Overdrive Radio

It was 2017 when Mike Gaffin, aka "The Boston Trucker," received an email from Shell Rotella SuperRigs inviting him to join their team. Over the past several years, Gaffin, a second-generation operator with more than 30 years of experience behind the wheel, had been converting his lifetime love of trucking, and a decades long photographic curation of the business, into one of the largest followings on social media. His likes and views run into the tens of millions, driven largely by his huge Youtube collection: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBostonTrucker

Still, Gaffin initially dismissed Rotella's proposal as a crank email.

But after a phone call, it turned out the offer was legitimate. Gaffin, who still trucks full-time doing local work for A. Cardillo and Sons in Waltham, Massachusetts, has joined the Rotella SuperRigs team at select shows throughout the country ever since.

Overdrive contributor Long Haul Paul Marhoefer caught up with Gaffin at the Mid-America Trucking Show back in March.

Also on the podcast: Another local hauler whose first love was OTR hauling -- and who, like Gaffin, well understands the pressures on, and the difficulties of, life back home for those over the road. Terry Shelton’s road to hauling in a dump truck in the region around Sevierville, Tennessee, flowed through his trucking family growing up farther east in Martinsville, Virginia, and a personal tragedy that befell his family back home that, though long ago, haunts his time on-highway to this day.

For this edition of Overdrive Radio, host Todd Dills is joined by Lee and Lisa Schmitt of Wisconsin. As regular readers may well be aware, Lee's requested as exemption from parts of the hours of service for himself -- it’s the first such exemption request for an individual owner we’ve seen hit the Federal Register and go up for comment, in quite some time, a testament perhaps to the methodical nature of the Schmitts' pursuit of it. It’s not like it's particularly difficult, though, to break through the dam, as it were, of the federal regulatory system, as Lisa notes in the podcast.

Exemption requests and what's required of them are laid in the regs themselves, in 49 CFR 381.310.

Having essentially followed the instructions laid out there, the Schmitts' request was posted to the Federal Register and put up for comment last week, and since then 600 comments have been filed. But there’s been some confusion among some in the Overdrive audience about just what Lee Schmitt is asking for here.

In a word, flexibility -- to use a daily 11 hours’ worth of driving however he sees fit. He asks for exemption from the requirement to take a 10-hour break, from the 14-hour rule daily duty maximum, from the cumulative 60 in 7 days and/or 70 in 8 days duty limitations.

But, crucially, not from the 11-hour maximum daily drive time limits, a fact lost on some readers who didn’t fully engage with the hours of service exemption request’s summary, as Lee notes in the podcast today.

Comments on the exemption request are open through July 11: https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2022-0099

Also in today's podcast: We pause to remember owner-operator Troy Huddleston of Illinois, who passed away unexpectedly June 7. He was just 54 years old, and at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs competition this past weekend, owner-operators there who knew him memorialized Huddleston in a few ways, including by placing a signature of Huddleston's, a black Roadworks ball cap, over their hood ornaments. On the podcast we air for listeners recollections of and tributes to owner-operator Huddleston, with several owners Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole caught up with at the event. Catch a video version of the recollections via this link, if you missed it as yet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15293098/owneroperators-pay-tribute-to-fellow-owner-friend-troy-huddleston

Our sincerest condolences to Huddleston's family.

Small fleet car-haul owner-operator C.G. Soza of California's Central Valley has quite a lot on his plate these days, not the least of which is the $7-plus diesel sign he saw early this week in Madera, California, a first for the owner. He's also keeping a close eye on the Supreme Court, which is set to conference June 23 and possibly make its decision as to whether it will take up federal pre-emption questions in the California Trucking Association's appeal of its case again the AB 5 state contractor law's application to trucking.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t take up the case, that day could be quite eventuful for Soza and scads of other small fleet owners who, like Soza, contract with leased owner-operators -- and plenty California-based leased owner-operators themselves, of course.

As if they didn’t already have enough to contend with when it comes to business difficulties in the now extremely-high-fuel state.

June 23 also happens to be a set-up day for Soza's A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show, kicking off the following day at the Merced County Fairgrounds and featuring an old-school truck rodeo, likely well upward of 100 rigs showing out, and much more, as you'll hear in this edition of Overdrive Radio.

Also in the podcast: Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole sets the scene at the Shell Rotella SuperRigs event ongoing at a unique location in Branson, Missouri, and lays out recent AB 5 developments he's reported on this week.

