Dave 'Heavy D' Sparks

David Sparks also known as HeavyDSparks on YouTube, (born January 5, 1985), is an American actor. He is most known for his role on the reality TV show Diesel Brothers, which aired on Discovery Channel. He is from Salt Lake City and is the fourth child of his family. His father died when Dave was 21 years old. He is of German heritage. He began his tertiary education at Weber State University at age 21, where he studied welding, mechanics, and fabrication, he withdrew from school after having spent a semester, to kick off his own business. He brought on his friend David "Diesel Dave" Kiley and two others, to assist with equipment operations at his company. After posting several videos on YouTube, an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno was fixed and after the show, he was contacted by Discovery Channel for the commencement of the Diesel Brothers. The show is filmed mostly in Woods Cross, Utah, where his shop is located. Some episodes have also been filmed in Salt Lake City and Wendover, Utah. As an internet personality, his Youtube channel has over 4.1 million subscribers and over 900 million views. He has over 10 million followers and over 2 billion views across all social media platforms. During the course of filming Diesel Brothers, he has also worked with actor, Chuck Norris, amongst others. One of his most well known creations was the Mega Ram Runner, which he designed and created based on a Dodge Ram 3500 and had a Ford 4R100 transmission. The Mega Ram Runner was displayed at the 2014 SEMA Show. Kanye West sold Sparks his customized Ripsaw EV2, following West's relocation from Wyoming. He acquired the Fremont Island as a potential location for his show filming, customization and vehicular activities, Also on his show, he converted a Tesla Cybertruck to have snow tracks, amongst others. He has a world record monster truck jump in his personally branded monster truck, The BroDozer. Some of his other stunts are using a flamethrower to thaw a helicopter, driving multiple different vehicles long distances while tipped up on only 2 wheels, and an attempt at jumping a truck from plane; which was canceled due to safety concerns. He is known for his search and rescue resource, and for being able to solve challenging rescue situations with his expert team and specialized equipment. His third company called Diesel Power, is a lifestyle brand. and was involved in a collaboration with MLB Network for the Father's Day of 2017 where he built custom Polaris UTV's for an MLB promotion, as well as played in the 2017 MLB Celebrity Softball tournament.

He was hired by Nikola to design the Nikola Badger truck, of which they delved into an attempt at creating a Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Nikola canceled the Badger project in 2020 and Sparks purchased all of the rights to the Nikola Badger and Powersports programs which he announced via social media in February 2024. He also has mentioned his intention of bringing the Badger FCEV along with electric UTV's and Personal Watercraft to the market under a new brand, EMBR Motors. He participated in 2 episodes of motorsport event Monster Jam; in seasons 16 and 17, alongside Adam Anderson and Grave Digger.

He published the book The Diesel Brothers: A Truckin' Awesome Guide to Trucks and Life in 2017, alongside Diesel Dave. He hosts the annual Heavy Academy conference, where he lectures participants about business strategies and how to inculcate them into their ventures.

Charity and philanthropy He is well known for he and his team's fast response time to assist with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts by flying his rescue helicopter, as well as sending 6 fully loaded semi trucks with various rescue equipment to Houston in August 2018. He helped provide resources and his helicopter in the search for the corpse of teenager Dylan Rounds. He also helped stranded snow victims in California, and additionally rallied others to help. In 2022, he helped the family of late pilot Wayne Wirt extract the remains of the latter's body, as well as the wreckage of his ill-fated airplane the Mount Jefferson Wilderness, after the family had taken to the internet solicit for help due to the high cost of a professional extraction. He does an annual toy drive to gather toys for families in need each Christmas. He also helped a family with broken down truck who were harassed out of their camping space with a makeover. In February 2022, he posted, via his YouTube channel, four videos filmed over 11 days documenting an excavation of a 225-foot (69 m) deep mineshaft within the vicinity of the area husband of disappearance victim Susan Powell claimed to have gone camping the night his wife disappeared. Upon having the remains forensically analyzed, it was concluded that the bones were unlikely to be human.

He is outspoken in his support for Latin American culture and immigrants.

Filmography

Monster Jam Season 16

Season 17

Diesel Brothers Season 1 (2016)

Season 2 (2017)

Season 3 (2017)

Season 4 (2018)

Season 5 (2019)

Season 6 (2019)

Season 7 (2020)

Personal life Ashley Sparks filed for divorce from 'Diesel Brothers' star Heavy D in Utah on March 10, 2026, five months after his arrest over $851,000 in unpaid Clean Air Act fines. He resides in Utah. He also traveled to Brazil for missionary work. In his ruling, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah Robert J. Shelby found that they had violated the Clean Air Act on hundreds of occasions, in addition to violating an earlier injunction from 2018. However, they would be fined less than the maximum possible, with Judge Shelby recognizing various mitigating factors.

On 8 March 2021, Sparks and Stuart were ordered to pay $928,602 in legal fees to Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, on top of the $848,000 which they owed in fines to the U.S. Treasury and Davis County from previous penalty rulings over Clean Air Act-related pollution violations.

Show cause orders which were issued by Judge Shelby also resulted in both Sparks and his 2021 lawsuit co-defendant, Stuart, On 7 October 2025, Sparks was arrested by federal marshals in Salt Lake County, Utah on multiple federal court order-related contempt charges which resulted from his failure to pay $843,602.23 which he still owed to the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment as a result of the 2021 lawsuit ruling. Following his arrest, Sparks was booked into the Salt Lake City's Salt Lake County jail.

On 15 October 2025, Sparks released a video on his YouTube channel titled "The Truth Behind Why I Was Thrown In Jail" where he states that he was wrongfully jailed.