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LAS VEGAS — Daimler Trucks North America moved to publicly strengthen its commitment to its small Western Star brand, hosting gatherings of dealers and industry media here last week.

The freight recovery paused in September as American Trucking Associations’ tonnage index dipped 0.3% from the month be-fore after recording larger gains in July and August.

After a year in which the trucking industry has been battered by a recession and buffeted by political change, members of American Trucking Associations will gather next month in Las Vegas to celebrate surviving the storm and to rally one another in preparation for the coming rebound.

The Obama administration last week issued its proposed new fuel efficiency and first-ever national greenhouse gases reduction standards for passenger cars and light trucks.

As trucking groups continue to express opposition toward the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposal to more than double registration fees starting in 2010, the agency said it was extending the public comment period by 10 days.

RALEIGH, N.C. — After four years of learning, technician Christopher Tate, 37, overcame the challenges of 81 competitors, 14 skills station hurdles and a four-hour written test to lay claim to the title of grand national champion of SuperTech 2009.

RALEIGH, N.C. — The federal stopping-distance rule announced in late July will generate lots of technical choices for truck buyers, but manufacturing executives told fleet managers here the engineering changes should be minimally disruptive.

Trucking company failures declined to 370 during the second quarter, plunging 61.9% from the 970 recorded a year earlier, despite the economic turmoil that has sent fleet profits reeling. But the stock analyst who prepared the data warned that the bankruptcy improvement wasn’t a sign of better times.

Navistar Inc. closed its sole heavy-duty truck plant in North America outside Mexico when the union contract expired and said it would reopen the factory in Chatham, Ontario, only if a new agreement was reached that gave it “flexibility” over production and allowed Navistar to run a “much smaller operation.”