Countdown to 2025: The top podcasts of 2024 in review

By the mid-late 1980s, when Jay Hosty was in his mid-20s, he'd been through three trucks -- a 1971 gas-powered International and then two cabovers bought used -- hauling containers for Brown Transport in and around New Orleans. He then made a move his elder container-pulling owner-operators in the Southeast told him was going to be a career killer in the out-and-back niche. 

It was 1987. "I never thought I'd own a new truck that soon," said Hosty, yet it was working out right -- the trade-in value on the old cabover he was pulling with, the cost of the 1987 International 9300 he was about to replace it with... "Associates Finance -- they were famous for doing commercial vehicles, they took me on in the very beginning" for the financing, he said, much to his surprise.

His rate for revenue at the time, as he told: "72 cents a mile, loaded and empty."

He was working with Brown and related companies with a lot of older men. They called him a kid. Owner-operators who've been around a long time may remember Brown for a kind of mascot that was the company's emblem. "They called him 'the Brownie,'" said Hosty. "He looked like a little Robin Hood or something, a little character."

Those seasoned experts amongst the prior generations at Brown got one look at the kid's sharp new 9300 and "started asking me what my payments were," Hosty added -- $1,400 every month, for five years. "They said, 'You are never going to make it pulling these containers for 72 cents a mile. You're going to have to go over-the-road.'" 

What they meant: The young upstart owner-operator Jay Hosty would have to make that truck his life -- "to go out [OTR] and stay out," he said. His young wife wouldn't go for that, he knew, and for as much as he loved the work, he didn't want that sort of life, either. Besides, owner-operator Hosty had done the math, knew his costs back and forth, and was confident he could in fact make it work.

"I can make it, and I will make it," he told himself.

"And I did," he says today, telling the story as part of this week's special edition of Overdrive Radio, and proving wrong the naysayers in process. The tale showcases a quality held by many a successful owner -- willingness to think outside the box, to push the envelope to find just what's possible, for themselves. It's a quality Hosty made good on time and again throughout his 40-plus-year career at the helm of the Jaybyrd Express business he pilots behind the wheel of a Detroit Series 60-powered 2006 Western Star.

That's among many reasons Hosty, we're happy to announce, is Overdrive''s Trucker of the Year and will sit at that pinnacle for the next 12 months.

With a big congrats due to Hosty, we'll also invite you to put your business in the running for the 2024 award, which you can do via the form at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker Owner-operators with up to three trucks are eligible, and if you've controlled costs and maintained revenues amidst inflation and freight-market difficulties in the last years, you’re no doubt a worthy contender.

Also read Matt Cole's April 2023 Trucker of the Month profile of Jay Hosty: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty

The 2023 Trucker of the Year field was crowded and the gap between most of the contenders extremely small, even tighter between the top three finalists highlighted again earlier this week in Hosty’s Jaybyrd Express, Veterans Transportation Services of John and Sarah Schiltz, and Tim and Shelley Pulli's Pulli Express. Read about them, and the remaining contenders profiles throughout the last year, via the Trucker of the Year section of the website: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

Other voices featured in the podcast: 
**Hosty's longtime friend from his time on OOIDA's board, current OOIDA VP Lewie Pugh
**Vice President of BCO Retention at Landstar, where Hosty's leased, Gregg Nelson

They said he'd fail, but he proved them wrong: Overdrive's Trucker of the Year Jay Hosty

If you're not filing to FMCSA's DataQs system for crash preventability reviews, says compliance consultant Rick Gobbell in this edition of Overdrive Radio, you're "playing badminton in the dark" when it comes to the compliance game. 

Proprietor today of his Gobbell Transportation Safety compliance consulting business, Gobbell draws on long experience around trucks and trucking, first on the road as an enforcement officer, then in government directly. He's a past "head fed," as he put it, division lead in Tennessee for federal motor carrier enforcement, yet now represents carriers during audits and files a whole lot of DataQs. His business website: https://rgobbell.com/

This episode features his talk from the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies this past November, where he emphasized the importance of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s DataQs system for the smallest fleets, particularly when it comes to the agency’s several-years-old Crash Preventability Determination Program. Regular readers will know Overdrive’s and our sister publication CCJ’s “Preventable or not?” series of videos illustrating crash scenarios that in past have been judged either preventable or nonpreventable for the truck’s driver by the National Safety Council: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4381538 

That same preventability standard underpins FMCSA’s crash program. For any carrier who submits a crash in the DataQs system and has it judged nonpreventable, the crash then is excluded from calculations of the carrier's scores in the CSA Safety Measurement System. If you never request a crash review in cases that might be nonpreventable, as Rick Gobbell sees it, though the system is not set up to designate every crash that happens as "preventable," reality is that the crash might be de facto assumed to have been preventable by anyone using the SMS there. That includes federal and state safety auditors, insurers, brokers and shippers.

"You just made the audit list," he said. 

His talk aimed to drill home the importance of the crash review system for the small fleets in attendance, lending the benefit of his own experience assisting others in DataQs filings. Also: To emphasize proposed improvements to the program to potentially include many more crash types, including any crash with solid video evidence. FMCSA’s in the process of making those improvements in part to address core complaints about the review system, potentially doubling the number of crashes that could be reviewed: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15382943/fmcsa-eyes-changes-to-crash-preventability-determination-program 

With the agency also eyeing a safety rating change that might hinge on data quality in the SMS, DataQ-ing nonpreventable crashes could assume far greater importance for carriers large and small in the future, as Gobbell suggests here.

