Matt Bankert, 34, has made a life on the farm of Denny and Neta Ilyes. Twin Pine Farm sits on about 2,000 acres in the county of York in South-Central Pennsylvania. Married with two children and with another on the way in February, Bankert's "been working here at the farm for 17 years. ... I eat, breathe and sleep this."
The Ilyes and company raise cattle and operate their own miniature grocery store for self-produced cuts of meat and sweet bologna the area's known for, and the farm's been in the family since the 1950s. "It's pretty much as close to farm-to-table as you can get," Bankert said. His part of the operation is responsible for grain, corn, soybeans and wheat, storing and hauling it too, all through the winter and summer.
That's where Bankert and company's beautiful 1985 Kenworth K100 and 2023 Eby Generation hopper come into play. The rig was honored by Overdrive's Pride & Polish voters and participants with a big win in the Limited Mileage category in the finale presentation last month.
The truck works, for sure, but doesn't see anywhere near the miles of an over-the-road operation. Bankert estimates he's put around 80,000 on the truck, powered by a fully mechanical Cat, in the nine years he's worked it.
"We bought it in September of 2013," Bankert said, and "had it on the road the following February."
The truck had been in Maryland, south of the farm, and Bankert and company "basically pulled it out of the weeds," he said. It would start and run from the get-go, but it needed work. The previous owner told his buyers it'd been on the road a month before the sale, yet "the fifth wheel was dry as a bone." Bankert put some electrical work into it, restoring the wiring after a prior owner's patchwork re-wiring. He then worked the rig just as it was through the 2014 summer wheat harvest.
Then, the real work started. The K100 "was a little rough" on the interior, he said. "I pulled out the dash assemblies and tried to fix them. A truck of that age -- it gets a little brittle and cracked-up." He swapped some gauges with Teltek replacements, "which I really like. They're really nice gauges. I put an electric wiper conversion kit" in it to better sync the wipers, and he'd "love to find a tilt steering wheel for it yet."
