Overdrive Radio

Year 2025 is in the rear view, just back there behind the trailer. With any luck at all, owner-operators are making good time outrunning all that happened during what was some kind of a momentous year in and around trucking. As my colleague Alex Lockie put it in his year-in-review last week just ahead of New Year celebrations, 2025 may well go down as the year when the you-know-what truly "hit the fan" in trucking: https://overdriveonline.com/15774734 Among surprises, though, was real engagement from regulators in response to longtime asks of small trucking. That's even as owner-operators’ hopes for economic improvement at the beginning of 2025 with the second Trump administration went largely unrealized by the time the clock wound down on the year. Ongoing surveying of Overdrive readers shows a majority reporting income tracking along at levels either worse than or similar to those seen in the very-sluggish year 2024: https://overdriveonline.com/15774647 As of this writing, too, only just more than a third of readers are expecting 2026 to fare better on that score. Yet as this week's podcast makes clear, there are at least some reasons to be optimistic. The episode springs into 2026 with a look back at the 10 most-listened-to podcasts of 2025, near all providing trucking-market touchpoints in stories that continue to evolve, with impacts slowly developing. From the federal push for a non-domiciled CDL purge and boosted English-language proficiency enforcement to freight-rates impacts with negotiation tactics and interest-rate cuts and owners' increasingly sophisticated attention to business brass tacks, all could prove positive for owner-operator demand and bedrock income day-to-day, week-to-week as time marches on. Run back through the year with us in this week's episode, and find here a playlist featuring two honorable mentions for podcasts just outside the top 10, which start the playlist counting from No. 12 to the No. 1 most-listened-to episode of 2025. Happy New Year! Playlist link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/countdown-to-kick-off-2026-the

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas last week, and looks ahead with hope for improved conditions for the new year. To get in right frame of mind, what better than to drop back into this special edition around Christmastime 2022, when we drop in on quite an experience for Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie out at the Danbury, Connecticut, stop on the Wreaths Across America convoy tour from Maine down to Arlington National Cemetery for the big central wreath-laying event. As with this year's Wreaths event, it was but one among thousands around the country at veterans’ cemeteries designed to pay respect to those who’ve served the nation. Lockie there in 2022 met Hampton Roads Moving and Storage owner-operator Steven Meyer and his 1998 Freightliner FLD, pulling a custom wrapped Kentucky trailer of his own design and dedicated to honoring distinct individuals. Together, through Meyer's narration their histories chart a story of achievement, of sacrifice, and ultimately of elemental things about human nature. For both men in the moment, the story delivers a measure of hope for the future of humanity. Read Lockie's 2022 reporting from the event via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15304350/what-wreaths-across-america-means-to-trucking-and-all-of-us

Despite a record turnout in early December, trucker Noah Melton of small fleet Big P Express out of Southwest Michigan isn't 100% satisfied. Melton's one of the organizers of the Red Arrow Convoy, running 45 miles along the Red Arrow Highway near Lake Michigan every year for the past three, and growing in size and participation, that's certain. A grand total 89 trucks participated this year: https://www.facebook.com/groups/232190276570407 Yet "I want to break 100 trucks in the worst way," Melton told Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole in the conversation featured in this week's podcast to take you into the Christmas holiday. The Red Arrow Convoy's origins trace back to a fellow driver's efforts at its start to make a cheerful display for members of the wider community in the region, and to have a little fun among like-minded truckers -- the parade features all manner of straight trucks, tractors and trailers (even freight in some instances) dolled up with Christmas lights and other decorations offering plenty spectacle to set the stage for Christmas festivities. It's clear communities the trucks pass through along the highway have embraced the event, with many townships coordinating their official Christmas celebrations with it and "thousands of people from local communities" coming out just to see the parade, Melton said. "Some even have campfires next to the road." Imagine it: "89 trucks all lit up with Christmas lights, horns blaring and jake brakes popping," Melton described the event. "You would see grown men and grown women jumping up and down like a kid in a candy store." From the start of the event, though, a main goal has been simply to "give the drivers something fun to do before Christmas, as some of us are on the road" during the actual holiday, Melton added, yet it's "also to raise awareness to the community that truckers are just regular people like them." With the podcast, hear Cole's talk with Noah Melton about his trucking history, most of it with Big P Express, and the story of how the regional group of truck drivers having a little fun around the Christmas season quickly came to be the big undertaking that is the Red Arrow Convoy today. With plenty future plans, too. Drivers interested in participating next year can join the drivers' private group for planning purposes here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/705730534890286

