This edition of Overdrive Radio follows up with Andre Jackson, owner-operator with a business partner of the one-year-old Midnight Xpress small fleet, based down in Mississippi (partner in the business, owner-op Donte Ogletree, is based in Atlanta). Regular listeners will remember late last summer when Jackson was the principal guest on the podcast telling the story of his comeback from multiple heart attacks to where he is today, on his own with his authority and a small trucking company that, ...
Jan 18, 2019•26 min
A talk here with the owner of and a contractor to Southern California-based Angus Transportation, a now three-truck business owned and operated by Jimmy Nevarez. Leased owner-operator Darril Lightburn is in a percentage-type comensation arrangement there as an independent contractor, and Overdrive spoke with he and Nevarez both given latter’s past experience hauling rail intermodal containers in the region where they're based, attendant to a feature you’ll see in the February issue of Overdrive ...
Jan 11, 2019•30 min
Take a look back on 2018 and, viewed through the lenses of time and the myriad of conversations and voices heard on the Overdrive Radio podcast, 2018 might well be dubbed the year of ticky-tack and more serious issues related to the implementation of, what else, the electronic logging device mandate. Owner-operators’ adjustments in light of that rule, which started being enforced in a significant way on April 1 of 2018, ride over almost the entirety of the top 10 most-listened to episodes here, ...
Dec 27, 2018•47 min
This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features Overdrive Senior Editor James Jaillet, who penned the piece we suspect many of you noticed in the last couple weeks at OverdriveOnline.com, or in the December print magazine, about new enforcement heat on emissions regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to post-2006 heavy duty diesel engines. The story was spurred on by a particular case that caught everybody’s attention way back in June, when a shop in Pennsylvania...
Dec 14, 2018•27 min
Owner-operator Scott Hampton pulled hoppers before transitioning to the operation he's in today, which he describes as his "flower gravy train" doing multi-drop distribution runs for shipper Dallas Johnson Greenhouse in Council Bluffs, Iowa, south to a variety of stores this time of year. When we talked for what is the latest edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast a couple weeks back, he'd hopped around the Oklahoma City area making deliveries with poinsettias in a reefer, a typical run for this...
Dec 07, 2018•31 min
Beware what you sign, owner-operators, when getting set up with a broker. So notes Transportation attorney Hank Seaton, in conversation about the curious case of a Florida-based three-truck fleet who reached out about what it saw as the strange treatment of two loads her company hauled earlier this year for Bennett International Group, both as yet unpaid. Seaton describes brokers' "right to offset" clauses in contract that should be avoided -- they give the broker the right to hold payments to o...
Dec 03, 2018•38 min
In this edition Overdrive Radio, St. Louis mother Sarah Welsh details how the trucking community, particularly a variety of owner-operators among it, has helped foster her 12-year-old son Robbie's passion for so many things trucking -- and particularly: "meeting drivers to talk about their trucks." A young man of my own heart, as it were. Also in the podcast, we’ll hear from a man I bet young Robbie Welsh would love to meet himself. We’ll make it a tale of two Robbies, as it were, in this editio...
Nov 19, 2018•21 min
So just how did Daniel and Phyllis Snow's 1996 Freightliner Classic XL get to be called 'The Goose'? Here in this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, the independent owner-operators tell that story, which involves their son's 1999 Classic 'The Duck', too. Also: A bit of stumping for the importance of small business in trucking from Ray Martinez, part of his address at the annual meeting of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville November 1.
Nov 09, 2018•49 min
"The winds of change" are afoot at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said FMCSA chief Ray Martinez in his opening keynote at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies November 1. The three-day event is ongoing in Nashville, Tenn. Leadership at the Department of Transportation on up to the President of the United States, he added, "wants us to work with the regulated community," he added, going on to emphatically validate an oft-repeated statisti...
Nov 02, 2018•35 min
In this week’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, we take a run through Hurricane Michael’s devastating effects on the Florida panhandle north through clear to Albany, Ga., where 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds persisted in the fast-moving storm well after landfall. With all the devastation, for some owner-operators new opportunities arise, as regular listeners and readers of Overdrive well know. In this edition we talk more about front-line FEMA/state shuttle relief operations like the one Fl...
Nov 01, 2018•43 min
Just a couple weeks out from Veteran’s Day November 11, we walked through recent additions to BlackOut Freightliner veterans-tribute and memorial truck and owner Chuck Timbrook’s formalizing of the operation as a nonprofit organization, some new involvement in NASCAR and other racing events for Timbrook, and more relating to the rig two years after Timbrook's heart surgery sidelined him from commercial hauling. Toward the end, too, a little audio from a talk with Wisconsin-based small fleet owne...
Oct 26, 2018•30 min
In this Overdrive Radio edition we’re talking truck parking with some of the insights on parking advocacy and brass-tacks on-highway planning delivered as part of the parking panel we hosted at the Great American Trucking Show in August. You probably saw Overdrive’s James Jaillet’s report on the panel in September, but this bit of audio gives you a window into the discussion, valuable for anyone I’d imagine who has to think hard about parking along their lanes. Most of you in this current post-E...
Oct 19, 2018•34 min
A few voices from participants in "That's a big 10-4 on D.C." last week from the National Mall. Owner-op Doug Hasner explains the rationale behind his own involvement, and updates the status of the charges filed against him after he was tased by police in April during a Constitution Ave. demonstration (all charges dropped). Todd Campbell of Ohio argues that a qualified positive for truckers in the market rates effects of the mandate is a negative for consumers, and in a mailbag round readers pos...