Find Rick Gobbell's comment, one of just 62 filed in response to FMCSA's notice last year about the potential changes, by searching the notice docket here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FMCSA-2022-0233-0001

DataQs resources at OverdriveOnline.com: 
**How to request a data review for an eligible crash: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897753/how-to-dataq-a-crash-in-new-fmcsa-preventability-program
**Overdrive's 2021 series exploring inequities in the DataQs system and ideas for improvement also includes plenty in the way of DataQs advice/tips: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063803/criticism-of-dataqs-review-system-continues-to-rise
**How to mount an effective DataQs challenge: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15063812/how-to-dataq-to-challenge-a-violation

Crash-review DataQs: Why owner-ops, small fleets should file for 'nonpreventable' determinations

In this episode, dive into the nitty gritty around the notion of "predatory towing," whether after a crash or disabling event at the roadside or in a parking-lot trap. The episode continues the conversation following the relatively new trucking resource you heard about a few weeks ago – the American Transportation Research Institute’s big report on the commonality of outsize tow bills and unethical practices, including ways to combat them: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15660783/predatory-tows-bigdollar-trucking-impact-postcrash-or-parking

The Truckload Carriers Association held an online seminar earlier this week in an effort to raise awareness among carrier members there but also highlight some recent-history legislative victories, particularly in Maryland. You'll hear today from Dave H:eller, a Senior Vice President at TCA, about that event and ways anyone can engage and inform themselves on the issues to potentially effect change for the better. 

Yet also: Dive into the work of Overdrive’s own Alex Lockie, who’s been covering the rise particularly of parking-lot-trap-type situations since early last year, all of which has brought a big response from readers, as he details in the podcast. Likewise, owner-operators have delivered plenty advice to glean about tackling problematic tows, as did the ATRI report, underpinning a new step-by-step guide Lockie authored on how to play defense against predatory practices, published here a few weeks back: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15660104/how-truckers-can-fight-predatory-towing-bills 

That’s not the end of the story, by any means, though. Stay tuned for further reporting suggested in some of the conversations throughout the podcast.

Other towing resources/stories mentioned: 
**How one small fleet owner marshalled local laws against a parking-lot trap: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14894396/truck-booting-and-towing-traps-in-light-of-eld-mandate
**Detail on Maryland towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15542568/maryland-mtas-predatory-towing-bill-explained
**Detail on Colorado booting/towing legislation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/parking/article/14897263/parking-perils-the-increasing-cost-and-risk-of-booting-and-towing

Parking-lot-trap tows, roadside tows: Truckers' defense against predatory billing, other practices

"So we're going down the road, we've got a mudflap missing, and we've got an ABS lamp on the trailer lit up. What does that mean?" 

This edition of Overdrive Radio starts with that question, leading to just a small bit of the wisdom of the many years of experience of former truck operator and longtime compliance consultant Jeff Davis. With his Fleet Safety Services business, operating out of a home base in Ohio, Davis has been a regular presenter at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies' annual conference now for years. At the NASTC show this past November he addressed a packed house of owner-operators and other small fleet owners on the topic of practical steps to take to avoid inspections. 

The answer to his question, as duly, immediately noted by one of the owners in attendance: "Inspect me."  

Regular listeners will recall those trailer malfunction indicators were a focus of the Roadcheck 2023 inspection blitz, and leading into the event Overdrive found that warning-light systems on trailers accounted for well more than half of all air-brake-related ABS violations: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15447541/toughest-states-for-securement-violations-get-roadcheck-ready

There’s a reason for that, as Davis noted. When something’s awry, that light comes on, giving an easy visual cue for an officer to inspect. And if you’re inspected, well, there’s a likelihood of violations, and issues then can compound for you or your small fleet. The downstream ramifications of any individual inspection were well evident in Warren McCurdy’s story from a couple weeks back here on the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15663474/truck-inspections-safety-scores-should-be-preventive-not-punitive 

Any adverse roadside inspection will negatively impact all manner of things as it flows through the federal CSA Safety Measurement System and into the federal compliance review program and owner-operators and small fleets’ insurance rates, prospects for business and more. 

Davis further emphasizes all kinds of ways you can minimize the likelihood of getting sideways with auditors and roadside officers, without just bypassing the scale houses altogether.

More on getting Roadcheck-ready (the annual inspection blitz is upcoming in mid-May), and generally ready for any inspection that might come your way: 
**Roadcheck 2024: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15664708/roadcheck-2024-inspectors-guidance-on-drugs-and-alcohol
**Roadcheck 2023 -- how to avoid/ace inspections: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15383460/how-ownerops-can-avoid-or-ace-inspections-at-roadcheck
**Overdrive long-running CSA's Data Trail series: https://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail

(Don't) inspect me! With Roadcheck on the horizon, ways to avoid trouble at the scale house

Manteca, California, Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill's family's trucking lineage traces back through 60 years of OTR work done by his father, Gurmail Singh Gill, over more than one continent. The elder Gill hauled first in his native India, some in the Middle East, and finished out his career in the United States. 

Surinder Gill had dipped his feet in trucking as a dispatcher by the time his father passed in 2018. "I wanted to do something to honor my father," Gill said. "How do I honor my father and his legacy? So we purchased a truck and got a trailer, and I put his photo on the back."