"Every day had an episode like that along the way. It was just the high, and the low." --XPO driver David May, reflecting on the roller coaster of emotion hauling in the Maine-to-Arlington Naitonal Cemetery run of Wreaths Across America Off the top of the podcast, we dive right into the experience of military veteran and longtime professional driver David May, trucking out of the Buffalo, New York, area and speaking the range of emotion delivered by his 2024 participation in what is the annual effort of Wreaths Across America. That's the Maine-headquartered organization that for many years now has been built momentum across the nation, every December honoring fallen U.S. military members by laying wreaths on graves in ceremonies at military cemeteries. Trucking plays a big volunteer role in it, for certain, with wreath deliveries from Maine to points far afield, this year reaching nearly 5,600 sites, according to Wreaths Across America organizers: https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/Home/News/1495 The big day for the 2025 effort was this past Saturday, December 13, and for this Overdrive Radio podcast, we’re marking another big haul for participating truckers and trucking companies by revisiting David May’s experience as part of the 2024 convoy moving out from Maine toward Arlington National Cemetery for the big event held there annually. To give you an idea of the scale of that one, this year at Arlington, organizers noted, wreaths were placed on 265,000 individual headstones there through the work of 30,000 volunteers. That haul alone is a massive undertaking, no doubt. Honoring the memory of the fallen isn’t the only aim of the Wreaths organization. Here’s the goal in full: "Remember the fallen, Honor those who serve, and Teach the next generation the value of freedom." Through our conversation with David May you'll hear quite a bit of all of that -- Remember, honor, teach -- yet also a window on just what his experience of the 2024 convoy toward Arlington was like. May’s hauled day-to day for XPO going back decades to when he was with Con-way Freight before the XPO buyout,. He’s a past America’s Road Team captain, where he first learned about Wreaths Across America in its early days. In 2024, he hauled wreaths in the convoy piloting the camouflage-wrapped “workforce heroes” truck of the road team, but it’s his individual experience, the veterans met and the fallen remembered, that most stand out. That includes memorable time spent with a Vietnam veteran in-cab, and much more besides. Just a few pieces of past coverage of the Maine-Arlington convoy, and other wreaths events around the country: **2023 interview with Don Queeney, Director of Transportation for the organization: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15304674 **2022 convoy stop in Connecticut: https://overdriveonline.com/15304350 **2021 in the San Joacquin Valley, California: https://overdriveonline.com/https://www.overdriveonline.com/15286668 **2014: Trucker Vince Strupp recalls prior-years' participation in the convoy: https://www.overdriveonline.com/14887458 **2013 in Nashville, Tennessee: https://www.overdriveonline.com/14885399

As you'll hear off the top of this week's Overdrive Radio podcast, this “exit interviews” part 2 in our final run to conclude Overdrive's Trucker of the Year competition for 2025 features an all-flatbedders group. You’ll hear a bit of what some call "bygone" driver-to-driver camaraderie amongst the four owner-operators featured around -- what else -- the subject of tarping. Arkansas-headquartered Scott Smith, owner-operator of Sapphire Cartage, described some new work hauling outbound to Atlanta with overlength freight. The rates are great with permits required, and lightweight, delivering fuel savings. Yet also: tarps required: "Putting on three tarps, putting three tarps' worth of bungees, taking off three tarps, folding up, putting up three tarps," he said. "Anybody got any sympathy?" Much laughter followed, of course. Also in the podcast: **West Virginia-headquartered independent George Kincaid: https://overdriveonline.com/15743659 **Longtime Kelsey’s Trucking owner-operator Ron Kelsey, who hauls in a beautiful 1981 Peterbilt 359 repowered in the 1990s with a C15 Cat and working with two principal direct customers upwards of three decades: https://overdriveonline.com/15751895 **And Rufus Morris, out of North Carolina, leased to Material Logstics Management and for whom it’s been an eventful year for his equipment: https://overdriveonline.com/15747142 Much like the story you heard from John Treadway last week, an eariler-than-expected in-frame reared its head with a cracked head for his 2004 Peterbilt 379. Then: more troubles rose in the following weeks and months. His advice to any aspiring owner-operator: Be ready for anything, at any moment. Tough moments at roadside can be enough to make even a seasoned veteran like Morris question himself. "I've had plenty times this year when I was like, 'Man, is it worth it?'" Morris said. But taking stock further, staring at that beautiful 2004 379, and despite all of its problems, "it's a good life," he added. "Yeah, it's worth it." Just be prepared for anything. With that something of a “final thought,” as it were, from Morris, the end is in the beginning for this edition of Overdrive Radio, full speed ahead to 2026 for these four Trucker of the Year contenders, this year’s competition sponsored by Bostrom Seating, who will deliver a new seat to the winner, ultimately. Enter the Trucker of the Year competition at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker -- we're in the process of updating the form page there for 2026, but know that all entries received before the end of 2025 will be considered for the new year's program. All of the Trucker of the Year 2025 profiles you can find at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

December’s here, and it’s time for the big push through to 2026 and opportunity a new year always brings a business owner to set goals, to lay plans and start acting on them. Yet as you’ll hear in this edition of Overdrive Radio, it’s also true that in so many ways the time for all of that is now, for any small trucking business owner, at any given moment. Like a football coach responding to what the opposing team throws at his own, a quarterback changing the play at the line, successful owner-operators are nothing if not masters of the art of getting prepped for the unforeseen. It's an impossible ask of anyone in some ways, but also a reality you’ll hear through today’s talk with four Overdrive Trucker of the Year contenders for this year’s title. None less so than owner-operator John Treadway, our September Trucker of the Month. He delivered the shocking news of his pristine 1998 Peterbilt 379's October catastrophic engine failure. How might one prepare for that? Owner Treadway's long experience taught him, like others featured in this roundtable talk, the importance of the back-up plan, and not only could he afford what will ultimately be a reman Caterpillar crate engine powering the unit. The original Cat in the 1998 379 he's hopeful to rebuild with some close associates, furthermore, to in future repower his back-up power unit. That backup, a 2006 379, with plenty miles on the odometer itself, is yet another element of Treadways effective prep for the October catastrophe. It's enable him to continue serving his primary and other customers as Caterpillar works through issues with the engine replacement. His isn't the only update you'll get from owners in this podcast, where host and Overdrive Chief Editor Todd Dills put two principal questions to four owners: 1. How's business looking as we head into 2026, and have any goals set early in year 2025 been brought to fruition? 2. Reflecting on your own history trucking, what's the single best piece of advice you might deliver to new and/or aspiring owner-operators to help on the long road to success? Featured, along with Indiana-headquartered Treadway: **John Penn, our most-recent Trucker of the Month in October, hauling LTL furniture principally: https://overdriveonline.com/15770500 **Similarly LTL-focused fresh meat reefer hauler Jason Shelly, based in Pennsylvania: https://overdriveonline.com/15753418 **And two-truck dump fleet owner (with a third truck in more OTR work) Hunter Hubbard: https://overdriveonline.com/15741276 Overdrive's Trucker of the Year competition is sponsored for 2025 by Bostrom Seating -- there's a new seat on the line for the contenders. Consider this roundtable the "Exit interviews" with each ahead of announcements late this month of finalists, after the judging round. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more featured contenders.

