he said.) 

“He saw the drag truck’s goal before we were even alive,” Barbarossa said. “Its ability to bring people together, its teaching capabilities, its marketing aspects. The truck is now commonly recognized at the drag strip, and the Penn College name leaves a strong impression on the black top.”