Overdrive Radio

Off the top of the podcast this week, the voice of February Trucker of the Month Adam Mackey, headquartered in Mustang, Oklahoma, about his "Aftersolo" Youtube channel where's been documenting his journey through owner-operated trucking since 2022. Named after his dog, Solo, whom he'd sadly lost around that time, Aftersolo features plenty in the way of DIY care he's put into the Freightliner Columbia and Utility flatbed that carry the Mosermackey Trucking business forward. The channel is a remarkable repository for various and sundry of the owner-operator’s maintenance and modification projects on the Columbia, likewise all manner of other topics around the business. First things first, though. It's been a week, to say the least, in the world oil markets. If you’ve been paying attention to OverdriveOnline.com you’ll note an update that diesel prices passed $4/gal. early last week in Nashville where Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills is headquartered, fast on the heels of U.S. and Isreali strikes on Iran: https://overdriveonline.com/15818628 Today (Monday, March 9) Dills reports predictions of a "runaway market" in that story a week ago appear correct. "We’ve passed five dollars for a gallon of diesel here" in Nashville, Dills says, "well above six out on the West Coast of course and elsewhere." If you’re in a leased operation or working with shippers where you benefit from fuel-surcharge rate adjustments, here’s hope those are updating quickly to cover rapidly increasing costs. If you’re working with brokers, don’t be shy about educating them in your negotiations, such as they may need it, about cost-offset needs in the rate. For many independents like Adam Mackey, it's surely been a week full of that, and it's a real shame the diesel run-up has come when it has, given the gains in freight-market strength in the last several months. This all certainly throws a wrench in those gears: https://overdriveonline.com/15818852 Keep tuned to OverdriveOnline.com for more quite soon on how quickly spot markets adjusted, or not, to last week’s dramatic run-up. For the bulk of the podcast, hear independent Mosermackey Trucking business owner Adam Mackey’s story, in his own words, also chronicled in this feature attendant to his February Trucker of the Month nod a couple weeks back: https://overdriveonline.com/15817984 In business with authority since before the COVID pandemic, after years hauling as a company driver with Old Dominion Freight Line and some other outfits before that, Mackey's trucked with authority from the very start and has focused most on flatbeds loads, filling in with power-only work of various types, too. He’s set up with a go-to broker he’s built a solid relationship with for much of his oil-field-related freight today, sure to benefit at least from oil market run-ups in the short term, despite added costs for his and every other trucking business out there. Mentioned in the podcast: **Enter your own or another deserving owner-operator business to compete for the 2026 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker **Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer

In this week's edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast, catch the address delivered by, and Q&A with, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chief Derek Barrs at the annual transportation symposium of the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association, held last week in Birmingham, Alabama. Barrs touches on quite a lot, including the last-week-introduced Dalilah Law that might cement the FMCSA’s preferred approach to limiting non-domiciled CDLs for non-citizens but that also casts a wide net on CDL recertifications: https://overdriveonline.com/15818235 His talk came the morning of the very day, Feb. 26, that petitioners challenging that non-domiciled final rule filed a formal request for a stay of the March 16 effective date, pending court review. While Barrs didn't note the new filing or the past court action against the prior rule version, he cast the agency's moves on CDL qualifications as fundamentally necessary. "We are taking steps from our non-domiciled CDL process to make sure that we strengthen that so that when we issue that, we're not issuing to someone who has not been truly vetted," Barrs said, "and we're not giving driver's licenses to individuals who are only supposed to be in this country for two years but we're allowing them to have CDLs for eight or nine years. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life" -- a reference to evidence uncovered by federal auditors in a variety of states of legal presence and CDL term mismatches. After the applause died down, Barrs added, "That is a one-size-fits-all." That's not how the likes of owner-operator Jorge Rivera Lujan and his fellow litigants see it, however. Their challenge to the FMCSA’s non-domiciled CDL final rule noted quite a different dynamic in FMCSA’s safety justification for its rule, which would invalidate Rivera’s CDL eligibility. A non-domiciled CDL holder for many years now, owner-operator Rivera, unlike many more recent arrivals to the country, has lived virtually his entire life in the U.S. after his undocumented parents brought him to California. He enjoys the protections of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program, as listeners heard with our talk with Rivera a few weeks back: https://overdriveonline.com/15816105 He and fellow litigants asked the court to stay the rule pending review, generally arguing the agency paints the situation of non-domiciled CDL holders today with too broad a brush, Rivera a principal example. Hear much more from Barrs about the agency's perspective in the podcast, likewise potential upcoming rulemakings around electronic-logging-device and training-provider certification, "chameleon carrier" enforcement and more. As mentioned in the podcast: **Long Haul Paul pays tribute to Travis "The Snakeman" Wammack, forever memorialied in none other than the them of Overdrive Radio. ****Arkansas' HB 1745: https://overdriveonline.com/15742569 **Dalilah Law: https://overdriveonline.com/15818340 **DOT/FMCSA press conference week prior to Barrs' talk: https://overdriveonline.com/15817793 **Lawsuit challenging non-domiciled CDL rule: https://overdriveonline.com/15818372

We're getting ready for big Mid-America Trucking Show next month, March 26-28 at the Louisville Convention Center, and ready to host our Trucker of the Year and cover all manner of the various goings on at the event. It's a big undertaking, from set-up to roll-out of the custom-truck show in the Paul K. Young Memorial competition to federal and state regulatory panels, trucking-business discussions and all the rest happening at the huge event: https://overdriveonline.com/tag/mats Yet we’ve got help from a bit of a not-so-secret weapon who this year happens to be an integral part of the official MATS programming. He’s the player of and songwriter behind much of the music you hear under the voices on Overdrive Radio week-in-week-out, the man we’ve featured here too many times to count and whom regular readers will also know from his stories and tall tales, interviews, oral histories of OTR drivers of all stripes, and so much more all published under the Overdrive Extra banner at OverdriveOnline.com: https://overdriveonline.com/14865330 That writer, that performer, that veritable sage of the road, Long Haul Paul Marhoefer, will feature with others during the Friday night concert at MATS this year. He’s got a couple of records upcoming, too, set for release in the coming weeks: One is archival from 1994, previously unreleased material from an embryonic stage of LHP's evolution as a songwriter he's calling "1994: The Lost Tapes." Then "The After Party Sessions" features live recordings from night shows at various trucking events over the last several years, most held in the custom-outfitted venue trailer of Brandon Carpenter that is the Old Iron Bar. Off the top of the podcast, a bit of taste of that live record via a track that is the very first of Marhoefer’s we ever heard at Overdrive, when he competed in Overdrive’s Trucker Talent Search music competition more than 10 years ago now: https://overdriveonline.com/14888649 He’d go on to place second that year. And his star rose so quickly among owner-operators and drivers in the aftermath that he never competed again -- no doubt in our minds he'd have won it had he. But he became a real fixture in performances around the competitors after that, alongside copious writing and reporting he’s done for Overdrive since, all with a clear desire to tell the stories of others with care, with faith to the their voices and no small sense of empathy for the struggles we all endure. LHP brings all of that to his songwriting as well. He’s endured plenty himself in life and trucking, as he memorably chronicled as host of our Over the Road podcast back in 2020, which saw air in partnership with the Radiotopia podcast network: https://www.overdriveonline.com/t/4405867 Don’t miss his performance at MATS, yet if that show’s just not in the cards for you this year, know that he’ll be out at a variety of other events throughout the year, though somewhat limited compared to prior years given his father, near Madison, Wisconsin, has needed home care that he and his siblings and other family members have been coordinating. The "long haul" in LHP remains a reality for Marhoefer, if he does call his trucking career at this stage a kind of semi-retirement. He still hauls for Ohio-headquartered Moeller Trucking and lives with his wife, Denise, in Losantville, Indiana, the pair an undisputed force in trucking music and culture. In the podcast, he talks through tracks from both the new records as well as 2023 and 2024’s “Legends of the Lost Highway” and “Floodwaters and Fires” records, respectively. Sit back, relax, and enjoy. Hope to see you at MATS. New records should be available around the time of MATS: https://www.longhaulpaulmusic.com/ Marhoefer's chronicle of his near-death encounter with a set of runaway duals in 2023: https://overdriveonline.com/15304967 More at the head of our Music to Truck By playlist: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/music-to-truck-by-no-1

In this week’s edition of Overdrive Radio, drop in with our first Trucker of the Month for the year, West-Virginia-headquarterd Top Notch Transport and its owner-operator Patrick White. White trucks today in a beautiful 2001 Peterbilt 379 hauling a variety of equipment on a step deck, and here tells a story of perseverance through accidents and injuries, and building a team around him to excel despite the barriers fate’s thrown at him. It’s in response to a question from Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole that White emphasized the gratitude he felt to his own team, most notably his wife, Ashlyn, now managing many aspects of the business: https://overdriveonline.com/15815895 Cole asked White for his best piece of advice for new and/or aspiring owner-operators. White duly came with this -- no-nonsense, to the point: "Don't give up, don't listen to negative people, and learn everything you can from the old guys" who've done it all before, owner-operator White said. But he didn't leave it there. "Have a supportive wife, or somebody that is there for you, even if it's just a friend," he said, adding of Ashlyn White, who nominated him for the 2026 Trucker of the Year award: "She's the rock, she's the foundation of the business. She really is." As with so many of our Trucker of the Year contenders through the years, Trucker should well be plural in this case for the team behind the Whites’ Top Notch Transport, trucking with authority now for getting on a decade. Ashlyn not only handled tarping and more for Patrick while he was recovering a broken leg last year, more routinely she can and does do pretty much "everything but drive," White noted, from dispatching to handling "all the paperwork and compliance for the business." Hear contending Truckers of the Year Patrick and Ashlyn White's story in this week's Overdrive Radio podcast. Nominate your own or another deserving owner-operator business for the 2026 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

In this week's Overdrive Radio, part 2 of our series honoring our Trucker of the Year, John Penn, for the big win for 2025. Part 1, ICYMI: https://overdriveonline.com/15815690 In this edition, Penn details his approach to maintenance with an experiment he's conducted to extend oil drain intervals beyond the manufacturer-recommended 75,000 miles for his 2019 Freightliner Cascadia. Also: You'll hear about Penn's close attention to customer opportunity, and keys to prevention when it comes to the maintenance issues with emissions system in the Cascadia -- no "deleted" emissions here. He’s running with all the sensors and the diesel particular filter, the diesel exhaust fluid dosing, and the rest, and hitting big fuel-efficiency numbers we detailed in the last episode featuring him. Above 10 mpg for a lifetime average is certainly nothing to sniff at, but has he been plagued with sensor failures and other problems common to emissions-equipped diesels? The answer is not really, though he’s had some minor issues for certain. Part of his success on that front starts with his approach to the used market for such trucks to begin with -- with a keen eye not just on a prospective purchase's miles for previous-life wear and tear, but engine hours, too. The lower the hours, the less the unit’s prior owner likely idled the rig -- one of the big killers of emissions equipment in modern trucks in his view. Penn, despite his late-model equipment, might well qualify among the oldest of the old-school in that regard. As he put it about his own idling practice: "This piece of machinery is feeding us and keeping a roof over our head," Penn noted, "so I want to treat it the best I can. I will not idle, ever. I don't care how hot it is." That's right, even in Texas in mid-summer, where he finds himself often enough at the end of one or another of his LTL furniture runs. "I don't have an APU or anything," he added, but he does utilize a fan and his truck's window screens. He’s comfortable with the tradeoff. "I'd rather put my truck's health in front of my comfort," he said, laughing. He does run with a fuel-fired heater for those dangrously cold temps, but it’s safe to say Trucker of the Year John Penn is one tough customer when it comes to downtime OTR. In the podcast, dive into new opportunities he’s set himself up for with diligent, always-on customer service and networking. "You never know when an opportunity is going to pop up," he said, about potential new direct freight opportunites he details here. And he's made great strides, too, paying his growing experience forward to peers. There's good possibility of a bit of expansion for his one-truck JP Transport business as soon as this quarter, with addition of a leased owner he's really bonded with as a back-and-forth sounding board for trucking information, knowledge, advice. The like-minded pair may soon make for a great two-truck hauling team in JP Transport. Enter the 2026 Trucker of the Year competition: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

"There's a lot of loopholes in a lot of places, systematically, but they're blaming the driver for everything." --owner-operator Jorge Rivera Lujan, about the federal non-domiciled CDL rule changes and what he feels is misplaced curtailment of credentialing, and similarly misplaced public attitudes toward non-citizen CDL holders Off the top of this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, an introduction to Utah-headquartered one-truck independent owner-operator Jorge Rivera Lujan. As hinted at in the quote above, he speaks to views of flaws in the FMCSA's September Interim Final Rule that would (and already has in some ways) severely restrict non-domiciled CDL issuance to a variety of classes of non-U.S. citizens. Those include asylum seekers in immigration limbo and many others. The rule seeks to cut off access to a CDL even for folks like him. Rivera Lujan's a recipient of the protections offered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program since near the time it became policy in 2012, as you’ll hear. If the owner-operator's name sounds familiar, that’s because he is the named plaintiff in the title of the court challenge to the non-domiciled rule, filed shortly after he and many other non-domiciled CDL holders realized that under the terms of the rule, they wouldn’t be able to renew their licenses or get another kind of CDL to continue their work. In his case, it was a direct threat to work and business he's done now for more than a decade. Rivera Lujan has been in the U.S. since he was brought here at pre-school age by his parents. The owner-operator’s younger brother is in trucking, too, with a small fleet now that’s a separate businesss. The younger brother enjoys a key difference from Rivera Lujan -- the brother was born here, and is thus a U.S. citizen. Aside from some side non-trucking business, Rivera Lujan fundamentally is like so many among Overdrive's principal owner-operator readers with motor carrier authority. "I have one truck, and I have some direct customers," he said, "because who says you have to use brokers all the time?" Jorge Rivera Lujan’s in agreement with many around trucking that the English proficiency standards should be enforced, yet he feels in the wider public's imagination ELP problems are blamed on the non-domiciled CDL as if they are one in the same. He feels that too many are painting non-domiciled CDL holders in the country today with a too-broad brush. Are there problems with many such CDL holders’ licenses extending beyond their legal stay in the country? Sure, as has been readily demonstrated. Do non-domiciled CDL holders exist who shouldn’t be hauling over-the-road because their English skills aren't sufficient for safe operation or for other reasons? Again, sure, but one might say the same about plenty native-born citizens with CDLs who could use a lot of additional training, he feels. Fundamentally he feels it's not sufficient reason to curtail most non-domiciled CDL issuance, and too many seem willing to just throw long-term U.S. residents like him and plenty other documented visitors -- who pay taxes, who have legal presence and in his case have built businesses over many years -- under the proverbial bus. He has a lot to say generally about immigration, about his own path toward as-yet-unrealized citizenship, and the trucking markets writ large post-COVID. Likewise: where he feels regulators might best focus their attention when it comes to credentialing -- rather than dropping bombs on the very end of the CDL-issuance food chain: the driver. So far, the federal court seems to agree. As mentioned in the podcast: **N.C. put on notice by FMCSA for non-domiciled CDL problems: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15814284 **Jorge Rivera Lujan v. FMCSA contends non-domiciled rule unlawful: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15769818 **Further reading via this Overdrive Radio post: https://overdriveonline.com/15816105

A round of applause is due for Overdrive’s 2025 Trucker of the Year, selected from a field of 10 semi-finalist Trucker of the Month honorees, then three finalists. Off the top, one of the freight partners of the winning independent lauded the owner-operator for core strengths of the owner in her day-to-day work he does for a dedicated customer of the brokerage and small fleet Rankin & Sons. "I can't think of anyone who deserves it as much as he does," said Jeanna Bean of the winner, Overdrive 2025 Trucker of the Year John Penn. We also spoke with a close associate of Penn, Schneider-leased owner-operator Kevin O’Sullivan of Arizona, who recognized the real strength of the competitive field of all of our 2025 Truckers of the Month, especially the two fellow finalists. "There was a lot of good competition," said O'Sullivan. "He came out on top, and I'm glad he did. That man is a wealth of knowledge and, everything he's learned the good and bad, he's definitely not afraid to put it out there and help other people." If you followed the 2025 competition, you'll remember owner-operator John Penn's story, competition judges in the final round praising Penn for qualities shared by his fellow finalists – drive, clear focus on long-term business stability, mechanical aptitude, and so much more: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15770500 What may well set him apart, though, is all he’s done to take advantage of what contemporary engines and drivetrains can help deliver -- maximum fuel economy, with Penn hovering near and occasionally above 11 miles per gallon routinely in his 2019 Freightliner Cascadia. It shows in his one-truck business’s very-low operating ratio. Penn hauls LTL furniture with own authority as JP Transport, those outbound dedicated runs for the Rankin & Sons broker’s customer, whom he treats like his own. He's hard at work taking advantage of return-load opportunities coming back toward home in Orleans, which you'll hear more about in a follow-up Overdrive Radio edition. In this episode, John Penn gives credit where credit's due, telling the stories of the men who mentored him early in trucking, the woman who's been with him every step of the way, and others who inspire him today -- including competitors Ron Kelsey and Jason Shelly. "I was shocked, first of all, honored," Penn said of learning of the win, particularly alongside Kelsey and Shelly. Both owners are, simply put, "the top of the heap." Read about both Ron Kelsey and Jason Shelly here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15774237 And know that Penn’s a pretty modest guy -- his business is pretty special in its own right likewise his willingness to share what he’s learning with others in an ongoing dialog about just what can be done -- long as it makes sense from a biz perspective. As O’Sullivan put it at a certain point in our conversation, referencing Penn’s fuel-mileage excellence in particular, "he's certainly set the bar high for the rest of us." O'Sullivan offered three words to describe his friend, mentor and potential future busines partner: Informative, genuine, down-to-earth, qualities that underpin Penn’s two-decade odyssey to stability and profit with authority. With the win come a new Bostrom seat from the program sponsor, likewise a scale-model version of his aerodynamic 2019 Freightliner Cascadia by Eston Hoffman of Hoffman Mechanical Design. Plenty bragging rights, too, for the time to come. In the podcast, Penn tells his story with appreciation for the people who’ve been there setting him straight on the course to success, giving credit where credit's due. Enter your own or another owner-operator business you admire for the 2026 competition: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

"These are very entrepreneurial people, and very smart. And at this level, it's a business." --Wex Fleet One's William Fitzgerald Of the top of this Overdrive Radio episode, Fitzgerald, over the Wex company’s anti-crime efforts, made reference to just how organized the rings perpetrating a variety of scams all around the trucking industry have gotten. And the money involved -- money you want to keep, whether it’s a piece of freight transaction with a broker, money in your business accounts used to fraudulently buy fuel or steal freight, or one of the many other flavors of fraud you’ll hear touched on in this week's podcast. At the annual National Association of Small Trucking Companies conference, a panel convened to offer perspectives on crime, aimed at answering the question of just what we mean when we talk about "freight fraud." Too often, leaders around the industry and regulatory bodies tend to lump all manner of crimes in that bucket. We saw it to an extent again with news last week about the Department of Transportation’s intent to utilize AI tools against it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15814889 Overdrive Executive Editor Alex Lockie's report there delved into ways experts believe automated systems could be used for recognition of bad actors, yet specifics in DOT Deputy Secretary Steven Brabury's talk were few and far between. (Keep tuned for follow-ups as Lockie keeps ears to the ground for federal responses to follow-up questions sent to DOT.) For NASTC President David Owen, It was one woman’s work around an old but ever-evolving issue -- that of "reincarnated" or "chameleon" carriers gaining authority over and over and over to outrun safety-record issues -- that got him thinking more closely about how the association might help small carriers of all stripes with education about and mitigation of all manner of frauds. Owen brought writer and researcher Danielle Chaffin into NASTC as Senior Sales Engineer following work mapping out numerous authorized entities she could link to each other in the registration system, as others like Dale Prax have done. She could see fairly simple, she felt, patterns of misrepresentation bad actors utilize. In enforcing the rules against such entities, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration seems to date reactive. A crash happens, FMCSA sees the employing carrier has reincarnated once or multiple times, and shuts them down. That seemed to be the case after the triple-fatal crash of Harjinder Singh. FMCSA shut down his employing carrier soon after that crash came to light: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15753590 If enforcement efforts could recognize a chameleon-type operation before such a disastrous event could even occur, though, would certainly be welcomed by most legit trucking companies. It's heartening to see DOT leaders at least paying lip service to putting systems in place to help. With the most high-profile crashes, for all the focus on CDL drivers behind the wheel, non-domiciled or not, all are employed somewhere. There's no shortage of analysis concluding many such employers are running around the normal hoops through which good carriers small, large and in between must jump to stay within the bounds of the rules to sustain real, legitimate business. Chameleon-type operations represent but one of the myriad types of frauds perpetrated on legitimate truckers and the American public. Panelists run through a variety of schemes and ways to tackle them head-on: Resources: **Cargo theft prevention: https://overdriveonline.com/15769312 **Recognizing double brokers, vetting systems: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15707529 **Identity theft: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15708218 **Wex's William Fitzgerald's fuel-fraud talk: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15772651 **'Cyber hygiene' and social-engineering hacks: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15755615

Off the top of this week's Overdrive Radio, Kevin Rutherford recalls his first time on a stage speaking to a roomful of owner-operators, back in 1999 at the Mid-America Trucking Show as part of Overdrive's Partners in Business seminar series at the time. The first question he asked the room was for a show of hands among those who had ready access to a detailed accounting of their business performance, such a profit and loss statement or weekly/monthly load-by-load accounting of costs, revenues and profits. Essentially: Who here knows their numbers? He asked the same question back in October to small fleet owners and owner-operators, near 30 years later, and results were similar. "About five to 10 percent of the room" raised their hands in 2025, just as in 1999, he noted. "I set a goal in 1999 ... that every time I asked that I wanted more hands to go up, and I have failed miserably. I haven't even moved the needle" on it. Yet still, as he contends in this podcast excerpting parts of his talk at the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in October, "if I can give you one thing that's going to turn your business around, it's that you have to have those numbers," he said. "It's more and more important all the time." Rutherford at NASTC took attendees through what’s been his principal goal for more than two decades now -- helping one-truck businesses optimize every single aspect of their work toward the profit goal. As noted, he’s failed to capture the full attention of most owners, yet there’s evidence among those he’s reached his message is resonating, and it's working for many. In the midst of the last few years' storm of difficulties for trucking businesses of all sizes, it's easy to find news of this or that trucking company’s recent bankruptcy, of course. Yet "while we're watching carriers drop like flies, I'm watching carriers I've worked with for years set records," he said. In this "crazy freight recession everybody's talking about, I'm seeing single-truck owner-operators put out records, revenue and profit records, that I've never seen before, that I didn't think would be possible." Achieving such isn’t something that’s accomplished overnight, and certainly isn’t what you would describe as "easy." Yet Rutherford hopes more owner-operators might resolve this new year to take one area of focus – and he talks about plenty in what follows here – and take that area and really resolve to improve execution. Start with one, then move to the next one, and the next one. For the business owner with one truck, when it comes to controlling costs and really beating the competition, Rutherford feels the competitive advantage is real. "Single best model in the industry -- a single-truck owner-operator with really good relationships with good small brokers," he said, "serving customers better than anybody else can." Along the way through his talk, he delivers three points of emphasis for owners who using load boards -- they shouldn't be 100% satisfying freight needs, but rather serving as a strong educational window on the market, and a path to those strong broker relationships on specialized lanes that might carry independents forward toward being that truly Remarkable One Truck Company, or ROTC for short. That's the name he and NASTC have given their partnership to help deliver business insight and education to both Rutherford's network and NASTC members. Kevin Rutherford's network: https://letstrucktribe.com NASTC: https://nastc.com Find Overdrive's own Partners in Business start-to-finish playbook for an owner-operator career, informed by both Rutherford and NASTC's work through the years, via https://overdriveonline.com/pib

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 as 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 Cascadias 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.