Off the top of the Overdrive Radio podcast this week is the voice of fuel-payments provider Wex's Vice President of Global Anti-Financial Crimes William Fitzgerald, laying out a 1 in 12,000 transaction rate for detection of fraud over the company's entire fuel-payments network. That is, 1 in every 12,000 purchases are flagged as suspiscious, potentially fraudulent, and blocked in automated fashion among its millions upon millions of fuel transactions facilitated annually. Translate that incidence to the roughly 350,000 fuel transactions National Association of Small Trucking Companies President David Owen knows move through the association’s own Quality Plus fuel network any given month, and that’s right at 30 transactions being held up by the system. William Fitzgerald was speaking at NASTC's annual conference to outline the evolving landscape of fuel fraud/theft for attendees and showcase tools within Wex's (and some other card providers') networks that are increasingly successful in helping carriers of all shapes and sizes eliminate fraud's impact. Along the way, too, the company's been able to reduce the rate of so-called "false positives," legimate fuel purchases held up by the card provider's systems. Fitzgerald's well aware such hold-ups can be particularly annoying, and unproductive. Illustrating the huge financial impact of stolen fuel, though, he asked this hypothetical question to a room of NASTC conference attendees: "What would be an acceptable false-positive rate in your minds?" he asked. "How many good transactions would you be OK with me stopping to prevent a bad one?" The goal is zero false positves, of course, as Wex and other card providers calibrate a variety of techs operating in the network's background to get there, in addition to more human-focused efforts aimed at education to prevent account takeovers and the like that can bring the biggest hits to a fuel buyer’s bottom line. Results from ongoing efforts at Wex in particular have been good in recent months, he said. "We've got overall, over the last 10 months, a 25% reduction in losses, a 32% reduction in false positives," and a big increase in detection, too, he said. Those results he attributed largely to technical innovations in company’s network, some described in part in a recent paper authored by the company you'll find at this link: https://www.wexinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WEX-Closed-Loop-Fleet-Card-White-Paper.pdf But the human element in fraud prevention might be the biggest factor any size carrier can address to make the most gains in preventing losses, empowering themselves through self-education and passing that on to team members for those of you with more than just a single truck under your management. "We've seen the most yield" in fraud prevention, he said, "with education and empowerment." Fitzgerald described efforts of Wex to illustrate the kinds of schemes that might result in infiltration of its own backend, including simulated phishing attacks through targeted fake emails designed to get a user to provide access to their login data with a goal of compromising accounts. Wex sends such emails to its own employees on occasion to lure them in, thus serving an educational purpose in awareness. Their most "successful" such an effort? An offer of "free Taylor Swift tickets. Everybody clicked on that," Fitzgerald said. In the podcast, track through Fitzgerald's entire NASTC talk, tracking through those backend upgrades but also plenty more you can do to work with the company's team and tools in its system, like its SecureFuel solution, to prevent fuel theft. Likewise, should the worst, to work with law enforcement to apprehend the thieves. Mentioned in the podcast: **'Personal cyber hygiene' in age of social engineering hacks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755615 **More from NASTC's conference on insurance, ELD data: https://overdriveonline.com/15770374

This week's Overdrive Radio edition puts a wrap up our series featuring 2025 Trucker of the Year contenders with the story of Orleans, Indiana-headquartered John Penn, his one-truck business operating with authority and hauling finished furniture on multistop runs West and/or South from his home base, other brokered freight back. He’s the owner of another power unit, too, that he keeps a spare, both rigs Freightliner Cascadias he details in the podcast and in this in-depth feature about his business, where he was named the October 2025 Trucker of the Month: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15770500/trucker-of-the-month-reaps-10mpgplus-rewards-learning-growing Both Cascadia feature specs that help him achieve maximum fuel mileage -- upward of nine miles per gallon in the older unit (10-speed manual transmission) and more than 10 mpg in his current 2019 model, with the DT12 automated manual transmission. We didn’t know it when he entered our Trucker of the Year competition, but he’s also the newest member of Freightliner’s Team Run Smart group of owner-operators sharing their own successes in various ways with their Freightliner equipment for the benefit of anyone interested. Team Run Smart hadn’t yet officially intro’d him as part of the crew there when we published the above story about him. Reps confirmed he was going to be a part of it for sure, but what they didn’t tell us was they’d post his official intro video to their Youtube networks that very same day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFyerQQX7lY Find him now at his profile page on the Team Run Smart site: https://www.freightliner.com/team-run-smart/pros/john-penn/ I’d encourage you, too, to track back through all of our Truckers of the Month and Trucker of the Year contenders for 2025 at the main page for the competition: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Plenty business best practice examples there, plenty to learn from in the stories of 10 exemplary owners this year. Keep an eye out there for the 2026 competition's entry page, where you can get in the running yourself in the coming weeks. Though owner-operator Penn's modest about his success, it’s clear the owner’s doing quite a lot right with a very low operating ratio given his business’s efficiency, and with a home life that’s benefiting, too, as a result. Dive in with Penn from the very beginning, when he first got his CDL around the turn of the century, the start of a journey toward maximum trucking efficiency.

