Best of the best: 2024 Pride & Polish champs revealed

Todd Dills: Hey everybody, thanks for joining us for the 2024 finale of the annual Overdrive’s Pride & Polish virtual truck show. I’m Overdrive Editor Todd Dills, walking you through our cap on the truck-show season for the year, with plenty pride, plenty polish and no small amount of custom work to celebrate in spite of what’s been another tough year in trucking. We’re showcasing truck owners all across the nation with some of the very best in custom rigs.

Here’s how we came to this point: Over the course of this summer, Overdrive readers entered their working and/or show-ready rigs with photos that we then put up for a round of audience voting. For the competitors watching right now, know that it’s your owner-operator peers who picked these winners.

We’ve got the champs coming up here in five categories – two solely for working trucks. There’s a Limited Mileage category for strictly showpiece builds and otherwise low-use rigs. There’s an Antique category open to anything older than 25 years – so the 1999 model year this time around for the cutoff -- and there’s a Best Interior class. So, sit back, and enjoy.

Here we go.

We’ll start with the oldest among the trucks, the classics.

Second runner-up in the Antique class in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish is Idaho-based owner-operator Gary Mackay and this pristine 1998 Peterbilt 379. It qualifies for the Antique class, yet Mackay’s continuing to work the truck. The One Circle Farm Pete pulls farm commodities and hauls equipment and lumber as well.

Mackay’s put in plenty work keeping the 379 efficiently operational, with engine, transmission and axles all upgraded. And on the exterior, brand-new paint. What we can’t see here is the inside, with a complete interior kit upgrade to what is Peterbilt’s Bed and Breakfast Sleeper set-up there, Mackay said.

Here’s a big congrats to second runner-up in the Antique class, Gary Mackay, and this beautiful 1998 Peterbilt 379.

Next in Antique is first runner-up Charles Thomas, operating out of Vermont. Thomas entered his truly classic 1979 White Western Star, and the voters responded in a big way to the truck’s classic look. It’s powered by a Big Cam Cummins engine with a 13 speed transmission, riding on a 2012 Airliner suspension, with air-ride front axle, too.

And there’s the interior, of course. Thomas showcased custom work there with this picture.

Big congrats on the second-place finish for Charles Thomas and this 1979 White Western Star.

And the winner of the Antique class in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish is …. One beauty of a truck in this 1984-model Peterbilt 359, owned by Rafael Gonzales. The impressive unit’s got long history in the Texas-headquartered owner-operator’s family, too. The 359 was bought by his father in the late 1990s and it worked up through year 2003. It was at that time parked and essentially taken apart, sitting in pieces for a decade and more.

In 2015, though, Rafael joined his dad to restore the rig to what it is today. The father-son duo spent three months straight working on it, then christened it, simply, Goldie.

That’s owner-operator Rafael Gonzales and the Goldie 1984 Peterbilt 359, for the win in the Antique class of this year’s Overdrive’s Pride & Polish.

Next category here, with the top three in the Interior class. These feature at least a couple of rigs that might be familiar to longtime Overdrive readers and past Pride & Polish competitors, yet the first one is going to be familiar to all of you.

Coming in second runner-up, a bit of a repeat winner here for third place to add to his Antique second place in this year’s awards. It’s that period-correct custom interior of Charles Thomas’s 1979 White Western Star conventional. Period correct, that is, all the way down to the floor and that loose shag there. Beautiful treatment for the old-school beauty, Charles. Big congrats on third place here.

And next, for second place in interiors, it’s another 1970s classic, this one the White Freightliner cabover, 1973 model, of David Parmer, which has been a perennial contender in this category and others dating back to the 2022 Overdrive Pride & Polish contest. The classic interior, Parmer noted, was entirely restored around year 2020 to what it is today.

Big congrats to David Parmer. 

Finally, coming out on top in the Interior category, we’ve got a past Pride & Polish working-truck champ in Kentucky-headquartered owner-operator John McCormick and his Bandit 2021 Kenworth W900L. Fans of the classic Smokey & the Bandit 1970s film might recognize the rig as paying homage to the Snowman’s ride in that flick.

On the interior, with plenty of bright work for gauge surrounds and so much more, it’s perhaps the floor that’s really caught voters’ attention to deliver the win to McCormick this time out. The floor was done with airbrush work by an artist who’s headquartered nearby to McCormick in Robards, Kentucky, who goes by, simply, Chop, and who immortalized lyrics from the Jerry Reed classic “Eastbound and Down” from the film on both driver- and passenger sides of the custom Rockwood floor. 

Long time to go, short time to get there.

Owner-operator John McCormick’s Interior took second in its class at the 2023 Mid-America Trucking Show, and we can salute the job done here for its first-place win in Interiors in the 2024 Overdrive’s Pride & Polish. Great work, John.

Now we move into the Limited Mileage category – it’s reserved for builders’ showpieces, for non-working project trucks of all types, for low-mileage rigs with the benefit of lesser wear and tear day-in-day-out. For the Limited Mileage category in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish we’ve got …

For the second runner-up, again it’s the past Pride & Polish finalist you saw in the interiors category this year with a beautiful 1973 cabover White Freightliner –none other than Georgia-based David Parmer. Parmer bought this rig from its former owner via eBay, of all places, and out of Michigan. He set to work in 2017 rebuilding the 350 Detroit engine, and 13-speed transmission, with that tasteful, immaculate interior completed as of 2021. He added twin chrome stacks and swapped out for new the brakes and slack adjusters, air lines, suspension, tires and more on the Big Green Mean Machine, as he calls the truck, with 4.33 rears. That mean green paint, he says, is still original for the well-preserved unit.

