Tag: overdrive: Page 19

Channel 19

Meet Leon ‘Butch’ Mueller and his 1971 Pete 358

Yesterday at Roehl Transport, after a day of talking with TCA/Truckers News Company Driver of the Year John Moeller (pictured here behind me in one of his Roehl Freightliner Coronado’s drives’ hubs), Roehl President and COO Rick Roehl and I were talking about owner-operator Bryan Dax as I prepared to head off to Two Rivers, […]

March 21, 2012

Channel 19

One driver’s Wisconsin idyll — photos from the road

On the road yesterday in Wisconsin I happened into this moment of contented beauty — in the backyard of 56-year-old Roehl Transport flatbed division driver John Moeller. Moeller was named the TCA/Truckers News Company Driver of the Year just weeks back at the TCA annual meeting in Florida, and his prize Cummins-powered Dodge Ram 2500 […]

March 20, 2012

Channel 19

What are owner-operators’ top five problems?

Readers, I’m beginning research on a story I’m preparing for Overdrive‘s June issue on which I need as much owner-operator input as is possible. It’s one that will probe the five biggest problems owner-operators face in the industry today, offering practical and forward-looking ideas/examples toward solutions to those problems. My main problem, at this point, […]

March 19, 2012

Channel 19

J.J. Keller-sponsored musher wins Iditarod

The folks at trucking-industry publisher J.J. Keller & Associates announced this morning the awesome culmination of the company’s investment in young competitive musher Dallas Seavey (pictured from the trail), who came out on top in the Iditarod Alaskan sled-dog race finish Tuesday. With the win, Seavey’s Keller-sponsored team’s performance allowed him to become the youngest […]

March 17, 2012

Channel 19

The haps at MATS: Rounding up driver-led efforts

I’ll make an attempt, at least. So much is going on at next week’s trucking show in Louisville it will be next to impossible to catch it all in this space today, but here are a few of the highlights folks have reached out to me about these last few months: Health walk-and-talk, blood driveAs […]

March 16, 2012

Channel 19

Overdrive trucks to NYC today

Overdrive editor Max Heine and I are doing a little air-trucking this afternoon to NYC for the Jesse H. Neal awards banquet put on by American Business Media. My two-part feature on the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is one of three finalists in the Best Series category for […]

March 15, 2012

Channel 19

‘Outcast Kustoms’ TV show to debut March 26

If you give a look at the March 26 schedule on Discovery’s Velocity Channel website you’ll find a listing that may well ring a bell or two for the custom-truck enthusiasts among you. Listed at 9 p.m. on that date is Episode 1 of a show called “Outcast Kustoms,” which will feature Kelvin and April […]

March 14, 2012

Channel 19

Former operator’s novel immortalizes trail-blazing independents

Fred Afflerbach didn’t set out to launch a trucking career when he took a job working for a Bekins Van Lines-affiliated moving company in Austin, Texas, in high school in the 1970s. He caught the fever all the same. “The owner-operators would come rolling in and the drivers are telling stories and your eyes are […]

March 13, 2012

Channel 19

Evel Knievel’s driver and the 1973 Overdrive interview

Unearthing the history behind Evel Knievel’s 1970s touring operation with former driver Mike Draper. Bonus: Videos of the old Mack haul rig, currently undergoing restoration.

March 12, 2012

Channel 19

Southeastern Regional truck show one month hence

Mid-America had to start somewhere. –owner-operator Ted Bowers, president of the American Truck Historical Society’s Smoky Moutains chapter The show about which Bowers had those thoughts for me is a joint venture with his ATHS chapter and several others in the Southeast, and it’s coming up quick: April 13-14 in Knoxville. Bowers made his comparison […]

March 11, 2012

Channel 19

CSA-Proofing, part two: Closed greasing system

Owner-operator Gordon Alkire’s engineered a solution to the problem of needing to get under the truck to grease front and rear suspension components with a system he says he’s spent a mere $75 on.

March 9, 2012

Channel 19

‘Roll On, Truck Driving Girl’: Introducing trucker-songwriter Lisa Godino

Harmony, N.J.-based Lisa Godino (pictured) is a self-proclaimed “folk artist just trying to make a little noise anywhere I can,” she says. It’s not always easy, as the kind of noise she’s talking about isn’t of the Class 8 diesel variety but music, and with “50 hours a week’s worth of trucking, it’s difficult to […]

March 8, 2012