The afterMATS
 

Well that’s pretty awesome guys, I’ll give ya that. This was my first one; I guess you can say my MATS cherry has been popped. I’ll just give you a brief rundown of some of the things I did.

Thursday was all business, I started in the west wing and then did the north wing. I got a lot of contacts for insurance, a total of four (I think) and I got a mattress for my truck and did NO frivolous spending. I also spent some time getting information on some possible future purchases, products I here you guys talk about. We also looked at the trucks in the competition. There didn’t seem to be too many, and a couple of people I talked to said there wasn’t as many this year as in years past. Fuel related maybe.

Friday, that’s when trouble hit. I did the south wing, which was all I had left to do, and I attended three seminars. The seminars were Compliance (drug and alcohol), Roadside Inspections, which was a good one actually, we did a mock level one with a KYDOT man on a truck in the lot. The last one was “New Trucking Authorities, Surviving the First Year”. This one was total BS, they were just trying to sell you authority packages and insurance. Two out of three ain’t bad though.

Trouble hit when I found the booth selling hats and other various items. I am a sucker for hats, I’ll freely admit it, and every time I’d pick one up there was a salesperson right there to reinforce my habit. Now I won’t buy a hat with a steep price tag, but I’ll buy many if I think it’s a deal. I’m worse than a chick in a shoe store. I came outta there with eight hats and two shirts for a total of 84.00. After I walked out of the booth the guilt set in big time, then I walked past another hat for 5 bucks and before I knew it that baby was mine too, and even more guilt. My wife really needs to slap my hand sometimes, she let’s me get away with too much.

GMAN, you’d a been proud of me up till that point cause it was all business, and very organized, but I do have my faults. :P

Saturday I did one more seminar and stopped by the OOIDA booth. The seminar was “Hours of Service.” This one was really good, with a lot of good Q&A. I need to brush up on the split sleeper berth, I had a hard time with that. When I drove before it was before the last change in HoS, so I need to revisit all that.

When I stopped by the OOIDA booth, I was asked to join. I said I was already a member (I joined a little over a year ago mainly to have access to the forums) and I had just renewed not long ago. She said I could still renew, it would just be for another year AND…………….if I did renew for 25 bucks I get a free hat……………..”Yeah sure I’ll do it.” I said.

This post is getting long so I’ll pick it up a little.

Rev………. I saw a truck out there that made me think of something you posted a while back about painting your mirror brackets, so I snapped a pic for you. I like what this guy did cause it’s so simple.


Also here is a couple 351’s that were out there. I think you like them as do
Here is inside the red one.

I couldn’t get a profile shot of the red one because too many people were in the way.

Okay, random thoughts, observations and facts.
1. I luv pork chop sammiches
2. You want how much for that bottle of water???? I’ll dehydrate to a raisin before I’ll pay that.
3. I have ALMOST enough AC/DC in my ipod to get from MD to KY and back.
4. This one was my wifes but it bears repeating. All Chinese people seem to be the same size whether they’re male or female, except sumo wrestlers of course.
5. First road trip in my P/up and it did great. A lot of fuel though.


6. Barns in KY are dark brown, in MD there red. I like brown better.
7. “One bottle of water please”
8. An RV is the way to go to the truck show.

One more thing then I’ll leave you guys alone. After talking with some people out there who are in the business, I realized how much I’ve learned from this and the other board that I frequent. I won’t go too far into it but it amazed me how some of these guys are clueless as to what they’re doing, on the business side of things, and they’re running trucks now. That made me appreciate the knowledge that is here and is given freely to those willing to seek it out, take it in, and then apply it. It’s easy to take stuff for granted in life when you’re busy and get caught up in your daily routine, but then something makes you realize what you’ve been given. So I would like to thank all you guys for your information and experiences that you give to others.

Re: The afterMATS
 

Sumo Wrestlers are Japanese.

Now I only wish I could have gone with you to MATS. Sounds like it was alot of fun. But I would have spent twice as much on hats.

Cool pics man, thanks. I am a sucker for those butterfly hoods. You're right though - just painting the mirror brackets gives it an entirely different look.

Sounds like a good time. I have a lot of hats also. I think it's to cover the spot where the hair is missing. :? Next year I will build a bench seat for the fifth wheel and we can put the old ladys back there. :shock:
By the way that's 359's not 351's

So then our theory of all Chinese people sharing the same gene is plausible.
By the way that whole thing came about because the west wing was like Chinatown. They don't just sell tires anymore.

Well, maybe next year BUT,we CANNOT! enter the hat area at the same time. :lol: I'd hate to have to explain to my mortgage company why I'm coming up short that month. :lol:

You're welcome Rev. I like all the old trucks but I really like that style.
You know, I'm really starting to like the simple sleek look in a truck. I like all the lights and chrome when it's not too overdone but when a truck is just painted with minimal lights and accessories, and slammed to ground it really looks good. Almost as if it's easy on the eye because it's not so busy.

Knock it off man you're gonna get us both killed. :shock: :lol:

I have to say that that place was unbelievable. We are on the road now (in a car) and we need to make a few stops so I won't get home til next week but I really want to add my thoughts on the show too.

