Blacktop Illuminations

BLACKTOP EPISODE 4 (PUMPKIN AT THE PUMP): Pumpkins at the pump, a history of what a perfect diesel storm looks like, and a moment of respite from all the talk of “STRIKE!” to celebrate veterans in trucking. That’s the route of BLACKTOP this week.

Jimmy Mac explains that the fuel bill due at the top of the month is now $1,400 more than it was a year ago. And the cost of the war with Iran? It’s added $14,000 to the bill of a 10,000-mile-a-month trucker since the conflict started. If spot rates don’t rise soon and aren’t matched by a drop in fuel costs, those companies won’t owe money. They won’t exist.

And you should probably check the number of personal pumpkins in stores and markets. If they look a little light on the gourd family, it might turn into a long October for boutique sellers and haunted attractions.

Dave Nemo (yes, that Dave Nemo) shows up to explain the oil shocks of the ’70s and what could make our current situation go from a storm to a “perfect storm.” Let’s put it this way: If you don’t like our current circumstances, imagine them shutting down the fuel islands and running out of diesel because there isn’t any to sell.

Since the word is all doom and gloom, BLACKTOP gives us a straight crowd-pleaser with its movie of the week, “The Straight Story.” Any tale involving an aging veteran’s quest to visit his dying brother by traveling from Wisconsin to Iowa on a John Deere tractor is something worth getting behind.

And speaking of veterans, “Transition Trucking: Driving for Excellence” just named five finalists for the chance to win a Kenworth T680. Fastport President Brad Bentley arrives to explain how the program, which celebrates veterans who have made the move into trucking, has evolved over its eleven years. It has grown from simply awarding a truck to a worthy driver into a rallying point for driver education, entrepreneurial advancement, and an opportunity to celebrate the veterans community at large.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. But that would be a creepy power if we possessed it. So, instead, write down your opinion of the show in the comments section, and we’ll try ’em out on BLACKTOP.

Dave Nemo began his radio career in 1969 in his senior year at Loyola University, becoming a weekend host at WWL 870 AM in New Orleans. After joining the Army in 1970 and broadcasting for AFKN in Seoul, South Korea, he returned to WWL in 1972. Upon return, Nemo met broadcaster Charlie Douglas. Douglas had created "The Road Gang" in 1971 to entertain overnight truck drivers across America. Nemo joined the show, combining trucking music, country, and rock-n-roll. During the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the show became an essential informational hub for drivers, relaying diesel prices, safe parking spots, and personal messages. When Douglas left for WSM Radio in 1984, Nemo took over leadership of "The Road Gang". Over the following decades, the broadcast expanded, shifted across several radio companies, moved to Nashville, and eventually transitioned to XM Satellite Radio (now SiriusXM). Nemo officially retired from full-time hosting on February 16, 2026.

He is a cool dude and can sometimes be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dave.nemo.14.

Brad Bentley’s career includes recruitment advertising, positions in media companies to President of the Truckload Carriers Association. Today, Bentley is President of FASTPORT, a technology company that helps military veterans find meaningful civilian employment and serves as the Department of Labor’s intermediary for the transportation sector. He facilitates the annual Transition Trucking: Driving For Excellence contest, where a Kenworth truck is awarded to a military veteran. Bentley serves as FASTPORT’s representative on Task Force Movement and co-created the trucking industry’s first Veteran Ready Summit in conjunction with Tenstreet.

Do you know where the term “strike” originally came from?

BLACKTOP gets to that answer in this episode. But before that, Jimmy Mac is confused: exactly how do folks who cherish their fierce independence, hate taking orders from anyone, distrust large structured organizations, and hate anything that smacks of giving up autonomy think they’re going to pull this off?

There’s talk of a shutdown, strike, work stoppage, slowdown, blockade, or possibly a large number of dudes complaining in the parking lot, happening on October 1st. So we’re just going to wait and see what happens. Reporters Mark Schremmer and Dan Ronan discuss the possibilities, which of course spills into why OOIDA can’t call for a strike, what the election might mean for the price of diesel, and whether the drivers talking about this are avoiding pointing their trucks at the real culprit.