Oct 09, 2018•27 min
Since being featured on the cover of Overdrive in February of 2013, Bolton, Mississippi-based owner-operator Andre Jackson in the last year has completed a more than five-year journey through adversity to success in business ownership with a business partner, Donte Ogletree of Atlanta, the two operating under their own authority with two power units as Midnight Express. In this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, Jackson tells what happened to him following his appearance on the magazine's c...
Sep 26, 2018•30 min
This edition of Overdrive Radio rounds up three distinct parts of the Partners in Business seminars held last month at the Great American Trucking Show, with presentations by ATBS President Todd Amen, radio host and former small fleet owner-operator Kevin Rutherford, and Richard DeForest, also with ATBS and a longtime PIB presenter. 1) Amen begins with a quick take on current conditions in trucking relative to the wider economy and continues into the weeds with some valuable data against which y...
Sep 21, 2018•40 min
This Overdrive Radio edition is a triptych of sorts: this edition is threefold – 1. Owner-operator Allen Kelly of Pennsylvania runs through some of the particulars on the “That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C.” event coming up, when else, on October 4 in Fredericksburg, Va., and Washington, D.C. 2: Stevens Transport driver and RoadTestedLiving.com proprietor Tom Kyrk run through his in-cab cooking demos and a recipe that’s part of a sweepstakes you can get involved in with a chance to win $2,000 through Mon...
Sep 14, 2018•30 min
A run through Bill Weaver’s new all-truckin' 'Burnin’ the Old School Down' record, recorded in part with members of a band called the Stone Creek Four out of Kingsport, Tennessee, with whom Weaver performed three nights running at the Great American Trucking Show a couple weeks back now in Dallas. That's where we talked with him for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, burning through a few of the tracks on the new record, complete with Weaver’s own commentary on the genesis of many of t...
Sep 07, 2018•21 min
From FMCSA's Aug. 25-held public listening session on hours of service reforms: Owner-operators take to the mic to make their recommendations and anecdotes pertaining to the agency's review of hours of service regs.
Sep 03, 2018•22 min
As it happened on Friday, Aug. 24, of the 2018 Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, this week's Overdrive Radio podcast takes you through the music and people who were a part of the fifth annual Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search: emcee Tony Justice, opener and past talent search competitor Paul Marhoefer, and this year's entrants Benford "B.J." Williams, James Nelson, and winner Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
Aug 30, 2018•36 min
Paul Marhoefer performed this original track at the 2018 edition of Overdrive/Red Eye Radio's Trucker Talent Search at the Dallas Great American Trucking Show. His performance opened the 2018 edition of the competition, eventually won by Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
Aug 29, 2018•5 min
Paul Marhoefer performs the track that got him into the 2015 final round of Overdrive/Red Eye Radio's Trucker Talent Search. His performance opened the 2018 edition of the competition, eventually won by Mandi Jo Pinheiro.
Aug 29, 2018•4 min
Owner-operator Mandi Jo Pinheiro -- in a team with her husband, William -- won the Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search 2018 competition with this performance of an original tune crafted after a solicitation of the community of drivers asking about their favorite route to truck — and why. Read more about the track via this link:https://www.overdriveonline.com/idaho-independent-wins-trucker-talent-search-with-heartbeat-original/
Aug 27, 2018•8 min
Accelerated, Inc., driver James Nelson live from the Trucker Talent Search at 2018's Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.
Aug 27, 2018•4 min
LaVergne, Tenn.-based Ryder Integrated Logistics driver B.J. Williams live from the Trucker Talent Search, which happened August 24 at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.
Aug 27, 2018•3 min
Tony Justice emcee'd the 2018 Trucker Talent Search, which happened August 24 at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. He also performed this track from his "Brothers of the Highway" record, written with his wife, Misty.
Aug 27, 2018•4 min
This track, from Tony Justice's "Apple Pie Moonshine" record, was one of two Tony Justice performed while emcee'ing the 2018 Trucker Talent Search at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas while the judges worked.
Aug 27, 2018•3 min
This run through recent messages on Overdrive Radio's podcast message line reveals what many drivers want out of any hours of service revision -- options to stop the 14-hour clock without additional complication, though ideas for how to get there show some variation.
Aug 24, 2018•9 min
In a wide-ranging but broad interview, FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez spoke with Overdrive in an exclusive interview about trucking industry pain points, the ongoing transition to electronic logging devices, evaluating hours of service reforms, implementation of automated vehicle tech and what he hopes to accomplish as FMCSA's administrator.
Aug 22, 2018•13 min
In this Overdrive Radio special editor, you'll hear a little more directly from each of this year's Overdrive/Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search finalists – Mandi Jo Pinheiro, James Nelson and B.J. Williams, all of whom were interviewed by Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley in advance of the final competition. That will take place Friday, Aug. 24, at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. For those attending the show, don’t miss it –- it’s scheduled for a 3 p.m. start on the America Strong Stage ...
Aug 20, 2018•23 min
If you’ve ever had the experience of a starter going bad at ever-decreasing intervals — the first one on the truck from the factory lasted 500,000 miles, the next one 200,000, etc. — you could be experiencing a phenomenon noted by Danial Mustafa, TA Truck Centers’ Director of Technical Services. Absent the right diagnostic equipment to troubleshoot conditions all along the loaded-up electrical and electronic systems of modern diesels, too many technicians, he says, essentially throw parts and co...
Aug 14, 2018•43 min
