Truck Driving Championships

[Moot]

Cool! Large terminal, been there many times, follow the yellow line! If a cargo van category was offered and if Panther was an ATA member, I would probably enter and take it more seriously. Wow, I must be getting more competitive in my old age and feel the need to prove myself. Have I got things backwards or is the rest of the normal world still screwed up?

 

[Lawrence]

Okay Gentlemen - step back for moment and watch a pro in action.

The driver? Linda Caffe

[youtube]RIs5izgTfuk[/youtube]

 

[nightcreacher]

Linda get hold of Hal Staley,575 496 6740,when he was with CC he won his division in the championship in his state,and finished top 3 in the country.He can give you an insight of all required.I know the writen test is very difficult
Good luck

 

[TeamCaffee]

Cool! Large terminal, been there many times, follow the yellow line! If a cargo van category was offered and if Panther was an ATA member, I would probably enter and take it more seriously. Wow, I must be getting more competitive in my old age and feel the need to prove myself. Have I got things backwards or is the rest of the normal world still screwed up?

You are going forward the rest of the world is still screwed up!

 

[TeamCaffee]

Linda get hold of Hal Staley,575 496 6740,when he was with CC he won his division in the championship in his state,and finished top 3 in the country.He can give you an insight of all required.I know the writen test is very difficult
Good luck

Thanks Steve I am concerned about the pre trip and the test. All of my friends are wishing I would go back to reading trucking magazines and put the FMCSA book down!

 

[nightcreacher]

tell HAl your friends of mine,most of what Michelle knows,she learned from Hal,since he's been there a few times

 

[Moot]

Okay Gentlemen - step back for moment and watch a pro in action.

The driver? Linda Caffe

Linda, I just watched the video. If you can do that in that big ol truck, a short wheelbase daycab should be a drive in the park for you!

 

[TeamCaffee]

Day Cab? do what?

I did not think about that part of a day cab. I have never driven a day cab...

Last time we picked up at FedEx in Saint Louis we saw they have the course set up for practice. We will be home for a bit in February and I hope to contact them and see if they will give us any pointers or if possibly they might have a practice session.

I need to study the laws more then anything and I wish I had the pointers on this instead of floundering around on my own reading this or that.

 

[ATeam]

Additonal thoughts:

- Be prepared for the unexpected. Diane and I trained for a pre-trip inspection that was to be six minutes long. When a larger number of contestants arrived, a last-minute decision was made to cut the event by one minute.

- As with any human competiton, cheating has been known to happen. Minnesota ran a good contest in 2008 but we heard stories that Wisconsin had one or more judges that was cheating particpatants they did not favor and helping favored ones. The volunteer judge(s) were union people who were giving lower scores on trucks of non-union carriers. They did this by placing the measuring sticks a bit off for the non-union trucks and a bit tighter for the union trucks.

I have no way of knowing that these stories were true but I know for a fact that the Minnesota people who told them believed them to be true. They went to the Wisconsin contest as part of their preparation for the later Minnesota contest. They came to the Minnesota contest armed with video cameras and ready to bust any judge who tried to cheat there.

Though, if a cheating judge was found out, I don't know what the remedy would be. The state contests are one time events run on a tight schedule. A do-over run on the course may not be possible and many drivers would object to some running the course a second time when others only got to run it once, and then only after seeing the course once before on the walk through that all contestants do.

Another thing to watch for is scoring errors that may be innocent mistakes or deliberate cheats. When a truck completes a maneuver, the judge on the ground displays the score. That score is then recorded by someone else on a piece of paper. Our FedEx team in Minnesota has a couple wives of drivers tasked with recording the scores off the displayed cards to compare with the published scores later. The judge's displayed scores were also video taped in case protests would be later made.

This is one of a few examples of cheat stories we heard as we talked to contestants in Minnesota and others by phone as we prepared to compete.

Enjoy everything there is to enjoy in the contest, but keep your guard up. Everyone there is professional and good looking but not everyone is your friend.

There was a year in Minnesota when one carrier team booed and heckled other contestants from the stands in an attempt to throw them off their game.

A contestant told me of another contestant who sabatoged the next people in line. A planted defect in the pre-trip was a loose lug nut. You check for these by using your hands to twist them to make sure they are tight. Finding one loose, the bad player called out the defect but also tightened it with his hand as hard as he could so the contestants who followed him might miss the defect and the points that came with it.

I presume you will compete in Missouri. Find out all you can about the people there and how they behaved in previous contests.

- Carole and Dora Bean competed several times in the NTDC. Carole made it to the nationals more than once and has competed in straight truck and other divisions. The Beans are no longer with FedEx Custom Critical but I can put you in touch with them if you do not already have their contact info. (They left FCC because they could not tolerate the new dispatch system.)

 

[TeamCaffee]

Our kids where involved in 4-H from the time they were 7 till they were 18 and each year at the county fair there was talk of cheats and favoritism. What we told our girls is that a judge is a person with a opinion and each judge has a different opinion. Yes there might have been favoritism but that is something we cannot control we can only control our actions.

We are in this to learn and to better our skills on the road.

Learning how to quickly pre-trip our truck and to make it a habit to look for defects will continue to help us through our driving career. Learning how to research information in the FMCSA book has proved to more entertaining then I ever thought possible and not only have I learned so has the rest of my friends. We practice our driving skills everyday we are out here and I see the driving practice as taking our driving to an even higher level.

 

[Moot]

Day Cab? do what?

I did not think about that part of a day cab. I have never driven a day cab...

I don't think you will find a rig like yours available for contestants. I'm sure the straight truck category will have single axle, class 7, daycab conventionals with a 20' box. See if the nice FedEx terminal manager will let you practice with one of their trucks.

