Jeff, I'm sorry - you're truck is the best! And certainly a great choice for everyone. Oh, and Jeff - there's no reason to read any more of this post, it's not for you.

We did a test this year comparing Light duty (150/1500) pickups to Heavy Duty (250/2500) trucks with Diesels. There's no question that Diesels motors are more efficient than gas motors, but since the big three force you to buy a HD truck to the get the Diesel, the added heft of those trucks eliminates any gas savings. (and yes the fuel itself even costs more) So if you can get by with the towing and load capacity of the Light Duty truck, you'd be crazy to get the Diesel. (and there isn't an open trailer/race car combo that couldn't get away with a 150 or 1500 truck)

This is the first time we ever did this, and unlike the EPA, we don't exempt the big trucks from our instrumented fuel economy tests.

As for Jeff's brake data - I personally instrumented and tested the stopping distance of a Ram 2500 Diesel. From 60mph it stopped in 176 ft in the dry, and 205 ft in the wet. I believe that's the worst we've recorded in at least 10 years. For comparison, a Toyota 4Runner does the same in 132ft dry, 146ft wet.