Survive a heart attack, fight freight fraud, button up the business: 2022 on Overdrive Radio

Another day, another year nearly in the books -- here's our annual Overdrive Radio year-in-review. Thanks for hanging in with us through yet another big year for trucking as an owner-operator, one with absolutely huge challenges, for sure. We’ll hear about a lot of them again today. But hopefully, by the end, there’s something that sparks a new idea, or urges you on to completion of an old goal with new rigor, with new vigor.

2022 was a big one for Overdrive Radio, too -- thanks to longtime contributor and trucker-songwriter Long Haul Paul Marhoefer and the pros at Muscle Shoals Music Marketing we got an updated theme in Marhoefer's "Legend of the Snakeman," for one, an ode to the legendary guitarist who featured on Marhoefer's cut of the track, Travis "The Snakeman" Wammack.

The podcast also got the nod for Best Podcast from the business journalism folks behind the Jesse H. Neal Awards early in the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15291438/fmcsa-updating-household-goods-regs-with-new-recommendations

That wouldn’t be possible of course but for the very fact of you -– the listeners, the stories so many among you entrusted to us to air through the course of the year.

In this edition of Overdrive Radio, we count down to 2023 with 10 episodes that garnered the most ears throughout the year, with an extra five too that got quite close to the top-10 cut -– honorable mentions, as it were.

Themes emerge in cost challenges with fuel-market insanity and ongoing other inflation. We’ll hear about double brokering and other freight fraud, and how lax enforcement to combat it de facto enables it. We’ll hear a variety of perhaps unpopular opinions about regulations, and plenty and plenty in the way of brass-tacks owner-operator business advice gleaned from long experience, and in-depth analysis too.

It was a wild year, as Alex Lockie’s year-in-brief Wednesday this week made plenty clear: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15304914/fmcsas-new-agenda-wild-inflation-owners-who-braved-a-bloodbath-2022-in-review

For all the guests on the podcast, 2022 was perhaps no more both difficult as well as fortunate than it was for 2022 Small Fleet Champ contender Bryon Stoll of Surprise Trucking. Stoll suffered a heart attack even as Overdrive was in the midst of putting together a profile of the 10-truck fleet: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15115044/suprise-truckings-long-road-to-resurrection

A couple of quick-thinking professionals saved his life, a story he told in a September edition of Overdrive Radio: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15297166/hindsights-2020-after-nearfatal-heart-attack-for-bryon-stoll

We're happy to report Stoll’s recovery has gone well but is ongoing, he says. At once, he’s feeling hopeful about the prospects for full recovery. Our hope’s right there with his. Hear part of his story as well as 15 others revisiting recent history in today's podcast. Full versions of each featured episode you can find via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2022-in-review-the-top-10-plus