Today, a special edition of Overdrive Radio marks the federal Veterans Day holiday, commemorating the military service of so many around the United States. In the podcast, in particular, we'll honor the stories of two vets -- Army and Navy, respectively -- who are equally clear-eyed emphasizing what their service meant for their long careers in trucking business ownership. After medically retiring from the Army as an E6 Staff Sergeant following deployment to Iraq during Desert Storm trucking as convoy security, Florida-headquartered (Ocala area) owner-operator Scott Reese operates Reese Services with his own authority, utilizing a 2021 Freightliner Cascadia. Reese also runs a box truck with a driver employed for it that operates more locally. Roger Burdgette, meanwhile, is headquartered near the Savannah ports in Georgia as CEO of Podium Logistics. He's built the fleet to now 50 trucks, serving the container port but also flatbed needs of customers in the area. Both business owners happen to be beneficiaries as veterans of the SelecTrucks Freightliner-affiliated dealer network’s "Proud to Serve" benefit program for veterans, offering essentially a cash credit on purchases of power units, factory-backed warranties and more at one of the now 44 SelecTrucks locations nationwide: https://www.selectrucks.com/special-offers/veterans-discount/ That program celebrates a significant milestone in its eight-year run since Proud to Serve was launched in 2017 as a way to give back to military servicemembers among SelecTrucks customers. As Daimler Trucks Remarketing President Chris Backeberg noted, the program’s now delivered more than $1 million worth in savings to military vets. Each veteran’s used-truck purchase comes with $6,500 back with up to two options selected from: **A down payment match **A warranty upgrade **And/or new tire purchase assistance. In addition to the discount, SelecTrucks donates $500 for each qualifying truck purchase to a charitable organization supporting veterans. Total donations have reached more than $80,000 since 2022, including a $25,000 donation this year. Said Backeberg, “We’re proud to stand behind veteran entrepreneurs as they build their business. Saving these men and women over $1 million is our way of showing appreciation for their service and sacrifice.” Via the podcast, dive into conversation with Scott Reese, whose partner dealer in Jacksonville, Florida, helped him out of more than one jam in recent years. That's in addition to delivering that $6,500 discount. The dealer was particularly helpful when Reese was diagnosed with cancer some years back and had to come off the road for a time. Following Reese, Roger Burdette stresses how military service truly set him up with the self-discipline needed for a drive to entrepreneurship in trucking. The 50-truck Podium fleet isn't his first trucking-company rodeo, either, started up in 2018 after a previous fleet he grew to 30 trucks over more than a decade was sold to an interested buyer. Like Reese, he’s also benefited from the SelecTrucks "Proud to Serve" discount, with around 70% of his fleet procured from the dealer. Both men offer recognition for the importance of Veterans Day for the country, and for them specifically, too. Roger Burdette personally remember those who gave much more than himself, as he put it, when the day rolls around each Fall. "When it rolls around I really think about those who had even more sacrifice than we did," he said. "There's a different day for that," he knows. Yet "there's different degrees of sacrifice, and that's huge."

This week's edition of Overdrive Radio drops into our awards ceremony October 23, 2025, with four Small Fleet Champs -- the owners of Clifford Hay Inc., Thomasville Funiture Xpress, Turnage & Sons, and Oberman Logistics all on hand for the event in Nashville, Tennessee. Before the dinnertime program got started that fine Thursday evening, Overdrive editor Todd Dills had the chance to sit down with all of the owners, with results in this wide-raning roundtable talk around what TFX co-owner Scott Denmark pointed out was more of a rectangular table in fact. Be that as it may, the pair of Scotts (Scott Cruthis is Denmark's co-owner) is joined here by Clifford Hay and Wes Oberman, likewise Robbie Turnage, all swapping stories and biz advice in response to two principal questions: 1. What's been your biggest business challenge in recent years, and how are you working to overcome it? 2. What's the best piece of advice you might give an aspiring small fleet owner? Topics range across matters of trucking insurance hikes, investment to handle tire maintenance in-house for sizable savings and no small number of breakdown headaches and towing horror stories met head-on. Both Cruthis and Turnage own their own fifth-wheel tow hooks, giving the fleets capability to rescue a rig sidelined without getting dinged with a huge tow bill (and saving on maintenance by doing necessary work in-house,too). Turnage told the story of a near $15K tow bill for a grand total of four miles of towing for a job the tow company claimed required a rotator and a hefty "EPA clean-up fee." Turned out the tow operator didn't even own a rotator and certainly didn't use one for this particular job. Turnage found it out when he showed up in Pennsylvania with an appointment to pick his truck up, and the tow operator put him off and put him off for hours before finally relinquishing the equipment. How'd he get out of that one? Hear more about it in the podcast, along with a variety of other war stories from each of the individual owners. All are certainly doing a lot right, and with similarities amongst each other in many respects, though their operations couldn’t be more different. Turnage and Sons operates all company-owned equipment, hauling milk in big tankers. Thomasville Furniture Xpress run less-than truckload -- yes, furniture, with a mix company and owner-operator equipment. Oberman Logistics is all owner-operator, mostly platform freight run through brokerage partners, and Clifford Hay up in New York has six owned trucks and probably couldn't be more diverse in terms of trailers owned and utilized for a wide variety of freight. Along the way, hear Overdrive's Dills introduce each fleet from the stage, and plenty advice from the champs about preparing to make any big move from one truck to many. There’s also an anecdote about a 579 that gets misstated as a vintage, just 1-million-mile Pete 359 -- with plenty of surprise, laughter and obvious camaraderie amongst the owners assembled, that’s certain. A lot to glean from the long careers of these five, and here's big congrats to all four and a note of thanks for joining us and event sponsor NASTC in the effort. More about the finalists and the winners: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15770012/overdrives-2025-small-fleet-champs-tfx-oberman-come-out-on-top NASTC named its America's Best Drivers, Best Broker and Transportation Ambassadors at the conference as well, detail here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15770618/nastcs-americas-best-drivers-team-new-ambassadors-named-for-2025