His trailers to this day feature that photo and the "In loving memory" text for Gurmail Singh Gill.

"He'll always be on the road, in a way," as his son puts it in this edition of Overdrive Radio, telling that story but much else besides. Small fleet owner Gill was in part the subject of Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's reporting on the now-infamous collapse of the Convoy company as a going brokerage concern this past Fall. That reporting told the tale of a variety of owner-operators and small fleet owners just like 28-year-old Surinder Gill who, months following the abrupt shuttering of Convoy in October, remained unpaid for in some cases thousands’ worth of work hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15666087/convoys-unpaid-carriers-signing-back-up-to-haul-loads 

In Gill’s case, unpaid invoices were to the tune of around $35,000 in dedicated contract loads his several company drivers and a larger number of owner-operators pulled for big names in canning and food generally, like the Post company. 

Convoy's debt to Gill alone is nearly half of the worth of the required $75,000 bond any broker is required to have to cover claims. As you'll hear in the podcast, Gill believes that bond amount shouldn't but a static number but rather dependent on the amount of business a broker handles. Larger the broker, larger the bond. 

Convoy, readers will recall, had a valuation in the billions, according to pre-collapse reports. Given the volume of freight -- and money -- that flowed through the broker, Gill asks, shouldn't they be required to hold a bond much, much higher than $75,000? By the time he got to the bond company with his own claim, the full amount in the surety had already been kicked to court deliberation on just who would get paid, and how much. 

As of this past week, Gill remained entirely unpaid for those final loads, though the small fleet owner offered up a bit of information he'd learned since the conversation featured in this podcast. Contact made with the Hercules Capital company, responsible for business debt incurred by Convoy, yielded a name there for everything having to do with the shuttered brokerage. 

“I have reached out to Hercules Capital,” Gill said, “and was given the contact of a Greg Peterson” for everything Convoy-related with the company, a venture funding company that took control of all of the imploded company but for the technology platform. That platform, also previously reported, was sold to Flexport and rebooted for freight brokered through them, a fact that frustrates Gill and others among the unpaid carriers who’d worked with Convoy for years, as you'll hear.

Should freight brokers' required bond amount vary according to company size?

Last week we heard Part 1 of a long talk with Gill Freightlines small fleet owner Surinder Gill, with four trucks owned and headquartered out of Manteca, California, where Gill’s following in the draft of his owner-operator father’s 60-year trucking legacy. (As you can see in the cover image for this week's Part 2 of that talk, the long legacy is honored on the back of Gill Freightlines’ dry vans.) The Convoy brokerage's quick collapse last Fall nearly spelled out a death sentence for the small fleet, as it was mostly built around dedicated hauling for Convoy's shipper customers. 

Gill’s still owed around $35,000 for loads hauled just prior to the collapse, and the collapse of his fleet's work soured relationships with a small group of owner-operators whom he previously worked with. The difficulties, in part at least, extend from what he acknowledges as a classic mistake in business.

"I guess it goes back to the age-old saying of 'don't put all your eggs into one basket,'" as he put it. 

Yet as detailed in Part 1 of the talk, he profferred the notion that, given how many carriers' work went unpaid in the Convoy collapse and the company’s tech platform’s quick sale to another brokerage/forwarder, bigger brokerages ought to be required to have larger bonds in place based on the amount of business they do: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15669109/should-freight-brokers-bond-vary-according-to-company-size 

In Part 2 here, you'll get a window into what Gill’s doing in the aftermath, pivots he’s making toward more direct business, and his hope that so many shippers’ attitudes toward working with small carriers in their immediate physical vicinity, regardless of size, might change for the better.

He's got a distribution center he can physically lay eyes on with nothing more than a step out the door to his office, for instance. "I can see them, phyiscally, they can see me physically," he said, "yet where it confuses me is they would rather give work to these kids right out of college who work for [INSERT BIG BROKER NAME HERE] in Chicago or Atlanta or wherever their office is and trust these kids to go vet these carriers who might be carriers or chameleon carriers. ... But they won't give it to me," with just a few trucks. That's even though, of course, Gill's "right down the street."  

Though load boards and brokers themselves rose out of the need of owner-operators and small carriers to connect to freight they otherwise might not have access to, Gill feels the entire culture around brokerage has devolved with Wolf of Wall Street-type tactics now so dominant that independents become essentially "bottom feeders" in a market like the current one. Volumes have been down in a big post-pandemic readjustment, and demand has sunk back to pre-2020 levels and below, some would say, for an extended period.

Yet he's in it for the long run. He's fully invested in driving change in his own approach to customers. He recognizes his and other independents’ shortcomings, and is committed to being part of a change to re-engage direct customers, really put in the work on building relationships toward better long-term opportunity outside of this or that fancy new brokerage network’s app. "It's going to drive a change" around trucking, he feels, "and I want to be there for it." 

Mentioned in the podcast: Past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan's recent talk on building relationships, with customers or otherwise: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15668024/how-to-leave-trucking-better-than-you-found-it-with-jason-cowan

Enter the 2024 Small Fleet Championship via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/2024SFC

Hey shippers, we're out here: Small fleet resolved to sharpen biz on long haul for change

After years of scheduling needed preventive maintenance and sitting out the Roadcheck blitz, last year Mike "Mustang" Crawford hauled through his first Roadcheck in years. As we did after last year's 72-hour inspection blitz, we’ll be riding along again in this Overdrive Radio edition through three days’ worth of scale reports from our friendly on-highway chicken-house correspondent. Regular listeners may well recall that last year on runs from the Midwest all the way down to Florida, Mustang didn’t cross a single open scale. 