My head was spinning from the information available there. This week I am having one of those trailer skirts put on and I was talking to the inventer/owner of Freight Wing. He gave me his card and told me to let him know what I thought of his product when I get it going.

I tell you I wish I had AllanSoh with me at times as there was so much techinical info. I am with my friend so he knows about that stuff. But I was talking to one of the engineers that works for Cummings and he lost me. :)

But an absolute ton of info there. We kind of went there seeing if we could drum up some business; but I see that was not the event to do that at. That was for the trucking industry, think you would have better luck finding freight though at a trade show for manufacturers.

Did anyone see the new Lonestar in person ????

Yes from a distance, but then I forgot to go over and check it out. Your post just reminded me of that. Damn!

I couldn't agree more. Well, I could, but I'd just be repeating everything you said. I'm sure some day the "big chrome" style will come back, but I like the minimalist look.

Figured I'd add a bit more on the MATS.

Anyway I was asking about Super Singles. The Michellin guy was talking them up. Then we went over to Bridgestone and they had one too but they said they were overrated and only good for certain applications.

Then we went over to the Toya or Toyo (I forget) tire company and he was telling me that Bridgestone had to pull theirs off the market and have had problems with theirs so that might explain why they talked them down.

Seems like people always seem to leave out something.

I was talking to a Walmart rep about fuel savings and he mentioned that they were not going to go with trailer skirts as they felt they weren't worth the cost. Since I just put them on I wasn't happy to hear that but then I was talking to the inventor of the things and he said Walmart has 4 trailers for every truck so they get a lot less miles out of the trailers and thus those things might not be a good fit for them.

This is why I just keep asking sometimes the same questions to different people as the answers always seem to be different (or wrong).

Actually the Wabash rep was telling me that if you get a flat with a Super Single and can't buy another one, that you can put on a set of duals and then Michellin will buy them back. I went right back over to Michellin and that wasn't true. What they will do is buy back OEM tires and rims and get you into a set of Super Singles at no cost to you.


I did see that Lonestar truck there but I didn't go look at it. I'm not really into trucks per se, but I did go into one truck that the inside looked like what Doghouse would have. Pretty amazing those things.

I was talking to the Norpass rep. Prepass told me that they time stamp their stuff, however the guy told me that wasn't true. I also found out that Norpass is a non profit thing and they don't charge for the service. I believe I already have the device capable of getting Norpass so I just need to call the guy back when I get home and read him the numbers off the device and I should be all set for that.

As we were leaving I saw the ATA booth but they were packing things up; wish I had a chance to talk to them. I took advantage of signing back up with OOIDA for $20 off but to be honest I'm not sure why. They are nice enough but don't see much use of them really. Hate to say it though.

We were talking to one fuel additive person and he talked us into buying a bottle of the stuff. I am skeptical of that stuff and my friend even more but the next day we put it in his car (it's a diesel Bluetec or something) and we were averaging about 36mpg (new Mercedes) and all of a sudden we were up to 39.2.

I ended up asking one of the Cummings engineers about it but he actually stuck his fingers in his ears and said that's what you need to do when people talk about additives. I don't know, that 39.2 didn't last too long. We told him about the 39.2 and he started talking about C-tane. I have no idea what that is.

We got a look at those new Goodyear tires that can be punctured and then re-seals itself. Those were pretty cool. A bit more expensive but worth it if you dont have to pull into a T/A to fix every puncture.

Plenty of brokers had booths. Kind of surprised by that. Seems like these brokers don't have trouble moving loads but what do I know. I was talking to a CH Robinson rep. He asked if I haul for them and I told him I try not to. He got a laugh out of that.

Also was talking to the T-Check rep. Actually we planned on meeting there anyway. They actually offer quite a bit. Fuel discounts on some of their programs but most of that is done of volume. I wasn't asking actually for myself obvioulsy but more for my friend. Last month alone he used about 25,000 gallons so I am trying to get him discounts on the transaction fees. They are going to reduce the fees but we haven't settled on a final fee yet.

I was asking the Freightliner rep, or one of them about those new engines DD15 or something like that about the supposed new fuel savings that Alan mentioned before. Something about they recycle the exhaust. Wish I understood more on that.

I was asking the Kenworth guy why more of the big companies don't buy Kenworth and he mentioned that they can't produce what the big companies need. I mean I look at like if the big companies don't buy them maybe they aren't as efficient. Actually the Toya tire guy said the same thing. They sell mostly to ABF and said they can only manufacture so many tires or rather only had the capacity to make them. Basically he was saying they never really had to market them as they could sell what they could manufacture without a problem.

Well that's all I guess. Sorry for any typos, we are driving and have slow internet so a big PITA to check for them.

No, he meant that KW can't produce cheap pieces of crap that the big companies buy. Freightliner has a monopoly on that one.

Well that's probably what he meant, he was just being diplomatic I guess.

I was talking with the Peoplenet (GPS tracking) people yesterday and I asked them why didn't they have a booth set up at MATS. I was surprised by what she said.

She said that show is geared more towards the O/O and that they use to go and you would have people come by with their families, take up all the pens and then they seemed to not generate much clients in the end.

That place was so big that it was overwhelming but she was telling me that they have other shows geared to larger fleets. Obviously we aren't larger fleets here but probably still get some good info at those types of shows.