"Be on-time, put out the extra effort. ... No matter what you're going to be in life, be the best." --Owner-operator John Treadway on his motivation through the years Raised to “be the best” at whatever he did, owner-operator John Treadway is clearly working hard to achieve that lofty goal with his one-truck business. It's a two-truck business, actually, with Treadway trucking with his own authority mostly in a stunningly beautiful 1998 Peterbilt 379 he calls "Teal Appeal," but with a 2006-model Pete kept as a spare to run in winter, and as a failsafe to serve his central customer. Treadway was Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for September, featured in this story by Senior Editor Matt Cole, whose long talk with Treadway makes up the bulk of this week's podcast: https://overdriveonline.com/15767883 Owner-operator John Treadway hauls flowers year-round for a greenhouse operation near his base in Kokomo, Indiana, with his Tway (prounced TEE-Way) Rose Transport, now with authority for going on a decade after some decades more leased to other companies. His story stretches back to his start trucking with the 1990 purchase of a 1985 Kenworth Liberty Edition cabover he used to haul grain with his older brother, eventually moving on to pull flatbeds and a variety of other trailers. It’s reefer work these days for the flower operation, and since we saw his tractor at MATS early this year he’s put work into a 2017 Great Dane reefer to match the lines and colors of "Teal Appeal" 1998 Pete, as you’ll hear in the podcast today. Yet so much of Treadway’s approach to trucking he traces to the time before he ever held a steering wheel, his life built in the business on top of those be-the-best values instilled at an early age along with admiration of truck drivers whose names he may have never known but from whom he garnered examples to which to aspire. Along with business brass tacks he keeps early lessons learned ever at the front his mind about what it takes to build success as a one-truck owner, and to have a little fun along the way. "One of my good friends told me a long, long time ago, 'To be an owner-operator, that's a 364-day-a year job,'" Treadway said. "You're driving through the day, you're hauling the loads, but it doesn't stop. The weekend comes, and you've got repairs to do, and then on top of that if you want to add a piece of chrome or something, you have to try to fit all that in. There's just a grind to it. You've just gotta keep grinding, and keep moving forward." Read about all of our 2025 Truckers of the Month, contenders for the annual prize of a Bostrom seat from Trucker of the Year sponsor Commercial Vehicle Group and a custom replica of the winner's tractor: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year Also in the podcast: Shout to Overdrive's Small Fleet Champs announced Thursday, October 23, at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference in Nashville with fellow finalists on hand with the hundreds assembled for the opening night dinner and program: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15770012/overdrives-2025-small-fleet-champs-tfx-oberman-come-out-on-top Keep tuned for a roundtable talk with all in attendance conducted just ahead of the event in a near-future Overdrive Radio edition. No shortage of wisdom shared amongst this group, no doubt.

This week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features the semi-annual ATBS owner-operator income benchmarking session delivered in late September by ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted. The audio contains the full presentation, but know that there's a video version accessible via the Youtube version at this link: https://youtu.be/CYxCHAb1RnY To follow along with the audio here, download a bevy of detailed slides charting cost, revenue and income trends among ATBS's tens of thousands of owner-operator clientele at this link: https://overdriveonline.com/15769723 There’s plenty in the way of trends analysis showing where we've been up to the present moment in the wider freight economy in Hosted's talk. Since the COVD run-up in freight and rates, though, we suspect most owner-operators know where that’s gone. Hosted put it pretty plainly, looking at contract freight volumes and rates at a certain point in the presentation that you’ll hear. "Now we've been contractingi in frieght volume for the last two and a half years," he said. It’s been about the longest contraction (though not always happening quickly these last years) that he and many others have ever seen. There’s hope in some ways for a turnaround, given what he called a measure of stability freight-volume-wise seen in some of the numbers lately. Likewise, hopes for a hit to trucking capacity via the Trump administration's foreign-domiciled drver credentialing rule changes -- or another factor. Not that Hosted plays much of the old prognosticating game this time around. "I keep hearing middle of next year, second half o next year," he said, but "i've been hearing that from three years now. I'm tired of saying that. I don't know when things are going to get better," fundamentally. Control what you can control, fundamentally, he added, to rein in costs and keep an eye on generating revenue above and beyond them. Hosted has made an effort in recent times to emphasize what’s know as contribution margin, a measure of total revenues incoming minus variable costs incurred. That’d be your fuel costs, tires, maintenance generally, anything you spend to keep the equipment moving down the road to generate that revenue. The contribution margin figure can be used monthly or weekly to help determine just when you’ve met your fixed costs for the same period. Fixed costs are incurred at time intervals and are what they’re called in the very name – fixed, predictable. Know your contribution margin as closely as possible and you can, on an ongoing basis, know when you’ve met your fixed costs for a given month, for instance, and all the contribution margin earned thereafter during that period is pure profit. "The important thing is when you hit that fixed cost, your profit per mile is through the roof," he said. Owner-operators think about costs, revenues and profit in so many ways, but Hosted wagers this approach could help in choosing freight, and motivating an owner-op to strike when the iron is hot, as it were, not in the freight market broadly but in the run of your own day-to-day business. ATBS is coproducer of Overdrive's Partners in Business, which you can access via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/pib The owner-operator business services provider is accessible via its website: https://atbs.com