Can’t say that’s the case this year, though. 

And, for the balance of the episode, shift into high gear with our talk with Sharon Lee, owner of the High Road small fleet headquartered between Nashville, Tennessee, and Boston, and making a name for themselves in the concert tour-trucking world. Lee jumped on our radar after her involvement with the Academy of Country Music’s "ACM Lifting Lives" program, through which she partnered with the Mechanics on a Mission organization as well to surprise a touring professional with the gift of an automobile at a TCW event early this year -- TCW's the Touring Career Workshop, and small fleet owner Lee serves as a board member for the organization. 

Since founding High Road in 2016, she’s made big inroads with customers in the music industry here in Nashville, but it turns out her trucking history is just as deep, stretching all the way back to childhood, when her father was an owner-operator in New York State and involved in tour trucking himself. Working with one-man, one-truck operations holds a special place in her approach to this day. 

More about High Road: https://highroadusa.com

More about concert/show tour trucking in Overdrive: 
**Mobile TV production: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15634571/a-unique-beast-behind-the-scenes-in-mobile-tv-production-trucking
**Events-haul in general: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14894405/how-event-hauling-stands-out-in-the-trucking-industry 
**Clark Transfer's Broadway show hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294151/guaranteed-revenue-for-owneroperators-clark-transfer-commits

Roadcheck chicken-house wrap with the Mustang | Running the High Road with tour-haul small fleet

As promised two weeks back, here's Part 2 of our talk with May Trucker of the Month Gary Schloo, longtime owner-operator leased to Long Haul Trucking for the last three decades of a five-decade trucking career. Schloo here tells a can't-miss story about how he and his wife and business partner, Terri, met. It' the "classic trucker-and-the-waitress thing" at a late-night diner early in Schloo's time as an owner-operator. 

And as most listeners are well aware, a big part of the Trucker of the Year competition, featuring owner-operator semi-finalist candidates throughout the year (including Schloo), hopes to lend useful perspective to all of you, ways to sharpen the operation, button up the business for long-term success. Owner-operator Schloo’s answer to a question I’ve asked most of our Trucker of the Month candidates – namely what their advice to any new or prospective truck owner might be – in many ways comes back to insurance. Build the nest egg early for the down cycles. Put a disability/income-replacement insurance policy in your back pocket for the things that happen to all of us -- whether illness or injury, a crash... The list could well go on. It's saved him over 50 years over-the-road more times than he can count. Hear much more on that score in this episode, likewise a special treat: 

A rundown with the Semi Casual custom shop's Brian Bourke detailing the work put into two custom-built 2024 Peterbilt Model 589s the shop showed at MATS and on the scene of the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee, where we caught up with Bourke. 

Catch the Semi Casual video mentioned in the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOrbebJWQsI

Also mentioned -- enter yourself or another deserving owner-operator (up to three trucks) in the Bostrom Seating-sponsored Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Finally, a big happy birthday to Gary Schloo on May 26! We hope it's a great one.

A pair of custom 2024 Peterbilt 589s, and one standout owner's advice for the next generation

"The power demand, the power that's required to pull a truck down the highway ... the idea is to match the power that's produced by the engine to the power that's required." --Overdrive's May Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus on the bedrock principal behind achieving the best fuel economy

Alpha Drivers Transportation two-truck fleet owner and operator Alec Costerus launched the company just a couple of years ago from his Denver, Colorado, home base following about eight years trucking as an owner-operator leased to Landstar. The ADT company runs with authority two trucks today, with cofounder Joel Morrow behind the wheel of one of them out of Ohio, the other piloted by Travis Lauer, an operator Morrow trained himself on driving for max efficiency. ADT's the result of Costerus and Morrow becoming fast friends after "geeking out" for years over how to achieve better trucking efficiency, both when it comes to the equipment and the business itself, for certain. 

Longtime Overdrive Radio listeners have heard Morrow on the podcast, when he was part of panel including past Trucker of the Year Henry Albert, among others, at the 2022 MATS, all about spec’ing and driver practice toward getting to 10 miles per gallon and beyond: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15383454/paths-to-10plus-mpg-in-a-class-8-diesel-truck

Alec Costerus himself turned heads among those in Overdrive’s audience about a month ago, detailing how he and Morrow did just that, a big part of the success of what they’ve built with Alpha Drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15670289/controlling-fuel-costs-for-small-trucking-businesses 

Principal reason for the head-turning? A 10.5-mpg average for their 2023 Volvo VNL760, spec’d to Morrow’s liking with what Volvo’s calling the i-Torque spec. Morrow had a lot to do with that spec, and today, we’ll hear more of that story from Costerus directly, and how Costerus’ efforts in concert with Morrow have resulted in what’s certainly one of the most efficient owner-operator businesses around. Costerus, with 15 years or so in trucking now himself, is certainly unique among Overdrive's Trucker of the Year monthly semi-finalists for plenty reasons. 

Another: He’s mostly managing the now-two-truck business outside the bounds of a truck cab, by and large, though he does jump back behind the wheel moving mostly power-only loads when Morrow is called away to trade shows or the fleet’s other principal operator is down, and in other situations. 

Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole, who you’ll hear asking the questions throughout the podcast, remarked early in his conversation with Costerus about the unique nature of the operation. 

