At the 2021 Shell Rotella SuperRigs truck show in the Chicago area last month, Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole asked these five owners variations on a couple of central questions:

1. The first asked owners to look out into the future and forecast prospects and plans five years ahead, given the current market and business plans in place.

2. The other had all to do with technology –- alternative powertrains like the electric-drive trucks we’re seeing trickle into the short-haul market, natural-gas power elsewhere, and those increasingly automated driver-assist features that continue to proliferate.

The responses vary and overlap in significant ways -- illuminating in terms of where small trucking is today – and where it might well one day end up, hopefully with bedrock profitability intact.

The owners who participated, clockwise from the top left in the thumbnail image associated with the podcast:

Gary Jones: Owner, SPB Trucking

Clayton Driskill: Owner, C&C Logistics

J.R. Schleuger: Owner, Lifetime Nut Covers

Dave Marti: Owner, Dave Marti Trucking

Mike Wilkinson: Owner-operator, leased to Floyd Gibbons Trucking

More coverage of the winning rigs from the Rotella SuperRigs event: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/15066783/rollin-transport-hauls-in-the-hardware-at-superrigs

More editions of Overdrive Radio: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio