In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, the voices of two semi-finalists for Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ award:
First, Robbie and Levi Turnage of Mississippi-headquartered tanker fleet Turnage and Sons, LLC. They're respectively fourth- and fifth-generation milk haulers who've made good on a business with a stable of dairymen in the region specializing in organic milk over the two decades and more Robbie's grown the fleet from just a single truck, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him. Robbie in part attributes their longevity in business to the hands-on nature of each successive generation’s training and involvement in the fleet shop, behind the wheel, and in everything else that goes along with running a small trucking business.
Now, 19-year-old Levi Turnage is fully entrenched as well -- not afraid to get his hands dirty with all manner of mechanical work.
In the podcast, hear the Turnages in conversation with Overdrive's own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer in the cab of Levi's 2005 Peterbilt 379 project "Big Red" parked up in March at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Marhoefer wrote about the pair in a story published in July you can read here. Catch some pictures there of Big Red, too, which placed second in its class at MATS. Stay tuned for more reporting on the Small Fleet Champ contender in the coming weeks.
Fellow semi-finalist MRL Transport owner Mark Ledford you'll also hear in this week's episode. His story in part aired just last week at this link -- before MRL, he grew Red Baron Transportation to 35 trucks over 15 years starting in the early part of this century before selling out and restarting with just one truck in 2019 as MRL.
Overdrive Radio's sponsor is Howes, longtime provider of fuel treatments like its Howes Diesel Defender all-weather mileage booster and winter anti-gel treatments to get you through the coldest temps, the Howes Multipurpose penetrating oil, and other products.
Characteristic of Ledford, though, it comes with no small measure of humor. Perhaps needless to say, as he notes in the podcast, he never would run team again, that's sure. Take a listen:
Meet all of Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists and read more about them through this month via this link. Two final winners will be honored alongside two fellow finalists at championship sponsor NASTC's annual conference October 23-25 in Nashville.