Off the top of this week's Overdrive Radio episode one thing's clear. Longtime Alaska-based truck driver Lisa Kelly is now a business owner. That's right, in the very long time since Overdrive editor Todd Dills last spoke to her (though not the last time you read about her in Overdrive), she bought a 2019 Peterbilt 389 and leased on with a company to work Alaska's Dalton Highway (the "Haul Road," as its known): https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14874578/haul-road-to-the-himalayas-interviewing-lisa-kelly It's also the 389 she's hoping to earn money enough to either repair or replace as shown in episode 1 of the brand-new season of the History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers" franchise, back after a long hiatus. Owner-operator Kelly's got long history with the show, part of the first seasons that were filmed in Alaska after it got its start along routes partially on frozen lakes in far northern Manitoba in 2007. She couldn't talk publicly about the fleet she's leased to today, per an agreement with the owner when she decided to go back to IRT, yet she was willing to share her own business's name. "I'm Arctic Fox Trucking," she said, and yeah, there's a story there. "Back in the day when we were filming in Alaska, Season Three," she said, the Arctic Fox moniker was bestowed upon her by a young woman among the show's producers, one among many nicknames passed around for cast and crew on the show. "She thought it would be funny," Kelly added, yet "I didn't get it" at first. Finally, though, she did, perhaps when Esquire magazine dubbed her the "sexiest trucker alive" in a headline back in 2010, couple with photos of Kelly and the Kenworth she drove for well-known Alaska-headquartered Carlile Transportation. For all such attention she got back in those days, it was another quality that stood out perhaps more prominently -- a no-nonsense attitude toward the work of trucking. It all ended with her in a role as something of a de facto ambassador to the world for North American hauling. What's life been like for her since? Catch plenty more about all of that, including a good bit of time away from the road before buying that Peterbilt, in the podcast. The current "Ice Road Truckers" season -- find two episodes available for streaming today via this link: https://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers -- features a cast of two other haulers with Kelly working for Operations Manager Bill Dahn's Muskie Creek Ltd. company, hauling north on six weeks' worth of winter roads to communities otherwise cut off from land routes. The first episodes also features Harris and Sons Transportation owner and operator Shaun Harris and his sons Riley and Zach, as they survey ice that just doesn't seem to be firming up fast as usual, with the work piling up for the season west in Saskatchewan. As always for the reality-TV franchise, there’s plenty drama in those first couple episodes, offering an entertaining window into a brand of trucking that’s certainly more man v. nature than most. In the podcast, drop into Kelly's story of how she came to truck ownership some years after the end of the "Ice Road Truckers" original run, as the owner-operator takes us back to her time as a Carlile Trasportation company driver, then all that’s happened since. Short version, as it were, of a long, long story. "A lot happened, and nothing happened," she laughed, to start it off.

No news has been bigger in trucking this year than the DOT’s announcement Friday, September 26, of changes to the rules around non-domiciled CDL issuance, effective now: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15767991/fmcsa-to-force-nearly-200k-nondomiciled-cdl-holders-out-of-trucking New restrictions on issuance hold potential to limit foreign-domiciled CDL drivers' ability to work OTR in the U.S. The influx of asylum seekers into the country in recent years has meant a lot of those asylum seekers ended up getting those non-domiciled CDLs. Going forward, they won’t, unless they have an employer-sponsor visa for temporary work in the United States. The same day DOT announced the changes, likewise initial results from its ongoing audit of state CDL programs around non-domciled CDL issuance, our own Matt Cole was out at the Guilty by Association Truck Show in Joplin, Missouri, where he reported from a sort of listening session hosted at the event by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and featuring questions and commentary from owner-operators in attendance. Responses came from FMCSA’s own Senior Policy Advisor Michael Hampton. This week's episode features a good near-hour’s worth of audio from the session, and applause lines weren't hard to come by -- rare for a regulatory session, that's certain. One came fairly early on in response to a commenting owner-operator's contention that, as was noted by many Overdrive readers earlier this year, maybe a non-domiciled CDL shouldn’t even exist, particularly as an option for a non-immigrant in the country with temporary status: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15747114 Perhaps the biggest applause line, though, came when FMCSA's own Michael Hampton contended that more hours of service flexibility would result in better safety, as the agency readies two studies of flexibility enhancements we highlighted two weeks back here on the podcast: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755974 Hampton urged truckers to participate in those studies when they get rolling -- the agency will need data to help it get further changes to the split-sleeper rules, and/or a 14-hour clock pause button, across the finish line in future. Participation’s going to be paramount to analyzing safety impacts and, with any luck, truly showing that Hampton in his contention is in fact correct. As also mentioned in the podcast: **Big congrats to Overdrive's four 2025 Small Fleet Champ finalists! Recent announcement: https://overdriveonline.com/15768558 **DOT OIG's audit of oversight of CDL skills testing and training: https://overdriveonline.com/15755980 (second brief down the page)

One of the trucking industry's biggest events, the biennial Guilty by Association Truck Show at 4 State Trucks in Joplin, Missouri, is officially under way at Exit 4 off I-44. With hundreds of trucks in attendance (organizers expect 800+ to participate in the Saturday night convoy), the massive show sprawls across multiple businesses, including 4 State Trucks itself, the Joplin 44 Petro and Pilot truck stops across state highway 43, and more. No matter what your taste in trucks is, you're certain to find what you like on display. There's no shortage of antiques, cabovers, Peterbilts, Kenworths and everything in between. Most of the trucks are no doubt workers, but there are also some true showpieces on display: https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/podcast/15767972/guilty-by-association-truck-show-under-way-in-joplin In addition to the beautiful iron exhibited, there's plenty to do around the show, including big-rig burnouts, a truck and tractor pull, concerts, Trucker Olympics and more. Friday morning, officials from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration were on hand for a Q&A with attendees. See more from that next week. For now, drop into this Overdrive Radio conversation with Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole, on hand covering the show after a round of rough weather had participants hard at work day 1 Thursday, September 26. As noted in the show: **The big news from DOT around non-domiciled CDL issuance to foreign drivers: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15767991 **David Foster's 2005 W900L as pictured way back in 2017 (with rainbow): https://www.overdriveonline.com/custom-rigs/article/14891552/dave-fosters-2005-kenworth-w900l **Enter Overdrive's Pride & Polish by October 1 to compete in our own virtual truck show: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/2025-pp

