Thanks to Chevrolet, our support truck for the first-ever Rainbow Road Trackcross West at Willow Springs in Southern California was a 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate.
Ed. Note: Chevrolet supported our events this year, and when I asked if they’d like to provide vehicles to help with the Willow Springs trackcross, they very kindly sent me a Corvette Z06 to use as a pace car. Every Chevrolet-badged truck and large SUV in the L.A. fleet was booked up during our dates, so they provided Jon this GMC Sierra that is mechanically identical to a Silverado 1500 High Country.
The 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate was equipped with the 3.0-liter Duramax inline-six diesel engine, producing 305 horsepower and 495 lb-ft of torque and is rated in crew cab, short bed form to tow up to 12,900 pounds. Being a Denali Ultimate added some extra niceties, including GM’s SuperCruise hands-free Level 2 driver assistance system.
Jon is a friend of mine who hosts trackcrosses and autocrosses by weekend, and spends his week days training government drivers for the Department of State at a super-cool and super-secret facility in Virginia. It’s a lot of skidpad time in Dodge Chargers and J-Turns in armored Suburbans, from what I gather.
After seven cramped hours on airplanes, I located this versatile truck three stories underground in a parking deck beside LAX and was immediately reminded of its heft. It is a full size half-ton truck and looks the part, especially the tall front end and massive grille. I opened the heavy door, the motorized side steps deployed, and I stepped up into the spacious cabin of brown leather and textured plastics galore. The seats were immediately comfortable and very adjustable. All the controls were easy to find and understand, the enormous touch screen was easy enough to figure out, and I was immediately able to connect to wireless Apple CarPlay for Spotify music and Waze navigation (although this truck did have native Google Maps which worked fine also).
I pressed the start button and the Duramax lit up immediately. Although you could immediately hear the gentle clacking of a diesel engine, it was plenty quiet and idled very smoothly. The monostable shifter took a little getting used to – D for drive is down and left a bit, otherwise it puts you in L for low gear. R for reverse is all the way up, but you don’t get it in P for park without pressing a button on top. Once I found forward gears I eased the truck out of the deck right next to a busy In-N-Out Burger and my adventure began.
On the bumpy streets of Los Angeles, this Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate displayed good ride quality – firm but not too firm. Its brakes provided a solid pedal feel and good stopping power in traffic. Speaking of power, the 3.0 Duramax had plenty of it. Well actually it was more “thrust” than power – just squeeze that pedal on the right and it’ll get you down the road expediently, with the smoothness of a jet turbine. While not the fastest truck available, I’m sure it has enough torque to pull any single car trailer you could ever need to use.
Meanwhile while unloaded on the busy freeways of LA, this truck worked well at any speed (or no speed). It was my first time using GM’s “SuperCruise” for hands-free driving and I found that to work pretty well while I napped at 75 miles per hour. [Ed. Note: Super Cruise won’t actually let you nap] Generally the high seating position, excellent visibility, and large mirrors meant no problems while we were busy spotting Tesla Cybertrucks everywhere.
Up on Angeles Crest Highway the handling was typical for a truck of this size – it understeered, but had adequate grip despite substantial body roll. While heading up to Newcomb’s Ranch for the Good Vibes Breakfast Club meet, I gave seven point-bys (mostly to various hot Porsches) and received one point-by (from an old VW). On the way back down I gave three point-bys (more hot Porsches) and didn’t receive any…
As a track support vehicle at Willow Springs, the diesel Sierra 1500 turned out to be exactly what we needed, and did all the worky things perfectly. It hauled cones and timing gear all over the Streets of Willow pavement for us to make four different trackcross layouts. It happily idled for hours at a time with four occupants in ice cold A/C while we worked mobile timing & scoring from various vantage points and never once did its temperature needle go above halfway, despite ambient temps reaching an indicated 106° outside. We brought a tow strap for pulling broken cars around but luckily never needed it, although I’m sure the truck was fine for that task also.
When I got back to LAX I realized we had put more than 500 miles on this machine with no hiccups and plenty of it was in heavy LA traffic or idling at the track. Overall fuel economy was around 18 miles per gallon, and that’s excellent! In fact it’s much better than the mileage would’ve been with my own track support truck at home – a 2021 Toyota Tundra SR5 with the trusty but thirsty 5.7-liter gas V8.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in this Sierra which is like a Leatherman tool, or an E36 M3 sedan – good at just about everything you want to use it for. The only downside I can see is the price – at roughly $75,000 to actually get one with all these bells and whistles, the better value for most of us may be a lower trim level. But it was very versatile and comfortable – now I can definitely see why GM sells a lot of Sierras and Silverados each year!
