The big event is nearly here, thousands of plans have been laid, and March 26-28 in Louisville, Kentucky, the Mid-America Trucking Show will feature perhaps the very biggest collection of vintage and custom rigs, vendors and suppliers, and no small number of organizations in support of trucking companies and drivers the nation over.
Owner-operators all in one place, too, among reasons Overdrive has for those decades always put a priority on covering the event, from its PKY Truck Beauty Championship truck show and Big Rig Build-Off to regulatory, business and equipment news made in the conference rooms and on the show floor itself. The sheer size and scope of the show is such that stories first encountered at the 2025 edition were still trickling out in coverage here on OverdriveOnline.com as late as November.
Actually, as late as today. In the video up top, find a walk around the show floor, where MATS 2025 provided an opportunity for Overdrive 2024 Trucker of the Year, Alan Kitzhaber, to run through trucking's past and present.
Overdrive Video Editor Lawson Rudisill was along for the ride there and elsewhere with Kitzhaber, memorializing all the efficiency-minded mods to Kitzhaber's then 4.1M-mile 1995 Kenworth T600.
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Also captured in video form: How Kitzhaber got to the bottom of something he'd always wondered about, speaking directly with KW and Cat reps on-hand about just why the engine and yellow-iron builder got out of the business of new on-highway power more than a decade ago.
Anticipating the big show this month, Rudisill pulled some choice moments off the cutting-room floor, as it were, for the collection up top from the show walk -- featuring all the spectacular iron that caught the attention of the pair for a variety of reasons. There's a well-manicured, stretched-out, absolutely immaculate Pete; a 1980 Mack classic; heavily-modified 1968 International LoadStar; and a very, very, very yellow Kenworth, among other choice rigs and moments that might all serve as a reminder if you need it, a mini-preview if you've never attended, of just what to expect at the 2026 event.
[Related: Will Caterpillar ever return to production of new on-highway engines?]
We hope to see you there.
- Keep an eye out for Overdrive's current 2025 Trucker of the Year John Penn out walking with floor with Rudisill. Your best chance to meet him: at the Hot Shot's Secret booth after a 12:20 p.m.-scheduled interview Friday, March 27, with Steve Sommers live on-air, where we'll present Penn the prize "trophy" scale-model of his 10-plus-mpg 2019 Freightliner Cascadia, and honor his ongoing success with authority as J.P. Transport.
- Overdrive editor Todd Dills will help moderate a talk by a panel of owner-operators from the Trucking Solutions Group Saturday, March 28, too, at 11:45 a.m. on the East Hall stage, centered on maintenance and lesser-known cheats the pros have found effective in all sorts of ways.
- Find much more in the way of preview of the MATS show in recent pieces in this collection, and keep tuned for our coverage there.
- Full show schedule of panels and presentations you'll find at the MATS website.
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