How might truckers get back a measure of flexibility in the hours of service rules, such as that enjoyed by so many owner-operators of past generations? That is, the ability to split the 10-hour required rest period into two periods of any length they want. That’s the option favored by a whopping 88% of readers who responded to Overdrive polling around the subject this time last year, with results published earlier in the year showing most readers wanted the ability just to split as they saw fit, fundamentally. Since the 14-hour duty window came into play more than two ago, well before the time of electronic logging device mandate's implementation in 2017, greater duty-window and/or rest period flexibility has been owner-operators' cardinal ask of regulators when it comes to the hours of service. After trucker appreciation week last week, we might see a path forward to it. In this Overdrive Radio edition, Chief Editor Todd Dills and Matt Cole break down the details of the DOT and FMCSA's announcement to start truck appreciation week last week of two proposed pilot programs to fully test two different options for split flexibility. It’s not often we start the annual appreciation week with something other than a free soda at a truck stop or other deal from a vendor or supplier to write about. Yet that was the case for Cole last week Monday, when DOT announced formal proposals to conduct those safety-efficacy studies. One's the split-as-you-see fit option of up to 5/5-hour sleeper splits, the other a daily up-to-three-hour pause button, spot to speak, for the 14-hour clock. The news wasn't entirely unexpected, nontheless. The formal proposals had been teased back in June as part of what the DOT called a “Pro Trucker” package of efforts. The formal proposals open up a comment period on how regulators might set up and conduct the programs, each of which will be open to more than 250 drivers to participate: https://www.overdriveonline.com/hours-of-service/article/15755537/what-fmcsas-hoursofservice-flexibility-pilot-programs-could-look-like We’re certainly months out from interested participants being able to apply to take part, and given each test could take years to bring to fruition, it could be quite some time before any subsequent regulatory action is taken. That is, unless another federal body pushes the ball more quickly forward, as Cole puts it in the podcast, and "Congress were to get involved." Absent Congressional directive to take regulatory action, further hours flexibilities for all drivers aren’t likely in the cards before the next decade rolls around after these studies conclude -- depending on results, of course. That timeline takes us into whatever administration follows the current one. "Personally I don't see this as necessarily a partisan issue," said Cole. "If a Democratic Administration were to come in" come 2029, he felt FMCSA wouldn't be likely to wholesale abandon work put into potential new flexibilities. After all, some of groundwork for the 2020 split-sleeper enhancements was put in under the Obama administration. If these two studies show positive or even neutral safety impacts for participating truckers, it really get things moving toward change for the next administration's FMCSA. Where to read and comment on the proposals, through mid-November: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/17/2025-17939/hours-of-service-of-drivers-pilot-program-to-allow-commercial-drivers-to-split-sleeper-berth-time More on the 2020 split-sleeper change, which itself offered a boost in duty-pause and split flexibility: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/safety-compliance/video/15737159/significant-hos-change-fmcsas-2020-splitsleeper-provisions

This week on the podcast, the voices of two semi-finalists for Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ award: First, Robbie and Levi Turnage of Mississippi-headquartered tanker fleet Turnage and Sons, LLC. They're respectively fourth- and fifth-generation milk haulers who've made good on a business with a stable of dairymen in the region specializing in organic milk over two decades of so Robbie's grown the fleet from just a single truck, following in the footsteps his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him -- the hands-on nature of each successive generation’s training and involvement in the shop, behind the wheel, and everything else that goes along with running a trucking business have no doubt contributed to the family business' longevity, with 19-year-old Levi now fully entrenched as well. In the podcast, you'll hear the Turnages in conversation with Overdrive's own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer in the cab of Levi's 2005 Peterbilt 379 "Big Red" parked up in March at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Marhoefer wrote about the pair in a story published in July you can read here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15751311/five-generations-trucking-the-turnage-familys-longevity-secret Catch some pictures there of Big Red, too, which placed second in its class at the MATS show. Stay tuned for more reporting on the Small Fleet Champ contender in the coming weeks. Also in the podcast, fellow semi-finalist MRL Transport owner Mark Ledford, who founded and grew Red Baron Transportation to 35 trucks over 15 years starting in the early part of the decade before selling out and restarting with just one truck in 2019 as MRL. That story aired just last week at https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15753736/mark-ledfords-mrl-transport-master-class-in-trucking-rightsizing He’s up to five trucks now, with four drivers employed, and similarly gets his hands dirty behind the wheel himself, a fact key to both maintaining customer relationships spanning back decades now but also inking new business, as he tells in the podcast. Here, he takes even farther back to his origins in trucking working a dock in the 1980s, then his first OTR driving experience with a team operation. On his first run from North Carolina out to California his co-driver woke him up by turning the rig on its side in the middle of the night, memorably leaving Mark to climb out of a window and onto the cab's side, now upright, unable to find his glasses to sharpen the blurry lights all around him. Needless to say, as he notes in the podcast, he never would run team again. Meet all Overdrive's 2025 Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists and read more about them through this month via https://overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ Two Champs will be honored along with two fellow semi-finalists at Championship sponsor NASTC's annual conference October 23-25 in Nashville. More about NASTC: https://nastc.com