Read more about the A.J. Soza Memorial Truck Show, benefiting a foundation C.G. Soza has established for dyslexic youth in his area: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15279541/aj-soza-memorial-truck-show-2022-dates-set

The question begged in the title here points us down the road to the subject of this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, a notion voiced quite well also in last week's edition by Breon Thomas when he noted that entrepreneurship, broadly, is about creating systems of support for your efforts at success in business. Systems, indeed, of support to ensure you negotiate the next load at a level of profit commensurate to keep the business afloat, feed and clothe and shelter the family back home, and leave plenty to invest in the future.

If it’s growth that you’re after, beyond a single truck -- or cargo van, the case is in Thomas's world -- you won't get a much better example of systems-focused pursuit of success than the 2021 Small Fleet Champ, Silver Creek Transportation and its leader, Jason Cowan.

Cowan's investment in people and data-engagement systems underpins a company culture that’s about well more than operating at a profit. His example speaks to the value of the right team, and a clear vision. As recently as 2019, as regular readers and Overdrive Radio listeners will know, the business sat at jut 9 trucks after a couple decades and more in existence. Cowan assembled a brain trust made up of sons Zane and Zebb Cowan, already involved in the family business, and many others, with a goal of figuring out how to reach a growth goal of 30 trucks. COVID set them back a bit, particularly when it comes to new equipment purchases, but by this spring the company was just about there. Maintaining a culture that emphasizes personal growth for all involved, to the ultimate benefit of the entire company, is a challenge that’s always top of mind and that has helped drive growth, too.

None of it has been easy to do or maintain when fuel is $5 or $6 a gallon and demand is sliding, but Silver Creek’s well poised to ride the waves with a diversified mix of freight running on dry bulk and liquid tankers, flatbeds, dry vans and more. Cowan’s systems-focused approach to safety, compliance, maintenance and the rest of it ultimately makes for what is a great example of trucking excellence. Talk a walk down Silver Creek's "safety lane" between the side entrance and the shop with Cowan, Safety Director Amber Jenkins, and shop manager Zane Cowan in today's podcast.

Read more about Jason Cowan and 2021 Small Fleet Champ Silver Creek Transportation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15291067/a-vision-for-growth-jason-cowan-silver-creek-transportation

Enter your small fleet in the 2022 Small Fleet Championship: http://overdriveonline.com/2022SFC

The nimble nature of businesses working the expediting niche of the trucking world, particularly those powered by smaller pieces of equipment like cargo vans, is well-known to longtime industry participants. Atlanta-based Breon Thomas was initially attracted to cargo van expediting for that very reason, yet he quickly learned there was more to successful business ownership than working hard and running miles.

Today, after telling his story and sharing with others frequently on social media, "Bre the Xpediter" Thomas is driven by a passion to give a hand up to the next generation of owners from his community coming up behind him. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, the Chattanooga, Tennessee-born cargo van hauler recounts his journey from early battles with dyslexia to a military career and the tough transition back to civilian life. It's there, though, that he located a significant aptitude for serving as a kind of translator of the language of business/entrepreneurship to the aspirational among all sorts of folks who’ve gotten a glimpse of the cargo van expediting niche and the business ownership potential within it.

Part of his source material? Near the end of our last conversation, one of two leading up to this podcast, he noted that, among other resources, he’d found Overdrive’s Partners in Business manual and online series to be particularly useful for aspiring business owners.

You can download the updated 2022 edition of the book via this linke: http://OverdriveOnline.com/pib

Read more about the cargo van expediting niche via this link to a feature series originally published in 2019: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14896131/the-lowdown-on-downsizing-hauling-in-the-cargo-van-ownerop-niche

Find Breon Thomas via his Youtube channel -- https://www.youtube.com/brethexpediter -- and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SEEHimEnterprise/

Does a truly "zero-emissions" truck exist? Is it even possible in today's petroleum-powered world? Will it ever be?

If you’ve counted yourself among skeptics when it comes to the notion that trucking might one day be an industry built on the foundation of big lithium-ion batteries powering electric motors, Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole's report this week on new analysis from the American Transportation Research Instituate, or ATRI, probably raised your eyebrows a little higher, let’s say: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15291919/environmental-impact-of-batteryelectric-class-8-trucks

ATRI compared estimated life-cycle CO2 greenhouse gas emissions associated with battery electric trucks, diesel trucks, and hydrogen fuel cell trucks from production through to operation and ultimate disposal and found skeptics might well be justifiably skeptical.

Life-cycle emissions were highest over time for diesels, as Cole reported, but ultimately not by an amount implied by the hype that proselytizers of electric-drive technology bring to the discussion with the "zero emissions" terminology.