"A lot of people can drive and 'be a trucker' that way," he noted. Alternately, stick around a while, grow and learn and "you can take that experience and leverage it for the greater good, so to speak." 

Costerus hopes to do that with Alpha Drivers, with a push to show just what can be done and bring the next generation up with him -- not to mention other owner-operators of his own generation who may not realize what can be achieved. 

His long experience over-the-road helps mightily. Critical for any trucking company owner, he believes: "that you actually know how the freight is moved, what the drivers endure, familiarity with hours of service, all of that. I think it makes us more efficient."  

It’s a fine balancing act whether you're behind the wheel or not most days, running a trucking business in pursuit of not only efficiency to contain costs but the demands of revenue, time, playing guardian of the bedrock safety of the motoring public around you. Costerus is managing it well with Alpha Drivers.

Enter Overdrive's Trucker of the Year contest: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

Trucker of the Month Alec Costerus' odyssey to 10+ mpg and two-truck Alpha Drivers Transportation

Thursday, July 18, would be a short day of work for operator Josh Gentry, starting at a leisurely 10 a.m. in Fort Payne, Alabama, outside the Quality Inn in town. There, Gentry met Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills to get rolling, the pair starting the day in Gentry's Chevrolet en route to the site of an old auto dealership in town that, since the mid-1980s, has been the home base of the fan club for longtime country-rock group Alabama. It's also home base for the group's tour truck, in which Gentry was about to set out on a run. 

Josh Gentry is son of one of the last two founding members in the band, bassist and harmony singer Teddy Gentry. Josh, after years pursuing music himself, then hauling grain around his home region (some of those years as an owner-operator), today serves as hauler of Alabama’s touring operation, moved in a single truck and 48-foot Great Dane show trailer emblazoned with the band’s insignia and the "Roll On II North America Tour" logo. 

That truck, a 2021 Kenworth T680 detailed in this week's podcast, rekindles an old partnership between the Alabama group and the Kenworth company, dormant after an official farewell tour in the early part of this century. As you’ll hear on this run to Nashville to load in for Alabama's July 19 show at Bridgestone arena, Kenworth’s relationship with the band tracks back to the 1980s, when the tour operation was as many as four trucks and trailers, and the band was at the height of its popularity with big hits like "Mountain Music," "Tennessee River" and, yes, the classic "Roll On (18 wheeler)," in past named by Overdrive readers in the top five for best trucking song of all time: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14875984/these-are-the-top-10-trucking-songs-of-all-time 

Gentry's come full circle with his growing involvement in the tour operation, after a childhood spent enamoured by all things trucking and immersed in his father's band's music. 

Despite that long history, though, there's still opportunity for new experiences. By 11 a.m. Thursday last week he and Dills were pulling out with a lightly loaded trailer toward the Soundcheck facility’s docks to pick up more gear situated a very-short haul across the river from downtown. 

As the truck and trailer merged onto I-59 toward Chattanooga from Ft. Payne that morning, just as Dills readying his audio recorder for the talk with Gentry, a voice came over the radio -- "Roll on, Alabama!" -- invoking the classic trucking song.

Gentry called tour manager Jeff Davis to mark the moment and give him an update on progress toward Nashville for load and staging. Yet the over-the-air atta-boy wasn’t the very first bit of attention the wrapped truck and trailer have gotten over going on two years Gentry's been guiding the tour, taking him as far as, most recently, North Dakota and into Manitoba and elsewhere in Canada. 

Dive into Josh Gentry’s trucking history and otherwise in this first  episode featuring Overdrive's talk with the operator, the principal interests of his life to date all coming together now in live entertainment hauling with the family business.

Catch more views of the truck and trailer, and from the Friday, July 19, live show in Nashville here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15680069/roll-on-alabama-ft-paynenashville-with-trucker-josh-gentry

Find all episodes of Overdrive Radio via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

'Roll On, Alabama': On the road with tour hauler Josh Gentry for music titans' Roll On II tour

More, today, from Overdrive Editor Todd Dills's run with Josh Gentry. Gentry’s the son of country music titan Alabama’s founding member and bassist Teddy Gentry. Today, we dive into the history of the band with some of the hands at its headquarters in Ft. Payne, Alabama, around which all three founding members -- Gentry, lead vocalist Randy Owen, and the late guitarist Jeff Cook -- all grew up and kept ties to over all the years of chart-toppers, touring, and all the trucking involved with the operation. 

Part 1 of the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15680069/roll-on-alabama-ft-paynenashville-with-trucker-josh-gentry

As noted in Part 1, the Kenworth company is sponsoring Alabama’s current tour -- the "Roll On II North America Tour," using the name of Alabama's trucking-song classic "Roll On (18 Wheeler)." Kenworth’s sponsorship rekindles an old relationship between the band and the truck company. Founding member Teddy Gentry called the original relationship a product of necessity back during the height of the band’s popularity, when he said the tour was supported by as many as five tractor-trailers full to the gills with equipment the band’s operation toted from place to place. He can’t recall just how it started, but “we needed trucks," he said, "and we were exploding on the scene as far as the music goes." Teddy Gentry called it certainly a “good promotion for them,” Kenworth, too, with Alabama trailers festooned with band insignia pulled across North America by Kenworth. 

It was good for the band, too, recalled Teddy Gentry, leading to Alabama featuring in the driver-tribute show year after year at the Mid-America Trucking Show through the late 1980s up through an official farewell tour in the early 2000s. 