"I want to honor my wife and her being the 'woman behind the man behind the wheel,' which is a high calling. Our first date ... was the day I bought that 1997 W9, so she didn't know what she was getting into." --August Trucker of the Month Jason Shelly Jason Shelly starts this Part 2 of a series of Overdrive Radio episodes featuring the owner-operator with a tribute to Renita Shelly, who's been Shelly's "biggest fan," as she once told him, since the very start of his business. The truck he invokes in the quote up top and in the podcast is the very first one he purchased, when he was a company driver for Horseless Carriage Carriers in the 1990s and thinking he'd be able to lease on with the car hauler. The fact that he didn't, though, as he told in Part 1, set him off on a journey to a long-term customer and a business that has benefited from all manner of family support, including Renita's, through the years. He's striven to pay it forward in all sorts of ways, and does so here of a fashion with his emphasis on that support, key to many a truck owner-operator's success. His longtime owner-operator father, also pictured in the cover assemblage for this episode, is intimately involved in the accounting/bookkeeping and other aspects of Shelly's one-truck business, including recent work reburshing the 2017 53-foot Great Dane reefer trailer also pictured. But it's Renita he emphasizes most for all manner of sometimes intangible impacts that have nonetheless been a lynchpin of his long-term success. "It's not an easy life, schedule-wise, and just the ups and downs. And at a certain point, she knew I wasn't going to be home until she saw the whites in my eyes, because anything can happen between here and there," he said. And when it did, "she's just been so patient, so understanding." Going into the "second half of my career," he said, he's making a conscious effort to be more accommodating, too, remedy for all those times that "something or other happens at home and I'm 400 or 700 miles down the road and headed the wrong direction," which the "woman behind the man behind the wheel" bears on her own. Shelly referenced the old trucking song there. (We had a podcast episode put together by Max Heine about that one back several years ago here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15065078 ) So for this episode, a tribute, but also plenty more in the way of Shelly's advice for the next generation of owner-operators trucking. Jason and Renita Shelly are certainly making it work for their family, and diversifying investments as time goes on that ought to set them up long-term financially. Not that Jason’s got a particular eye on retirement, which we’ll also hear more about in today’s episode. As he says, "I don't look to retire, exactly. I may slow down. But biblically, there's no verse that I've ever found in the Bible that says you retire at this age" or that age. Rather, "it says to finish strong." Read more about Shelly: https://overdriveonline.com/15753418 As mentioned in the podcast, the playlist of all the episodes featuring of our Truckers of the Month for 2025, contenders for the Overdrive Trucker of the Year award: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/overdrives-2025-trucker-of-the Read about all of them: https://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

"I spend a lot of time making deliveries around here, so I have my little spots I know I can park." --Owner-operator Jason Shelly, speaking to knowledge borne of more than two decades' experience serving customers in Amish markets on the East Coast Those words were among the first owner-op Jason Shelly spoke when he talked to Overdrive Editor Todd Dills in early August attendant to reporting on his longtime one-truck business, Overdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Month for August: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15753418/trucker-of-the-month-jason-shellys-multistop-reeferhaul-niche He'd gotten parked up for the call mid-run on his regular route through the Washington, D.C., area, among the many routine destinations for his multistop reefer-haul business. It sets the scene, as it were, but also demonstrates the expertise he's built through consistency through the years, through specialization in that now 20-plus-year run loaded with fresh meat bound for those Amish markets. In this week's Overdrive Radio edition, sit in with Shelly as he tells the story of how he proved his invaluable nature to the customers starting with a partner serving a premium pork producer, then following through with consistent customer service as demand grew and grew and grew for the product over those decades. Headquartered in Pennsylvania in the town of Telford today, owner-operator Shelly's legacy is certainly a work in progress. He's got plenty of working years ahead of him, but he's been nothing if not outgoing in his efforts to lend the benefit of expertise to those coming up behind him. As experience has shown, those relationships then grow to the point of mutual business benefit, too, as the Trucker of the Month feature about Shelly last week illustrated. Owner-operator Kris Bair, a decade and more Shelly's junior, calls him a mentor, no doubt, a sounding board for ideas and questions. Bair also bought his first truck, a restored 1980 A model Kenworth, from Shelly, with private financing worked out between the both men. For the very brief moment Shelly thought he was going to be potentially getting entirely out of trucking when he and his business partner sold to a larger operation, Bair then traded that W900A back to Shelly for his longtime runner, a 2000 W900 outfitted with a custom Double Eagle big bunk. Does Shelly still have that W900A in his stable today? Dills asked the owner-operator. "I upgraded and financed it for another" young trucker looking to get his start in business. "I'm not looking to get in the finance business" by any stretch, said Shelly, "but I figure everybody needs to get started, and I had some really good guys in my life that helped me get started." He's been able to be that helping hand up the ladder, so to speak, for the generations of owners behind him "several times over the years," he added. Hear his story, in his own words, in this Part 1 of our talk with Shelly on the podcast today. Shelly's Trucker of the Month nod for August puts him in the running for the 2025 Trucker of the Year award, sponsored for the year by Bostrom Seating, who’s putting a new seat on the line for the ultimate winner. You can enter your own or nominate another deserving business for the award at https://OverdriveOnline.com/toptrucker.

This week's Overdrive Radio podcast is a re-air for owner-operators and other truckers on the occasion of the 2025 Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance Brake Safety Week inspection blitz. Get over to OverdriveOnline.com for an updated list of our Top 10 toughest states for brakes violations, to get a bit of a clue into where you might expect inspectors’ scrutiny of braking systems to be most intense this coming week: https://www.overdriveonline.com/csas-data-trail/article/15753592/10-toughest-states-for-truck-brake-inspections-as-blitz-arrives Brake Safety Week runs August 24-31, and along with reporting around brake-system inspections there for this episode we revisit a talk with Fleet Safety Services’ Jeff Davis delivered at the 2023 annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. Davis offered time-honored ways fleets and owner-operators can avoid the inspection to start with. Even in an inspection-blitz week like this one, fundamentals still apply. And keeping on top of maintenance -- particularly with regard to lights -- is a big part of it, but there’s more to it than that. So we’ll just let the tape roll on the past episode this week. Keep in mind it was released ahead of the Spring 2024 Roadcheck event, initially. There are plenty references to that now-bygone inspection blitz event throughout, but nonetheless plenty to chew on from Davis. More brakes-related resources at OverdriveOnline.com/15753592