In this edition of Overdrive Radio, drop into an in-depth discussion Cole had with ATRI Vice President Dan Murray. Beyond the emissions analysis, which we’ll hear a lot about throughout the podcast, early on in the conversation Cole raised brass-tacks issues ATRI’s report touches on -- practical considerations for trucking companies of any size when considering current/future investment potential in a battery-electric vehicle, particularly. Cutting through the hype around electric trucks, the fundamental, practical picture is not a pretty one, today often enough wrapped in a shiny package that obscures the reality.

Also in the podcast: For listeners, an introduction to the Danville, Kentucky-based operation of owner-operator Darrell Estes, whose pristine pair of 1980s Peterbilt 359s we got a close look at during last week’s Large Cars and Guitars truck show in Kodak, Tennessee. Regular Overdrive readers may have seen those rigs in the video we shared earlier this week featuring both, a 1987 and a fully custom-restored 1984 showpiece. Estes’ story extends back to when the latter rig was but a young pup, and he worked around it with its then owner, hauling long-distance coal north from the mines of Eastern Kentucky. Follow this link to the video, if you missed it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/video/15291930/darrell-estes-pair-of-custom-1984-87-peterbilt-359s

It’s official –- well, it’s been official for a good while now -– fuel is absolutely out of hand. Spot market rates for vans and reefers have been sinking, and big carriers nonetheless seem bullish on long-term prospects, for once in the last couple of years. These years have been a boon by and large for the small, even with COVID-inspired difficulties: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15115093/how-small-fleets-might-benefit-from-a-covid-vaxtest-mandate

Market-to-market, though, there are plenty of freight and rate have-and-have-not dynamics to go around.

An object lesson came via a conversation this week with owner-operator Mike “Mustang” Crawford. The owner-operator, whose Mustang’s Trucking business reached the 4 million safe miles mark above the frame of a single truck last week, told the story of a roundtrip with intracompany picks and drops at the same facilities on either end of the lane between Harvey, Illinois, and Phoenix. From Harvey, the all-in rate (with a fuel surcharge on a contract load) was more than $6,000, on 1,700 miles of hauling, with a flatbed.

The next run, coming straight back to Harvey from the same place he'd just delivered to in Phoenix, was priced just a couple hundred dollars more than $3,000 for the same 1700-some loaded miles.

The difference? The market the freight's coming out of, foregrounding the importance of freight choosiness for owner-operators as markets loosen up from historically high levels of tightness experienced in the last year.

Phoenix is a place Crawford notes has always been problematic for good rates on flatbed loads -- flatbed spot rate averages, according to DAT analytics, outbound from Phoenix to markets in Missouri and Indiana in the last week were well less than even the van averages, for instance, at around about $2.30 and a $1.90 respectively. Crawford got close to the average outbound with a healthy 79-cent-a-mile fuel surcharge built into the rate both inbound and outbound from Phoenix and covering $4.70 worth of every gallon burned.

Flatbed’s generally held up well when it comes to spot rates through the recent oil-market turmoil, but the same can’t be said for vans and reefers. Overdrive 2021 Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan, of Silver Creek Transportation, told of his efforts to negotiate a spot van load coming out of Utah a few weeks ago where the broker offered a paltry $1.70/mile, which he noted might barely cover the operating cost and driver pay for the long run back to the Midwest.

Today on Overdrive Radio, it bears repeating that there’s a strong negotiating tool any truck owner has in the arsenal -– the right of refusal: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/14897683/best-freight-negotiations-tool-for-owneroperators

A smart broker might try to get what he/she can out of the rate, but should also know well what transport providers are paying for fuel and everything else. Consider your own pay as an expense pre-negotiation, and feeling "lucky to break even," as a truck owner relatively new to the business told National Public Radio in a segment that aired just yesterday, isn't going to cut it.

As a wise man once said, speaking at the depths of the pandemic, ‘You will never, ever, come out ahead running at a loss.’

Find more on the fuel market in today's Overdrive Radio from David Owen, manager of the largest OTR diesel account in the nation -- the Quality Plus Network fuel program of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. More, too, from Jason Cowan of Silver Creek about his dual bulk-delivery and fuel-card strategy for pump price discounts.

Read Cowan's story with Silver Creek: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15291067/a-vision-for-growth-jason-cowan-silver-creek-transportation

Also as noted in the podcast, entries are open for small fleet owners for the 2022 Small Fleet Champ award. Enter here:

https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/2022SFC

Cliffside Transportation Services operator Bobby Coffey-Loy hauls in a team with his husband, Ricky, and in one of a couple dozen or so rigs Cliffside has dedicated to XPO Logistics freight in the network. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Coffey-Loy speaks to the mission of his and cofounders’ LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network, established within the last year and engaged in a variety of support efforts for operators all around the nation: https://lgbtqtruckdrivernetwork.com/

Ricky and Bobby Coffey-Loy haul pharmaceuticals in a 2020 Volvo VNL outfitted with a 156-inch big-bunk ARI sleeper, not the only one in the fleet at Cliffside Transportation Services. Since getting acclimated to big-bunk trucking, Bobby's found the rig to be something of a literal life-changer. He's gone from 300-plus pounds down to around 240 in a fairly short time, with a focus on cooking for himself, as also detailed in the podcast.