This rekindled sponsorship, Gentry added, has been great to “reunite a relationship that works, and especially that my son’s involved,” he said. 

For Josh Gentry, his father felt, trucking with the band and family is like “a dream come true” in some ways. 

Josh’s own words underscore that, to an extent, reflecting during our run in the single 2021 Kenworth T680 that powers the Alabama-controlled portion of the tour today that, like so many an owner-operator and driver the nation over, he takes pride in doing what he does. 

If you missed last week’s podcast, you’re going to hear Josh Gentry today speaking on the Thursday ahead of Alabama’s Friday, July 19, show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The bulk of the talk was recorded in-cab with Gentry on the haul up to Nashville from band headquarters in Ft. Payne, where we also spoke with staff about their longevity working for the group and memories of the past supporting their relationship with their fans and the many, many tours. 

And we’ll drop in at the load site in Nashville where Alabama’s gear is housed, and where the Josh Gentry hauled into to fill the wrapped 48-foot Great Dane show trailer to stage that Thursday night at Bridgestone. Tour operations managers and crew there spoke to all manner of aspects of Josh Gentry’s and their own work for the band, and the tight relationship between father and son Gentry as well. 

Dive into this on-highway portrait of country music titans Alabama, with destination a show that would see something you don’t see every day, that’s sure. It opened with a Kenworth video that, in essence, is a tribute to the importance of American trucking. That video ended with a message, in this case sent out to 20,000 people all in one very, very big room: “Thank you to drivers everywhere,” it read. “Roll On.”

Also as noted in the podcast. Find where you can register for our live August 22 roundtable session detailing how to survive, even thrive through trucking down cycles: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15680141/how-owneroperators-can-build-business-for-truckings-down-cycles

'Thank you to all drivers everywhere': Part 2 on the road with Alabama and tour hauler Josh Gentry

This week on the podcast, we're diving in headfirst to the history of Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Mike Nichols, Overdrive's July Trucker of the Month and profiled recently in our Trucker of the Year semi-finalist series by Matt Cole: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths 

As Cole wrote about the owner, Nichols pulls leased to bulk carrier Wayne Transports, for most of the last six years running. And the owner well knows his strengths and weaknesses, and has built his business to hum with that in mind. His prioritization of effective partnerships (both on the freight side and with a trusted maintenance partner nearby his home, among other business areas) have his one-truck business plenty profitable even through the difficulties of these last years. 

Wayne Transports, where he’s specialized in the dry bulk division, is a big part of that. 

His was a long road to get to this point, though, and today we’ll run through the twists and turns of a career that stretches back to his first taste of truck ownership almost four decades ago. 

As mentioned in the podcast: 
**Nichols isn't the first owner-operator to benefit from Wisconsin's unique Lemon Law and its application to commercial trucks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14875197/lemon-aid
**You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker 

Entries to the 2024 program are open through September.

Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols steers business with reliable freight, maintenance partners

"As anti-automated driving as I am, I might almost rather see some robots. At least they're not going to be looking at screens" going down the road. --owner-operator and Overdrive July 2024 Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15680591/trucker-of-the-month-mike-nichols-knows-limits-hones-strengths 

We're picking up where we left off in Part 1 of this talk with owner-operator Nichols -- https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15681077/trucker-of-the-month-steers-business-with-reliable-partnerships -- conducted by Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole and featuring Nichols' perspective on recent-history revenue and income. "I made more in '22 than I did in '23," NIchols said, calling the reality, though, mostly a revenue boost and "artifact of the high fuel prices" that unprecedented year. 

Fortunately, leased to Wayne Transports with his 2020 Freightliner Coronado glider pulling dry bulk, "we've got a good fuel surcharge," he said. "There isn't any Mickey Mouse games with detention," either, which couldn't be said in his days pulling a reefer around the turn of the century. 

He's come a long way since with a careful approach to business, including his maintenance plan, approach to health insurance and retirement planning and perhaps the biggest challenge for OTR owner-ops going: bedrock safety on highways where distraction has become something of a norm. 

"I'm a firm believer in 'loud pipes save lives,'" as Nichols put it, "because people aren't paying attention." Nichols' is a voice for change on that score, in word as in deed. 

You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker 

Also in the podcast: From the Large Cars & Guitars truck show in Tennessee this past May, a window on a stunning 2023 Peterbilt 389 in the small fleet West Lawrence Logistics of Town Creek, Alabama, piloted by three-year company hauler Jarad Mullinix.

Fair shot at highway safety: Trucker of the Month Mike Nichols a voice for sharing the road

With the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s annual Brake Safety Week inspection initiative kicking off August 26 with stepped-up brake checks and inspections, generally, in jurisdictions across North America, we’re looking back at a podcast from earlier in the year – February 2024 to be exact. The episode featured Wisconsin-headquartered owner-operator Warren McCurdy and a central point of view about what he feels the roadside inspection system was designed for. Something that’s, well, gotten a little off track with how states, the FMCSA, and some fleets treat so-called “safey scores” derived from inspections and associated violations. 

As you’re hauling this week, if you get a quote unquote “assist” from an inspector out there, take note of the approach he or she takes. Is it “prevention” of accidents that is the ultimate goal? 