Phil, what type of truck did you drive?

 

[TeamCaffee]

Moot I wonder what it will be like to drive something with a shorter wheel base. I need to find a common place on all trucks to judge where I have the truck positioned. I have heard you CANNOT stick your head out the window to look.

I am mostly concerned with the front stop and backing in a shorter vehicle. Our truck has the sloped hood as the visibility is awesome.

 

[Moot]

When I competed I was driving a single axle Ford LN9000. In the competition I chose a Ford LN9000 only it was a twin screw because I was in the 5 axle flatbed category.

I would guess you would be driving a short wheelbase daycab. It will be different! Practicing with whatever FedEx Freight uses for straight trucks would certainly benefit you. Is Bob competing or is he your trainer?

 

[ATeam]

Day Cab? do what?

I did not think about that part of a day cab. I have never driven a day cab...

Last time we picked up at FedEx in Saint Louis we saw they have the course set up for practice. We will be home for a bit in February and I hope to contact them and see if they will give us any pointers or if possibly they might have a practice session.

Have Michelle make the introduction. For us, she contacted the FedEx Express facility directly. When we arrived, people there wlecomed us with open arms and made us instantly part of the team. The competiton is individual but competitors chum together and help each other out.

For reasons I do not fully understand, the NTDC is a major-huge-important event for FedEx. It is a big, big deal for FCC and all other operating companies to have competitors in the game, and an even bigger deal to have them at the nationals.

You will find a surprising amount of support coming your way. If you are thinking about doing something like making contacts or getting information yourself, contact FedEx first and they will do what they can to make it easy for you.

 

[ATeam]

Moot I wonder what it will be like to drive something with a shorter wheel base. I need to find a common place on all trucks to judge where I have the truck positioned. I have heard you CANNOT stick your head out the window to look.

I am mostly concerned with the front stop and backing in a shorter vehicle. Our truck has the sloped hood as the visibility is awesome.

That's correct. You cannot stick your head out the window. Again, contact FedEx for support. Diane and I were surprised to be given access to any straight truck they had on the lot to practice in. All were day cab box trucks with two axles, similar to those used in the contest. We got the chance to practice with Freightliners and Kenworths.

Even with that practice, the trucks differed. The cabs were similar but some of the contest trucks had boxes of different lengths. These are trucks donated by local truck dealers. Even with the same truck make and model, the wheelbase may be different because of how the trucks are spec'ed. One truck may have a deck extension on the back that is not visible in the mirrors, another may not. You won't know what you will drive until you see it at the contest.

You get to pick your truck at the contest and look it over for a very short time before leaving the area for the bull pen (the area out of sight of the contest where you wait with all others for your turn to compete). Learn how to quickly get your marks on any truck. Learn this by practicing with as many different types of trucks that you can before the contest.

 

[TeamCaffee]

Both Bob and I will be competing and he will be my trainer on how to Pre Trip and he will be my study partner.

Phil I have talked to Michele and we have not been home to get any information from her.

 

[ATeam]

I don't think you will find a rig like yours available for contestants. I'm sure the straight truck category will have single axle, class 7, daycab conventionals with a 20' box. See if the nice FedEx terminal manager will let you practice with one of their trucks.

Phil, what type of truck did you drive?

Diane and I both drove a Freightliner M2 in the contest.

 

[ATeam]

Both Bob and I will be competing and he will be my trainer on how to Pre Trip and he will be my study partner.

Phil I have talked to Michele and we have not been home to get any information from her.

In normal circumstances, Bob would be one of the best pre-trip trainers any driver could hope to get, but keep in mind that the NTDC is not a normal circumstance. The pre-trip event is one in which you work against the clock to find planted defects. You need to work not only on truck stuff but on your contest timing and technique.

For example, as you work your way around the truck, if you go back to double check something, or cover the same ground twice as you do your inspection, it is points off. When you crawl under the truck from one spot, you learn to scan others with your eyes.

Only people who have competed before can coach you on such things. They will tip you off to look for things like a left tail light with a red lens and a right one with an amber lens, or a license plate with an expired tab, or a Missouri license plate in the front and a Florida license plate in the back.

There are questions you can ask the judges before you begin. Contest veterans can tell you what to ask that will help you rule out a number of defects before you even begin to look.

The Beans once put together an e-mail for Diane and me that listed dozens and dozens of the kind of defects the contest may include. I'll see if I can find it and get it to you.

It is February now and the contest is coming soon (by competitor standards). Many drivers are well into their preparation but don't let that bother you.

Diane and I did not know what we were getting into when we started and only studied and practiced full time for a week before our event. Even though I still cringe at how I totally blew the pre-trip, I was pleased to finish 7th among 15 drivers in the straight truck class.

 

[nightcreacher]

they will also pay you to do this,at least they paid HAL

 

[ATeam]

they will also pay you to do this,at least they paid HAL

Unless the rules have changed, no they won't pay you to compete in the NTDC. They might pay you some money to cover the deadhead in getting home to compete. They might pay to fly you to an event but the rules strictly prohibit companies from paying people to compete. At least they did when Diane and I competed.

If they were able and willing to pay us what we gave up by coming off the road to practice and compete, Diane and I would enter the competition in a heartbeat. But they can't so we don't. The financial sacrifice is simply too great and the rewards are rewards of the wrong kind.

While the social life, recognition and professional pride motivates many competitors, they do not motivate us to return year after year. We got into expediting partly for the money. Pouring our minds, bodies and souls into a non-revenue generating activity like the NTDC would distract us from achieving our financial goals.