Here, sit on a conversation Overdrive had with Coffey-Loy at the 50th anniversary edition of the Mid-America Trucking Show last month, where the LGBTQ network made its truck-show debut to the delight of plenty at the Kentucky Exposition Center there. The West Wing booth's Mardi Gras beads were a hit – scads of folks were present on the show floor wearing them, likewise network lanyards for attendee badges you’ll hear Coffey-Loy talk about. It's all part of a mission in part to increase LGBTQ+ visibility among the trucking community, but also to make good on its "All Drivers Means All" motto.

To that end, too, Coffey-Loy details a program the network has embarked upon to honor drivers lost on the road with messages and other tokens of support delivered to their families. Since the MATS show, he said this morning, the network has been getting quite a number of people "wanting a loved one honored and recognized by the Driver Memorial Program. ... We honor all drivers with this program, LGBTQ or not." Also, more companies have stepped up to "become a part of the network we are creating and vetting ... as LGBTQ+-friendly places to work." The organization adds such companies to this page: https://lgbtqvetted.com/

Also in the podcast, we pause to remember an owner-operator lost. My own interaction with Randy Cunha through recent years wasn’t extensive, by any means, but I’ll say that when we spoke attendant to my reporting on heavy-specialized hauling in the Spring of 2020, just as Cunha was winding down his own business toward retirement, the man I spoke to then was clearly an incarnation of the very best in the business of trucking as an owner-operator.

He’d become that after a career that spanned five decades and ended on a nice high note -- with a run of very good years under his own authority, heavy and oversize permits and all. In the podcast, catch much more about that directly from a man who knew him much better than me, our own "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15291259/remembering-heavyspecialized-owneroperator-randy-cunha

In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, trucker-songwriter and Overdrive Extra contributing writer "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer takes us through his interview at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month with longtime entertainment-industry-specialized trucker Chip Warterfield, now in a safety and operations role with Upstaging, Inc. Warterfield tells the story of what happened to the company when COVID in 2020 essentially brought every single one of its touring clients to an abrupt and complete halt.

Warterfield also speaks of his own trucking beginnings back in the 1980s. If Warterfield’s name sounds familiar, you may have caught his story of an early trucking mentor, Kenny Jones, the father of Barbara Mandrell’s then steel guitar player, Mike Jones. Kenny spent his entire career trucking in some form or another and taught Warterfield perhaps more than he knew back at that time: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15290773/a-trucking-tribute-to-kenny-jones-invaluable-driving-mentor

Read more from Marhoefer here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/authors/contact/14865330/long-haul-paul

It’s "meet your regulator" day on Overdrive Radio -- there’s plenty to gain, particularly for those of you in the audience who engage with regulatory processes, in getting to know, of a fashion, FMCSA Acting Administrator Robin Hutcheson. For this edition of the podcast, we’ll hear Hutcheson speak at length to the notion of dwindling pride in trucking and investment in its restoration, plenty about her background, FMCSA's regulatory programs, and the agency's parking advocacy role, among other topics. It's all part of a talk she gave with reporters from trucking media to answer pre-submitted questions at the Mid-American Trucking Show last month.

While there wasn’t much in the way of hard news that emerged from the session, hear it in full today. Find a previously-published report from the session at this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15290156/fmcsas-new-boss-emphasizes-compensation-detention-issues

Then, perhaps more importantly, we’ll pick up where we left off in the last podcast from Overdrive's post-Partners in Business seminar discussion at MATS with a cross section of owners about business preparation and planning, about cost and revenue strategies, about income, difficulty and success with owner-operators Raeshawn Lucas and David Nihart, budding small fleet owner Pete Anderson, and others.

If you missed Part 1 of that discussion, find it here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15290751/why-do-truck-drivers-get-into-business-as-owneroperators

Access more information about participating in the Truck Leasing Task Force Administrator Hutcheson discusses in the podcast via: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15290608/fmcsa-accepting-nominations-for-truck-leasing-task-force

Overdrive's 2021 reporting on Florida DOT's parking-funding successes, also mentioned, you can find here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15064912/the-truck-parking-impact-of-jasons-law-after-nearly-a-decade