McCurdy, at the top of the podcast, made clear his bone to pick with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's CSA scoring program and all its ripple effects throughout trucking and roadside inspection systems. After a trailer tire lost air in transit sufficient to take the tire off the rim -- the trailer empty, the tire problem unnoticed by McCurdy before inspection -- the owner-operator's leasing carrier assessed points for the violation modeled on the FMCSA's internal Driver Safety Measurement System nearly enough to void McCurdy's lease. 

This sort of "accountability" isn't, the owner-operator felt, what roadside inspections were designed for. The inspector in this case in Washington State did his job to the letter, and caught the in-transit flattened tire in plenty time to save any real damaging outcome. 

For all that, McCurdy is thankful. "I think that these inspections are good. They should be preventative things," he said. "Nobody wants to go down the road with flat tires."

Yet, he added, "I don't think we should be penalized for something that is not something that you did intentionally." That goes for the motor carrier as well. There's a reason carriers like his own assess those points -- because they are incurring the same level of severity weighting in the Carrier SMS.

Potential changes to the Carrier SMS notwithstanding (FMCSA isn't looking at those same changes for the Driver SMS), the podcast this week dives back into what’s at issue in cases like these, in which carriers subject to the severity weighting system for violations pass that on, with their own systems to hold drivers and owner-operators to a degree of accountability themselves, relying on the federal points system to assess and prevent damage to their own scores. 

Susan McCurdy tried her hand at the DataQs system in a vain attempt to contain the damage in this case by challenging the violation. But given the inspector was doing what he should have done here -- alerting McCurdy to the problem tire on his trailer, conducting an inspection, then reporting the results into the federal system as required -- there was nothing DataQs was going to be able to help correct about the fundamental nature of the situation. 

More fundamentally, though, it’s the very nature of the CSA scoring system that makes accountability problematic for owner-operator McCurdy here. Nobody indeed intends to run around with flat tires. With respect to any violation, McCurdy urges regulators take a long hard look at what they’re holding carriers and drivers accountable for by scoring them as they do.

More in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series: http://overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail

Find plenty in the way of brakes-related maintenance and inspection resources at this page: https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/14875428/tractor-trailer-maintenance-for-ownerops-to-outrun-inspectors

Brake inspection blitz this week: Roadside inspection system should be 'preventive,' not punitive

"Some guys customize their truck via paint, chrome, lights, and things like that. I customize my truck to make it a more comfortable place to be, a more profitable truck, a more efficient truck." --Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber

It's another rewinder of sorts for this week in the Overdrive Radio podcast series. If you missed the news last week Tuesday, owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was honored as our August Trucker of the Month, putting him in the running for Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year award with his three-plus decades trucking and 4 million miles logged behind the wheel of his long-running 1995 Kenworth T600: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month

Listeners have heard Kitzhaber in recent memory, of course, when he passed the 4-million-mile mark on the T600’s odometer in May we aired this talk originally in July: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-95-kw-t600-owneroperator-alan-kitzhaber

For those who missed the talk, this week hear Kitzhaber on his approach to keeping that rig running right these past decades and so many miles. 

And: we’re at the final sprint for the Trucker of the Year award program for 2024. Nominations will close at the end of the month, and we’ve got just two semi-finalist slots left for a chance to win a brand-new seat, up to a $2,500 value, from Trucker of the Year award sponsor Bostrom Seating, a trip to and recognition at the Mid-America Trucking Show, various other prizes, and more. If you or another deserving owner want to put your business in the running, visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker to do that.  

Kitzhaber's not the first owner Overdrive Radio listeners have heard who's done similar -- "Mustang" Mike Crawford crossed 4 million in his 1994 Freightliner (12.7 Detroit-powered) back in 2022: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15291488/mike-mustang-crawfords-1994-freightliner-4-million-safe-miles

(Incidentally, Overdrive editor Todd Dills spoke with Crawford July 1 as he hitting the Prime yard in Springfield at the end of his final run before retirement with a grand total of 4,159,910 miles in the rear view of the Freightliner. More on Crawford’s final run in a future podcast.)

Owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber’s career stretches back to 1990, his time as owner-operator some years on with Millis Transfer, where he first took the reins of the then-brand-new 1995 Kenworth T600 as a company driver. He bought the truck from the company itself, then, a few years later. 

Since then, he's been laser-focused on turning that truck into a profit-making machine, and meticulous with record-keeping in no small way. As suggested by the quote at the top, too, plenty modifications through the years have allowed him to excel to the point of achieving well more than 8 mpg for a fuel mileage average several years running this past decade.

There’s a lot to those modifications he’s made, for certain, detailed in today’s episode. And 4 million miles is a very long way. More than 8 times to the moon and back. At roughly 60 miles per hour it’d take you well past the hard end of the 14-hour clock to do it at 66,666 hours. We’ll track back through Kitzhaber’s history a little more quickly than that today on the podcast, along the way learning plenty about just how the owner-operator kept that Cat-powered T600 humming efficiently for so very long. 

As mentioned in the podcast, Caterpillar's interview with Kitzhaber for its Million Mile Club when he crossed 3 million: https://www.cat.com/en_US/articles/cat-truck-engine-articles/million-miler-alan-kitzhaber.html

Gordon Alkire's closed greasing system: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14877182/csa-proofing-part-two-closed-greasing-system

Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber: 4 million miles, ever greater efficiency for his '95 T600

In this week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition we’ll hear more of our talk with August Trucker of the Month Alan Kitzhaber, and a good bit about one particular subject near and dear to the 4-million-mile owner of a 1995 Kenworth T600 he's piloted since it was new.