Jimmy talks about the history of other independent work stoppages in ’73 and ’79, along with the successes and unintended consequences of both. Of course, those folks really took the fight to D.C., and Jimmy, for the life of him, can’t figure out why they’re not doing it now. Then again, in ’79 there was an out-of-touch president who couldn’t solve an Iranian crisis.

And nothing like that is happening these days.

What is happening is evidence that such an action is possible, and BLACKTOP isn’t just talking about it in the past tense. South of the border, Mexican truckers enraged about H1 visa seizures shut down the border in California and Arizona until the Mexican government got a sit-down with the White House. Maybe that’s a model. Maybe it’s a warning. Maybe it’s just what happens when enough trucks decide they’re not going anywhere.

Anyhow, you have 18th-century British sailors to thank for the term “strike,” and BLACKTOP is gonna explain it all for you. Because apparently the word for refusing to move your truck has a history that involves sailors, labor, politics, and a whole lot of people discovering that sometimes the only way to make yourself heard is to stop moving.

The Longer You Drive, the Weirder It Gets.

In Blacktop’s premiere, Jimmy Mac investigates a surprising trucking hiring surge with Matt Beach and Tyson Fisher, while tackling CDL scams, bizarre highway news, and what Pay, Equipment, and Lifestyle really mean for drivers.

#Blacktop #Trucking #TruckDrivers #Freight #Transportation #TruckingJobs #HiringSurge #DriverRecruiting #CDLTraining #CDLMills #CDLScams #TruckingIndustry #MattBeach #Ten4Recruiting #TysonFisher #LandLineMagazine #CVTA #SmokeyAndTheBandit #RoadMovie #AtlantaTraffic

BLACKTOP Episode 2 — Diesel Doomsday: Could Fuel Crisis Kill Halloween?

Diesel prices keep climbing, and every increase reaches far beyond the pump. Jimmy Mac examines what sustained fuel pressure means for carriers, drivers, freight rates, and the holiday supply chain expected to deliver Halloween merchandise on time.

Donnie Tulk, coordinator of Tulsa Tech’s Professional Truck Driver Training program and a veteran of trucking operations, brings the driver-training and workforce perspective. Transportation data-science leader Chris Orban explains how reliable data, longer time horizons, and predictive analysis help fleets separate a temporary spike from a lasting operational threat.

The episode connects fuel costs to routing, equipment, driver decisions, freight planning, and the consumer prices waiting at the end of the road. The question is not only whether diesel gets more expensive—it is who absorbs the cost, which deliveries become vulnerable, and whether the supply chain can keep the season moving.

In the premier episode of Blacktop, host Jimmy Mac tackles a sudden, massive surge in trucking employment numbers. To figure out if the industry is witnessing the beginning of a true turnaround or just a temporary anomaly, Jimmy brings in two top-tier industry insiders. First, Matt Beach (President of Ten4 Recruiting and CVTA board member) breaks down the ground reality of driver onboarding, shedding light on the dangerous rise of "CDL mills" and how pre-hire letters can protect rookies. Then, award-winning Land Line Magazine Associate Editor Tyson Fisher—affectionately known as the "Master of Disaster"—brings his signature data-driven research to crunch the actual numbers behind the hiring boom. Filtering the current state of the industry through the "Three Qualities of Quality Trucking" (Pay, Equipment, and Lifestyle), Jimmy dives into the week's wildest headlines. He unpacks a series of predatory CDL scams targeting drivers in Louisiana and breaks down a bizarre case of highway mayhem in Atlanta featuring an SUV wedged completely upside down in an overpass. Finally, Jimmy closes out the pilot with two hot takes: a definitive ruling on why Smokey and the Bandit is absolutely not a road movie, and what Hollywood icon Warren Beatty has to teach today's drivers about the true value of getting home.