Jamie Hagen's got the inside scoop, but won't divulge the name of the new Mack tractor model set to be debuted next month in New York in this year of Mack's 125th anniversary as a company. Small Fleet owner Hagen has actually driven one hand-built production model already around the company’s test track hidden behind the walls, and come June he expects to be leasing one of the first production units in an arrangement with Mack’s marketing arm -- it’ll add to his all-Mack fleet, South Dakota-headquartered Hell Bent Xpress, among finalists in 2024 for Overdrive’s Small Fleet Championship: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15704803/small-fleet-champ-four-finalists-to-square-off

The new truck will add 1 to Hell Bent's power-unit count, currently sitting where it was back when we last spoke around the Small Fleet Champ program’s conclusion in November, at 9 trucks, so there’s big things ahead for Hagen and Hell Bent, no doubt. Yet the new Mack wasn’t the principal reason we brought him in for this edition of Overdrive Radio -- rather, the forward-looking small fleet owner happens to be the first U.S. owner to install a new-to-the-U.S. auxiliary air-conditioning unit in the sleeper of one of his Macks. That’s the Fresco 9000 MaXX system built by an Italian manufacturer and powered by U.S.-based Dragonfly Energy’s Battle Born Batteries Lithium Iron Phosphate battery to deliver cooling power in the warmer months: https://www.overdriveonline.com/gear/product/15684579/autoclima-fresco-9000-maxx-batterypowered-auxiliary-ac-unit-hitting-us-shores

Hagen walks through the unit’s design and, along the way, his rationale for jumping into the modular, portable system after years forgoing alternative A/C for his mostly upper Midwest regional fleet. (Yes, he’s got auxiliary heat in the form of Webasto bunk heaters.)

If you’ll be in attendance at the big Mid-America Trucking Show later this month, too, Hagen will be part of a panel discussion opening the event on Thursday, March 27, about small trucking business issues. It also features a past Overdrive Small Fleet Champ in Silver Creek Transportation’s Jason Cowan, among many others: https://truckingshow.com/opening-breakfast/

Hear more about that in the podcast, likewise the story of how a 2023 Mack Anthem in the small fleet of Hell Bent Xpress came to be the first truck to get an install of the Fresco 9000 MaXX battery-powered alternative air conditioning system, performed by the way by Jim Fowler and his team at Michigan MD Alignment.

Much more from in the way of MATS preview coverage at https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4372607