“I just try to maximize efficiency wherever I can.” That’s how owner-operator and Overdrive 2025 Trucker of the Year John Penn sums up JP Transport, his business hauling with authority.
He's extended oil drains and tire life, and pushed his fuel mileage above 10 mpg for a lifetime average with his 2019 Freightliner Cascadia in other ways, too -- by refusing to idle.
The Cascadia's fully dialed in with a spec that matches the needs of his operation, along with aerodynamic enhancements to both the truck and his Utility dry van. Penn walks through them in the video up top, captured last month at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, where Penn was officially honored as the 2025 Trucker of the Year.
Penn notes that it’s the “total package” of the engine, transmission, aero, and how the equipment is operated that yields maximum fuel mileage. His motto on speed is to drive “as slow as possible but as fast as necessary.”
In other words, he’ll run 55 when he can, but 75 if that’s what he has to do.
Owning an emissions truck, Penn knows how detrimental idling can be on those systems. The bunk's outfitted with a diesel-fired heater for cold winter nights. At times he's set up a room air conditioner with a generator when the heat gets to be too much. But more often, running out of his Orleans, Indiana, home base, Penn just avoids humid areas like the Southeast and instead does most of his work between South Texas and California.
Whenever possible, he parks at a customer where he can get a cross-breeze flowing through the sleeper’s screen windows instead of between two idling trucks, or trailers running reefers and putting off heat.
“You just deal with” the heat in the summertime, he said. “You just toughen up, [sacrificing] a little bit of comfort for my truck’s health. And then the next day, when my truck starts and it runs perfect, it was worth it burning up in the sleeper.”
Penn admitted it does get to be too much sometimes. “But 99% of the time, I don’t idle, and you can just deal with it,” he said.
Cutting through the air
Penn hasn’t added much in the way of aerodynamic equipment to the tractor.
The biggest piece there is the FlowBelow system over the drive tires with covers to fill gaps between tandems and between the rear axle and bumper.Photos and video by Lawson Rudisill
He removed the hood mirrors, more for personal preference than aerodynamics, and runs wide single tires -- 455/50R22.5s -- on the drive axles, which he’s had good success with over more than 200,000 miles now.
The Utility van trailer featured in the video he purchased in 2015. He put a nose cone on it early on when he ran a flattop truck, "basically like pulling a piece of plywood down the road all the time," he said. "It made a giant difference” back then.
More recently, he added a Transtex Edge Elite system to the trailer, which features side skirts, a “top kit” that reduces rear-end drag, and “flyswatter” mud flaps that Penn has further modified to keep out of the wind.
He moved the trailer’s license plate out of the wind, too, onto the bumper rather. “I’ve heard that can be up to a half gallon of fuel a day” in savings, he said.
His next planned upgrade: plating over the trailer’s crossmembers on the bottom side behind the trailer tandems. “It’s just an experiment,” he noted, but overall “you’re just chipping away a little bit. It won’t hurt it.”
Finally, installation of lift-axle kit on the trailer will help him save on tolls, brakes, tire wear and fuel altogether, he said.
See and hear plenty more detail about how Penn approaches aerodynamics and business in general in the video, and find more in his talk on the MATS show floor with Overnight Drive host Steve Sommers.
[Related: Top of the trucking heap: Owner-op John Penn, full interview from MATS show floor]
Overdrive's 2026 Trucker of the Year competition nominations are open for exceptional owner-operators, whether leased or independent (up to three trucks). Enter your own or another owner-operator business you admire via the links.
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John Penn: Well, I just checked this one. I think it's 216,000 miles I've tracked with this truck, and I'm 10.46 lifetime.
Hey, I'm John Penn, owner, JP transport, and I'm the 2025 Trucker of the Year for Overdrive. JP transport, based out of Orleans, Indiana. And I do multi-stop office furniture. Usually go to the southwest, South Texas, California.
How I do that is, one thing is speed. People ask me how fast you drive. I say as slow as possible but as fast as necessary. So there's no set speed. I'm not going to say I'm running 55 every day. I run 75 sometimes if I have to. And the other thing is just the total package. You've got the engine, the transmission and all the drive line. Everything works together. The aerodynamics on the truck, the aerodynamics on the trailer. And that's how you get to be in the 10s and better sometimes.
This is a 2019 Cascadia. It's my second Cascadia I've had. I had a '14. This is a '19. I had such good luck with my '14, That's why I wanted another one. So we just stepped up five years.
Lawson Rudisill: Tell me why you prefer the newer truck, even though it has the aftertreatment system and all the maintenance that comes along with that?
John Penn: Well, number one is the fuel mileage. Of course, I don't think an older truck cannot, doesn't even in the same league as a truck like this. And this is not a new truck by any means. This is a '19. It's built in '18. So the other thing is, is that you get things like lifetime U-joints like I never have to grease the drive line or anything like that.
Extended oil changes. That's another thing. You know, the extended oil drains and I also sample it. So I mean little, little things like that. Just an older truck cannot do that. And I think it is a lot of it's just the modern engine technology. And the emission systems have came a long, long way where you don't have the problems you did back in, say, 2004, 2005. They've worked the bugs out of these things and, you know, they're relatively trouble-free now.
This is a 6x4 instead of a 6x2. That's what my last one was. I thought I would lose fuel economy going to a 6x4, but it actually, it picked up fuel economy. Now that could be I've got a little bit different engine. My last one was a 505 horsepower. And like I said this is a 455. The only modification I've made to the truck is it used to have hood mirrors. And I took those off.
Lawson Rudisill: And you took the hood mirrors off for gas mileage or just a personal preference?
John Penn: I just took them off. I just I just took them off. Yeah. It'll help with a little bit with fuel economy, but it's pretty much a bone stock truck as far as taking the hood mirrors off. Then we got the FlowBelow system, the wheel covers and the center section and the back part. It's got wide singles on it. These are for 445/50, 22.5 Michelin's. Those have been doing really good. They've got a little over 200,000 miles on them now.
And as far as the trailer, I've owned this trailer. I think I bought this trailer in 2015. And then the system I just put on the trailers, this Transtex system, I believe it's called the Transtex Edge Elite, I think that's what it's called. And the skirts themselves are, they call them a 23/30. There are 23 ft. long and 30 in. deep. On my other trailer, I filled in this section right here, and there's only about an eight inch gap, just enough where you can turn and they won't hit each other. So I think I'm going to do that with this also.
As far as aerodynamics, I like to look at rain spray. And when you look at the rain spray, why I fill that in on my other trailer is I could see rain spray coming off of this, and it was immediately being sucked under here. And once it gets under here, there's nothing good will happen under here because every one of these is a cross member and it'll get, it's just dirty air. If you have the ability to put aero on your trailer, I would.
There's another thing that I heard once, procrastination costs you money, and I should have put a system like this on here years ago, but I thought, this is my spare trailer. I don't want to spend the money on it, but after one trip with it, it was amazing.
Mesilla Valley Transport did some independent testing on this, and theirs said they pick up about 12, save about 12 gallons of diesel every 1,000 miles. So that's real savings. I figured it up. For a person running about 50,000 miles, it would pay for the system right now with the price of fuel, definitely. So the other aerodynamic these I call them the fly swatter mud flaps. I dog-eared the side of them and trimmed the bottom up a little bit.
And back here you've got your side pieces. This is a pretty easy system to put on. I put it on in my driveway. And then you've got your top section right here where you see those holes. There's a gutter right there. Whether water spills down, it comes out that hole. That's a lot of dirty air right there. So that's a that's a pretty neat system. You've got a giant low pressure area on the back of your trailer. And so that's what this is helping with.
