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| Photo by Jami Jones |
I often feel like Peterbilt
“royalty.” That’s probably because of the various honors and the recognition
awarded to my truck and us by Peterbilt.
My wife Geri and I were featured
in their magazine First Class in 1996. Some 12 years later we were
featured in the “379: End of an Era” special edition with the same truck. With
all those team efforts and well-heeled big rides out there we got the
spotlight. I’m not kidding myself, we were just a pair of “oval-heads” in the
right spot at the right time.
Some of the twists and turns that got us there are worth
rambling about.
We started showing our ’95 Pete beginning with Louisville in
1995, did some more shows that summer then after Louisville the next year we decided we wanted to do either Las Vegas
or Boston shows which were like 10 days apart.
It turned out that I got a load to Boston and did that show
and headed home. Geri was disappointed, she wanted to do Vegas. I told her to throw
her stuff in the truck and we’d bobtail out there (1,800 miles) with the real
possibility we might have to bobtail all the way back. Through a strange set of
circumstances some things fell in place for us, ended up making money after all
and ended up Walcott I-80 for the Shell SuperRigs show.
At Walcott we hit it big, made the Shell SuperRigs calendar
for the next year.
Maybe 10 days later I got a call from Peterbilt’s publishing company that they were looking for
a one man, drive it yourself, extended hood 379 with factory sleeper. It was for
a three-page spread in First Class,
which comes out quarterly and seldom features a one-truck operation.
I found out later that they got a list of Peterbilts at the
Vegas show from the promoter. I also
found out later that I was down on the list but after they weeded out the short
hoods, fleets, aftermarket sleepers, drivers who were job hoppers, had six
ex-wives, etc., we ended up getting the call.
Our truck fit the parameters, I had the same lease 14 years,
and was still married to my starter wife. We did some shows the next couple
years and burnt out on it and stopped.
Intermission, it ain’t over yet.
For about nine years, our truck never saw a polish rag, just
truck washes. Then I saw where SuperRigs was holding their 25th Anniversary
show in Joplin, MO. This was June 1997. I gotta go to this one. I did break down
and have the paint buffed out and stuck a new bumper on it to spiff it up a
little.
When I got there I saw where they were having a makeover
contest and to be one of the six finalists you had to submit an essay on why
you wanted to win.
At the time 4 State Trucks, home of the Chrome Shop Mafia, were
on the hit TV show “Trick My Truck” where they did makeovers on people’s
trucks. A lot of times it was helping someone down on their luck to get back on
their feet with a like new truck.
When I thought about this essay thing I figured there would
be a lot of sad stories, I didn’t know any so I decided to just do a tongue in
cheek top 10 list.
That essay made us a finalist, everybody that had a drivers
license could vote the next day for the truck to win the makeover. A lot of
people there knew the truck or us from previous shows and we won the big prize
– a makeover worth more than $50,000.
The best of show won $10,000, I would have probably blown
that on stuff like new brakes for the pickup and new linoleum for the kitchen
floor.
While Jim Raines and S&J Truck Sales in Fort Wayne, IN, were
doing the makeover, I emailed the First
Class publisher and reminded them of
our spread in 1996 and told them what was going on now with the same truck and
makeover all these years later.
They called after we were presented our truck back at Dallas
show and wanted to do a feature in the special edition of Pride and Class honoring the end of an era, the 20-year run of the
model 379 Peterbilts. More than 230,000
of them were built. A lot of 379s in that issue but the last one off the
assembly line and ours were given the three-page spreads.
All of this came directly from three truck shows where we
never won a dime in prize money or a trophy. Go figure.
I would like to think we done Grandpa Al proud.
