Record Number of Truckers Head to Pittsburgh to Compete in Annual ‘Super Bowl of Safety’

This story appears in the Aug. 17 print edition of Transport Topics.

Despite a challenging economic climate, a record number of drivers will participate in the National Truck Driving Championships this week.

A total of 415 drivers — including 33 step-van drivers — are scheduled to compete Aug. 18-22 in the 72nd annual “Super Bowl of Safety” in Pittsburgh. American Trucking Associations sponsors the event.

“It’d be very easy for us to say: ‘You know what? Times are tough; profit margins are down. We’re going to cut in this area,’ ” said Bob Petrancosta, vice president of safety for Con-way Freight in Ann Arbor, Mich. “Instead, you make the investment in your employees, whether it’s good times or bad times, because they have the same job every single day and they have the same pressures of negotiating safely in a tough traffic environment.”

Harold “Toby” Ross, manager of safety compliance and training for ABF Freight System Inc. in Fort Smith, Ark., offered a similar opinion.

“ABF believes that safety does not stop just because of the economy,” said Ross, a member of the ATA committee that manages the championships.

By the time they reach the national stage at the Pittsburgh Convention Center, the contestants already have earned trophies attesting to their truck driving skills against their peers in their home states.

Each contestant at the national event is a first-place winner at his or her state level in a specific truck category. The national championships have had eight competition classes: five-axle, flatbed, four-axle, sleeper berth, straight truck, tank truck, three-axle and twins.

ATA has added a new competition this year, the National Step Van Driving Championships.

“There are not many opportunities to give back and acknowledge the hard work that the drivers put out,” said Ronald Uriah, vice president of safety and risk management for Pitt Ohio Express, based in the host city and a new sponsor of the event.

Sponsors, in addition to supporting any drivers they have in the competition, help underwrite the cost of the championships.

“There are thousands of drivers across [all 50] states that don’t have a chance to make it here, so those that did are really well-deserved of the honor,” Uriah said.

It is not unusual to hear drivers refer to the annual championships as the truck rodeo. The event, however, is hardly reminiscent of the unruly Wild West.

Indeed, the truck championships are about precision and attention to detail. All contestants must take a written test, along with a test on pre-trip inspection and then perform their driving skills on the convention center floor, piloting trucks to solve a series of driving problems.

Drivers in the twins competition, for example, could be asked to maneuver through a twisting obstacle course, while in the tank class, a driver may be required to back-up a four-ton tanker without grazing a stationary object.

Thirty-two contestants are rookies this year, having entered their state competitions for the first time. The overwhelming majority of competitors, though, are like Bill Krouse, a driver who works for YRC Worldwide at its St. Cloud, Minn., terminal.

“This is my third year in a row that I won and . . . my goal is always to get into the top 10 in the nation,” said Krouse, who came in 13th last year in the flatbed driving class, the same one he is competing in again this year.

“My personal thing, it’s pride and it’s being one of the best there is,” Krouse said. “. . . So, to go up against the best all over the country and get into the top 10 would be a huge achievement.”

“I’m a third-generation truck driver. My grandfather and my dad were truck drivers . . . and he’s the one who taught me everything I know,” Krouse said.

Krouse and two YRC co-workers, state champions in other driving classes, practice together for the national championships, both driving and at regular sessions where they quiz one another in preparation for the written test.

All of the test questions are from ATA’s “Facts for Drivers,” a 300-page book that covers everything from hazardous materials regulations to first-aid instructions and such sample questions as what is the most important thing that the driver can do to preserve the effectiveness and long trouble-free life of the air brakes.

“Some of these drivers that’ll be competing practice every weekend throughout the year,” said Floyd “Bucky” Robbins, regional safety manager for Wal-Mart Transportation LLC, Bentonville, Ark.

“They take their days off, they take vacation weeks just to practice,” said Robbins, chairman last year of the driving championship committee.

That practice time means drivers who become competitors learn what contestant Krouse calls “tons.”

“It’s made me a better driver, a safer driver, but mostly what I’ve learned more about is inspection of vehicles, pre-trip, finding things out about that,” Krouse said.

“And then, I’ve kind of passed them along to some guys around here so that they take interest in the rodeo,” he said.

Robbins said first-time drivers participate in a local contest and get bitten by the “bug,” which keeps them coming back year after year.

And within the truck driving community, there’s enormous support and enthusiasm for the drivers, said John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association, who wondered if the poor economy this year would cut into the support.

“Our numbers were actually up a couple from last year, and our sponsorships were up,” he said.

In terms of weather, the Minnesota competition happened to fall on one of the most brutal days of the year.

“You hate to use the word ‘love’ in the trucking industry, but it was,” Hausladen said. “Those volunteers, they love this industry, they love these drivers and they put up with some terrible conditions.”

In Louisiana, too, folks were worried the state championships event would suffer in support due to the economic downturn.

“We were happy that, overall, we maintained the numbers and the drivers,” said Cathy Gautreaux, executive director of the Louisiana Motor Transport Association. “I think safety is still a priority.”

To compete at NTDC, drivers must be accident-free for the year, which promotes safety among the national champions.

“There’s huge benefits in that for them as well [as] for us, and it’s something we proudly support them in and encourage them to participate in,” said ABF’s Ross.

It is hard to overstate how important the championships are to the drivers, said Wal-Mart’s Robbins.

“We’ve got drivers that are, I guess you’d call them manly men. They cry like babies when they win this,” Robbins said.

Launched in the depths of the Great Depression, the driving championships are a special time for truck drivers, said Susan Chandler, who is the executive director of ATA’s Safety Management Council.

“I guess you’d have to live the life of a truck driver to know that, outside of their company, they really do feel like they’re treated like a second-class citizen,” Chandler said.

“Some say they . . . feel like this is the first time they were made to feel important,” she said, “and that their efforts are not only important to themselves and their families and their company, but they’re really important to the country and they’re made to feel like heroes.”