A little advance word today on events upcoming east of the Mississippi this weekend — I’ll be out at the Expedite Expo show in Wilmington, Ohio, tomorrow (Friday, July 26) and Saturday covering the show, long recommended to me by various owner-operators among my sources both inside and outside the expediting niche. Look for updates via my Twitter feed as well as in stories here at OverdriveOnline.com and on the blog — involved is a series of workshops/seminars covering sundry business and regulatory topics, as well as what could be quite a truck beauty show, given the elaborate interiors that expediters are somewhat notorious for.
In any case, if you’re passing through the area — it’s at the Roberts Convention Centre off I-71 exit 50 in Wilmington — stop in. The show is free for attendees.
Secondly, I had a conversation several weeks back now with Pennsylvania-based owner-operator Erich Owens, his business running circles regionally hauling among other things scrap drywall and serving the mushroom-growing industry with the finished, recycled product. Owens has “been around trucks my whole life,” he says, “starting out running 10-wheelers knee-high to a grasshopper,” virtually. Today, “we run four trucks with [trailers with] walking floors, and we’re in the recycling business,” running freight for one of the largest drywall recyclers on the East Coast (they use the gypsum in their compost). The fleet likewise runs some step-deck/flat freight.
We were talking about Owens’ 2001 Western Star, pictured below, powered by a 12.7-L Detroit, 500-hp as stock, but Owens has put no small amount of work into it to turn it into a machine capable of the kinds of performance you’ll see at the truck pull this Saturday at the Broome County Fair in Whitney Point, N.Y., what Owens calls the “biggest pull in the Northeast” and participated in by quite a family of owner-operators.
The 12.7 Detroit and the Western Star it powers, after Owens acquired it more than a decade ago, began its tour through various modification when he “reflashed the computer” and ran “at about 610-630 horse with the computer upgrade. With horsepower, you get the itch, and in 2005, I got the pulling itch” in a big way, he says. “To be competitive in this motorsport, you have to build horsepower.”
The sport, he says, is one dominated primarily by Caterpillar and Cummins engines “making about 800-900 horsepower.” With the Detroit, “I just wanted to try something different.”