"I've been very religious about investing my money instead of spending it, and it's put me in a position where I can feel comfortable retiring." --Oakridge Transport owner-operator Alan Kitzhaber: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15681362/meticulous-maintenance-efficiency-trucker-of-the-month

Part 1 of this two-part podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/podcast/15679534/4-million-miles-in-a-kw-t600-trucker-of-the-month-alan-kitzhaber

His long-term retirement investment strategy, suffice it to say, has owner-operator Kitzhaber well-positioned for an exit, making good on his view of his truck and the trucking business itself. As he notes in today's podcast, trucking's always been a vehicle, a tool to "get me somewhere else," he said. "I want to generate profit from it." 

After squandering retirement savings from his work in the 1980s, mostly in his 20s, running a Radio Shack store, he's managed multiple qualified retirement accounts and other investments soundly. Nearing the end of a nearly 35-year run of consistently putting aside 15%-20% of his income, he’s nearly gotten to that "somewhere else," where he truly wants to go -- that’s retirement, setting out on a variety of projects, including building a house on his property in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; pursuit of photography and videography hobbies; taxidermy; and more.

As some of you heard in the podcast last week, Kitzhaber achieved a significant milestone in May this year -- he’s passed 4 million miles behind the wheel of a Cat-powered truck, his 1995 Oakridge Transport Kenworth T600, pulling since 2010 for a single shipper.

As is sometimes the case in the profiles we write of our Trucker of the Year contenders, that shipper, the Midwest home-improvement chain Menards, headquartered nearby to Kitzhaber in Eau Claire, was a little slow to get back to us fully. Yet respond the company did, with a bit of a tribute to their long-running partner in Kitzhaber you can hear in this week's edition, too.

**You can enter your own owner-operator business -- or that of another deserving owner -- in Overdrive's Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Bostrom Seating, via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/TopTrucker 

Entries to the 2024 program are open through September.

Investment diligence over nearly 35 years has Trucker of the Month on path to profitable retirement

Here’s wishing all United States military veterans in the audience a happy Veterans Day with this edition of Overdrive Radio. To mark the day, we bring you this dive into the work of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, an organization that got its start back in 2009 with a goal of a then California/Mexico produce farmer to help support returning military servicemembers in bids to enter the business of feeding the nation. 

We’ll hear today Overdrive Radio's talk with Jeanette Lombardo, current Farmer Veteran Coalition CEO, about the FVC’s recent induction into the Howes company’s Hall of Fame, bringing another important support organization to the attention of trucking and ag industries: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert

FVC CEO Lombardo details a variety of new-farmer support and other programs that deliver on the org's mission, dovetailing in several ways with trucking and logistics businesses that support the nation's food supply chain. Lombardo sees plenty honor and value in the Howes Hall of Fame induction, enabling connections between the coalition and, not just new groups and people in the ag world, but also in trucking and logistics. 

"We're a nonprofit. We don't have much budget for advertising, ... yet we're seeing this huge increase in membership," she said, in part given word of mouth that occurs as a result of programs like the Howes Hall of Fame. "We were very humbled to receive the nod from Howes, and even more so when we went online to see previous awardees. ... I think it's the beginning of a wonderful partnership." 

The Hall of Fame launched during Howes' 100-year anniversary celebration five years back, said Howes Products' own Rich Guida. It's intended as an effort "to find the people, places, and things that make trucking and farming -- and diesel systems, really, of any kind -- so valuable. And for us to be able to give back to these people, and support them the way Jeanette was talking about, is where we find reward." 

Access the stories of all inductees in the Howes Hall of Fame, or nominate an organization or individual yourself, at this link: https://howesproducts.com/hof

In the podcast, find much more detail about the FVC's many support programs for returning servicemembers and hear Lombardo's personal story of how, in the midst of the pandemic, she would come to be inspired by and, then, intimately involved in leading an organization with a worthy mission. 

More about the FVC: https://farmvetco.org/

Howes' induction video about FVC: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15705903/vetssupport-group-now-in-howes-hall-of-fame-deadline-approaching-for-small-biz-reporting-to-fincen-alert


Veterans Day special: Coalition supporting vets in ag careers honored in Howes Hall of Fame

Happy New Year! This final Overdrive Radio podcast for 2024 -- or the first for 2025, whenever you happen to be catching it -- looks back on the year that has been, a certainly sluggish one when it comes to business for many, though with a degree of optimism heading into 2025 with a new administration incoming and hope for business-friendly policy yielding freight improvement all around. 

Here’s how this one is going to go: Earlier this month, we charted the top 10 podcasts of this year, including a few two-parters this time around featuring extended talks with working truckers, whether small fleet owners like Gill Freightlines’ Surinder Gill on the collapse of the Convoy brokerage, or some among our owner-operator Trucker of the Year contenders offering business advice gleaned from their wealth of experience. We’ve got a short concert-haul run in-cab, a guide to beating back predatory tow invoices, and much more among hot topics and business dissection throughout the year.

So count down through the 10 most-listened-to podcasts of 2024, plus an extra three just outside that top 10 for a lucky 13, all the way to No. 1, to ring in the new year right.

Find a playlist of all the episodes excerpted via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/countdown-to-2025-the-top

Or tune in for our latest via https://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

4 million miles toward optimism for a new year: Overdrive Radio's countdown to 2025

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio