Dennis Shirar Is Named 2008 NTDC Grand Champion

By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the Sept. 1 print edition of Transport Topics.

HOUSTON — Dennis Shirar, a 51-year-old driver for Heritage Transport, Indianapolis, earned the title of Grand Champion at the 2008 National Truck Driving Championships.

Competing against 374 other state champion drivers in eight classes, Shirar, who drives a variety of trucks that transport hazardous and nonhazardous industrial waste, won the award based on his driving performance, as well as strong scores on a written test, a pre-trip inspection and a personal interview.

Shirar attributed his success to hard work, preparation and strong support from his company. He said that, since April, he has been studying for his written test and practicing his driving skills in a company yard on weekends.

“This made all the weekends and weekdays of practice pay off,” Shirar said. “I’m in disbelief, astonished and exhilarated.”

Driving in the straight truck class, Shirar scored high in the preliminary driving skills competition, registering 270 of 300 possible points. Many drivers said the tightly designed course was especially challenging this year because of space constraints inside the George R. Brown Convention Center.

American Trucking Associations conducts the annual “Super Bowl of Safety” as a way of emphasizing safe driving to more than 3 million truck drivers in the United States. To be a part of the elite group of contestants, truck drivers are required to win state championships in their class and to be accident-free for at least a year before the national championships.

Shirar said his dad drove a truck for 50 years, and it felt a little like his father was in the cab with him during the competition. Shirar, who also won the final competition’s straight truck class, has been driving accident- and injury-free for 30 years, logging more than 3 million miles.

“My dad set high standards,” said Shirar, who first competed at the nationals in 1997. “I kept thinking, ‘What will Dad think of my driving?’ ”

Heritage Transport sent only two drivers to compete in the national championships, which were dominated by drivers from larger carriers. Some of those carriers brought hundreds of family members and friends to root for their drivers at the championships, but Heritage had a contingent of only about 10 supporters, whose cheers in the back of the convention center bleachers often were drowned out by the rooters for larger carriers.

That smaller group of fans made it even more gratifying for the small company, which has 210 trucks, to capture the top prize, said Teresa Wade, an administrative assistant with Heritage, a firm privately owned by Indiana’s Fehsenfeld family. Heritage Transport is a subsidiary of Heritage Environmental Services.

“We’re all just kind of still in shock and awe that this happened,” Wade said in an Aug. 25 interview. “In fact, Dennis had already taken dispatch today and asked if he could get off. I said, ‘I think we can arrange that.’ ”

FedEx Corp. drivers captured three of the eight first-place national awards, winning the 4-axle, twins and tank truck classes.

Wal-Mart Transportation drivers swept all three top places in the sleeper berth class finals and also took first in the flatbed class. Other first-place winners were from Roadway and USF Holland.

Six of 24 drivers who made the finals in the eight classes were from FedEx Freight and FedEx Ground, four from Wal-Mart, two from Roadway, two from Con-way, two from Yellow Transportation and two from H-E-B Grocery Co.

In addition to Heritage, a single driver from UPS Freight, ARG Trucking Corp., Advance Food Co., Broadcast Sports and USF Holland also made it to the final round.

Robert Romando, a FedEx National LTL driver from Surprise, Ariz., was chosen as Rookie of the Year, besting the performances of 27 other first-time contestants. The state team trophy went to Georgia.

Presenting the Grand Champion award to Shirar, ATA Chairman Ray Kuntz told all the drivers they are a main reason the nation’s highways are becoming safer.

“When you think about the fact that there are more than 3 million truck drivers in America, you’re part of 300 and some people that are in this room, it’s really a great honor,” Kuntz said during the Aug. 23 awards banquet.

Dean DeSantis, president of Heritage, said company officials were still exploring ways to give Shirar a bonus for his achievement. But they already had decided to give him an all expense-paid vacation, a special pinstriped uniform to distinguish him from the 190 other Heritage drivers and an extra three weeks of time off to be used for the special appearances and speeches required of a Grand Champion.

The driving skills competition, which lasted more than two days, ap-peared to be as equally intense for competitors and supporters in company T-shirts cheering in the bleachers.

Buner Evans, a USF Holland driver from Bremen, Ga., attributed his win in the 5-axle class to “practice, practice, practice.”

“Plus, when you drive for 20 years in Atlanta traffic, every day is practice,” Evans said.

Victor Wheeler, a Roadway driver from Bountiful, Utah, placed first in the 3-axle class and said, “Sacrifice is what got me here.”

“There were so many people that believed in me,” Wheeler said. “I really wanted to win for all the people who stepped up for me.”

Ryan Kelley, a FedEx Freight driver from Nora Springs, Iowa, won the 4-axle class. Because his “Sure the test was tough,” quipped David May, a Con-way Freight straight truck competitor from New York. “The entire competition is tough, so why should the written test be any different?”

• Drivers said one of the biggest hurdles to success in the NTDC is calming their nerves while trying to perform the six different maneuvers required on the skills course.

It’s half the battle, said Lewis, last year’s Grand Champion.

This year’s group of state champs admitted to having butterflies similar to the ones football players report experiencing before a kickoff.

Some said their butterflies dissolved after they first hit the accelerator. Others admitted they were having difficulty clutching because the left foot was shaking and said they hit the brake instead of the horn or hit the horn instead of the brake.

Raymond Fellows, Minnesota’s 5-axle champ, said it’s easy for a driver to get overwhelmed just by the fact that he’s competing with the best of the best.

So Fellows and some of his fellow drivers were trying to get their minds off the competition by joking around with each other while waiting for their turn in the drivers’ bullpen.

“If you over-think it, you’re going to overdo it,” Fellows said.

• The spectators in the bleachers at NTDC got a special performance as they sat watching the tough driving skills course.

Con-way Freight supporters were led to an array of cheers by none other than three high school cheerleaders from Humble, Texas. The cheerleaders were on loan from the school because Con-way is helping them raise funds for the national cheerleading championships in Florida early next year.

“We used some of our regular cheers, but just wrote some new words for Con-way,” said one of the cheerleaders.