Mini-Feature: Dirk Olsen’s F-650

When we were out at the 2016 Poker Run recently, it was a sight to see hundreds of boats and people gathered on the waters of Lake Havasu in Arizona. For being so fast on the water, you would think that these boats don’t weight that much. The fact of the matter is, they do. And hauling them around takes some of the largest diesels on the market to get them from the driveway to the dock.

One option is the Ford F-650, the medium-duty diesel hauler prepped and ready for duty with either a Caterpillar or Cummins motor. Dirk Olsen, an oil and gas man from Palisades, Colorado, was out at the event with his 2006 F-650, which he referred to as his “toy hauler.”

Olsen was at the Poker Run as part of the NRKA, or Needle River K-Boat Association hailing from Needles, California. We took the opportunity to speak with Olsen and learn about how he was feeling about the truck, the boat, and the good times to be had there at Lake Havasu.

“Oh yeah, this is all good fun,” he said. “It’s my fifth year now in racing, and it’s been a ton of fun. I used to do snowmobile racing and this is the closest thing to it, in my opinion. I’ve actually never been to the Poker Run until now, and it’s unbelievable how big it is.”

Asked about how he came to own the F-650, Olsen said: “I saw it sitting outside of Grand Junction, Colorado near an antique car museum. I kept driving by it, and it actually had some pink flames painted on it and its trailer. I can’t recall her name, but I walked into the car museum one day and I saw the owner and asked, ‘Is this rig for sale? She said, ‘No.’ I kept bugging her until she gave in and I wrote her a check and that was it. We’ve had it for about six years now and have taken it to California for Burly Races and the one in Parker as well. Whenever we aren’t using it, it stays in Needles.”

The truck is still as stock as it was the day he bought it, and Olsen plans to keep it that way. “We spend all the money on the toys out there,” he joked. And when he’s not out and about on a body of water, Olsen is still working away in his industry, but he has his mind set on retiring within a couple of years.

“We have a great team with great experience, we learn something new every day, and like I say, when you quit learning, you need to quit,” said Olsen. These words of wisdom stuck with us as we left Olsen with a free T-shirt in tow (many thanks, Dirk!). For the time, however, we were glad just to see another big rig truck doing its part so the rest of us could see some epic boats rip across the lake.