Joe Regalado won Best of Show, Working Combo at the 2015 Great American Trucking Show with his 2000 Peterbilt 379 and CTS dump trailer. The truck is qualified to compete in the National Championship judging round next month at GATS.Six trucks will emerge from the Great American Trucking Show in late August holding a prized possession among show truck builders and owners: An Overdrive’s Pride & Polish National Championship trophy.
This year, GATS will again host the show truck circuit’s annual finale. More than 20 finalists will be specially staged at the event, and a special round of judging will decide the six Pride & Polish national champs in six categories: Working Bobtail, Working Combo, Limited-Mileage Bobtail, Limited-Mileage Combo, Builders Class Bobtail and Builders Class Combo.
This is the first year the Pride & Polish National Championship will feature the Builders Class categories. Working and Limited-Mileage categories are based on annual truck mileage, whereas the Builders Class categories feature trucks that aren’t street-legal and are built solely for show.
Shawn Cielke’s 2005 Kenworth T600 and 2017 Wabash trailer, which he named “Redneck Low,” won Best of Show, Working Combo at the 75 Chrome Shop Show in April, qualifying the rig to compete in the Pride & Polish finale.Finalists have been selected at Pride & Polish shows across the country in the last year, starting at the 2015 GATS. Best of Show winners from all of this season’s Pride & Polish events are invited to compete in the championship round of judging.
GATS takes place Aug. 25-27 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center in downtown Dallas.
In addition to the staged National Championship competitors, GATS will host dozens of other working show trucks in the general Pride & Polish competition, the first of the 2016-17 season. The six Best of Show winners named there will qualify to compete in next year’s Pride & Polish National Championship.
Click here to learn more about GATS or to register to attend. Registration for all truckers is free for those who pre-register.
To see the competitors who have qualified to compete so far in the Pride & Polish National Championship, click the links below. Six more trucks will qualify next month at the Overdrive’s Pride & Polish show set to be held at the Fitzgerald Glider Kits facility in Crossville, Tennessee.