My other trailer I have trailer blade skirts on it. And then I have a TrailerTail in the back. Well, TrailerTail is no longer in existence. Stemco bought them, and they discontinued that product. And it really, the problem with the TrailerTail, it's an awesome product that I wish they would bring back, but the problem was that it took a driver to open and close it, so they had to open it for it to work, and then they had to close it so they wouldn't back it into a tree or a building or something. And so a lot of them got wrecked. And I think that's, that's a good thing about this system. You don't do anything. It's just as it is. You just notch it around your door hinges and then a driver has nothing different to do than they ever did.
So when I buy a dry van, what I'm looking for is definitely metal roof, metal sides and logistics posts. Other than that, they're pretty much standard. Unless you want a heavy-duty trailer, say a paper spec trailer where maybe you've got cross members every six inches and also it'll have heavier hubs and bearings. But this is what I look for when I'm when I'm looking for a dry van. Definitely metal sides, logistics posts and a metal roof. So that's what I look for.
Here's another cheap right here. Put your put your license plate in your bumper, and usually it's hanging down right here. What I've heard that can be up to a half a gallon of fuel a day. Just that license plate. I mean, people say you're crazy for doing that, but go 55 miles an hour down the road and put your hand out the window. I mean, the license plates are bigger than my hand, so it's something that's just sitting there catching air all day. So not why not move it out of the air stream?
I guess I do have one plan I can talk about. So instead of running full-length skirts that come all the way back to the bumper, what my plan is, I've got it at home already, if you look under here, you can kind of see where I'm talking about where you get dirty air because all the cross members are just, it's all that air is just tumbling and running into everything. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to plate this, and it's just an experiment. It's just something else. You know, you're just chipping away a little bit. You know, it won't hurt it. So that's a little plan. That's probably about, other than filling in the section in the front, that'll be it for this trailer. And I've got a lift axle kit at home for it and I'm really excited about that. I think that'll not only will that save on tolls, you'll save on brakes and you'll save on tire wear and fuel.
And that's another thing. People talk about aerodynamics and they only talk about fuel. But I would really look at it as a whole, as maintenance cost. The easier this truck can pull the trailer down the road, the longer that truck is going to last. And you can take that from the engine, the transmission, the rear ends, even the tires. Everything that's rolling easy will last longer, I guarantee you that. So that's one thing we don't talk when we talk about aero, we only talk about fuel. But I think a lot of it goes into maintenance cost also.
Well I don't idle the truck, but I do have a diesel-fired heater for in the wintertime. Now I have I have set up a room air conditioner before with a generator. Sometimes I use that, sometimes I don't, but the bunk does have screen windows and there's fans. And another thing I try to do is always, if I can, park at a customer where there's a nice cross-breeze like this, it makes it a lot, a lot easier when you don't have two trucks on each side of you idling away and all that heat is coming off their truck. So that's just a few things I do.
Lawson Rudisill: Why don't you idle?
John Penn: Well, two things. The main thing is the emission system on the truck. It's probably the hardest thing on the emission system is idling the truck. And the other thing of course, is the cost of diesel. How do I do it? You just deal with it. You just you just toughen up and think, you know, it's my comfort .. OK, I'm going to sacrifice a little bit of comfort for my truck's health. And then so the next day when my truck starts and it runs perfect, it was worth it burning up in the sleeper. Now there is a point where if I was just completely about to die in it, you know, no two days are the same, and so, there has been a time or two -- but I mean, just a time or two -- where I've started the truck up where I was like, I can't take it anymore. I'm throwing in the towel. But 99% of the time I don't idle. And you can just you can just deal with it. If it's a day like this, it's manageable. And that's why I don't go to Florida, Georgia, places with high humidity. That's why I like to go definitely South Texas, where it's dry.
Lawson Rudisill: So, John, where can people learn more about you see more of what you do?
John Penn: Well, they can learn about me at YouTube. I have a channel called JP Transport, and also I'm a member of Team Run Smart with Freightliner, and you can see me on their YouTube channel on Freightliner Trucks. And to learn more about the Trucker of the Year program, go to OverdriveOnline.com