Big congrats again to David Parmer.

And for the first runner-up for the Limited Mileage trophy, we’ve got last year’s Limited Mileage champ coming in second place with the 1985 Kenworth K100 you see here. Owner Matt Bankert of Twin Pine Farm in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, pulled the truck out of the weeds in Maryland way back in 2013, restoring it then the next year. Though its miles are limited indeed, the K100 works, pulling local in South Central Pennsylvania hauling the farm’s grain.

You can catch in-depth coverage of the unit in the feature story we wrote attendant the truck’s  win in this Limited Mileage category last year – it’s shown there, and here, in scenes on Twin Pine Farm connected to the matching 2023 Eby Generation hopper it most often pulls.

Here’s congrats on to Matt Bankert – second place in Limited Mileage in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish. 

And for the win this year, we’re turning to the very last model year for the Peterbilt 379 with this 2007 model, owned by Clifford Hay II. This is a special-edition legacy-model 379, number 128 of 1000 legacies built for that model year. It’s powered by a 550-hp Caterpillar with an 18 speed transmission and sits on a 270-inch wheelbase.

Big congrats to Clifford Hay on the win, with his 2007 Peterbilt legacy 379 looking solidly old-school in styling with the flattop, and great work with the lights. The big winner for Overdrive’s Pride & Polish in the Limited Mileage category.

Now, on to the full-time workers, the big stars of trucking  – we’ve got two working classes this year, keeping it simple with bobtail and combo. In Working Bobtail, we’ve got a repeat trophy winner with the second runner-up – the Antique class first-place finisher Rafael Gonzales and his hardworking 1984 Peterbilt 359, Goldie. Great effort by Gonzalez keeping the family heirloom in tip-top shape now for the better part of a decade. Congrats on third place in Working bobtail, Rafael.

For second place, too, Working Bobtail in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish, it’s back to the Bandit, owner-operator John McCormick’s 2021 Kenworth W900L working hard leased to Oakley Trucking, pulling a dry bulk tank and running mostly regionally from a Kentucky home base. McCormick’s pulling on a 280-inch wheelbase, and the Kenworth is powered by a 565-hp Cummins X15, with an 18 speed transmission and 3.36 rears.

Funny story, too, about the Bandit name – calls over the CB certainly played a role. “Hey, there goes the bandit,” and “Hey, it’s the Snowman,” references to the Smokey and the Bandit movie, of course, that the truck’s paint work is modeled after. But more importantly, the 2021 Kenworth is now a rolling memorial to a former ridealong Yorkie pup McCormick called Bandit when he and his wife ran team years ago. Coloring around the dog’s eyes resembled what you’d see on a raccoon, hence the name.

Big congrats again to John McCormick, for the second place Working Bobtail finish in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish.

And the winner, finally, in the Working Bobtail class is owner-Scott Huber’s beautiful 2006 Peterbilt 379 – the owner-operator’s pulled out all the stops on mods to the working rig. The frame on the truck is stretched out to 300 inches, and he’s added 12 Gauge Customs’ air drop steer axle up front. In the rear, Talladega Fiberglass fenders carry the stripe of a fully custom paint job all the way to the back of the last hump. All over the rig, the owner-operator’s outfitted accents with Dual Revolution lighting, and inside the truck a powerful audio system pushes 10,000 watts through six subwoofers and more.

Just in case you don’t see him coming, keep your ears on and you might just hear that audio system.

Beautiful truck, Scott. And a huge congrats on the big Working Bobtail win.

In the final category we’ve got the working combos, with the trailer included in the evaluation by Pride & Polish voters.

For Second Runner-up I’ve got this beautiful Walker tanker of owner Kyle Bellcock, hooked to his 06 Peterbilt 379, which he calls "One Bad Buggy." Bellcock bought the tractor about five years ago when it was as "plain Jane as could be," as he put it. He put in new lighting, stacks, and fenders, and painted the interior himself.

To date, the truck’s got about 2.2 million miles on it, as noted now pulling that Walker tank.

Congrats to Kyle Bellcock, second runner-up in our final, Working Combo class for Overdrive’s 2024 Pride & Polish.

For first runner-up, it’s another Pride & Polish veteran of recent history with the “joke’s on you” Always a head-turner with its color combo of a Mountain Dew Green and Omaha Orange. Those are of the flagship colors of owner Rob Hallahan’s Wisconsin-headquartered Hallahan Transport small fleet. This 2022 389 won this category back in 2022, and it features a Cummins X15 with an 18-speed transmission and 3.36 rears. Custom parts from 12 Gauge Customs and Rockwood Products complete the truck with an EZ Pete interior package, and search around on OverdriveOnline.com for a closer look at this truck from shortly after its build.

It's a beauty, and here’s a big shout to Hallahan and company in Wisconsin, second place in Working Combo this year.

And finally, the winner of the Working Combo class in Overdrive’s 2024 Pride and Polish is owner-operator Michael Castaldi with this absolutely stunning matched pair of a 2003 Pete 379 and a 2010 Utility 3000R Reefer trailer – “Paradise Express,” Castaldi calls the unit, I’d say fittingly.

He bought the Pete new way back in August 2002 originally with a factory 63-inch sleeper sitting on a 260-inch wheelbase. Almost a decade later, owner-operator Castaldi stretched the frame five feet to 320 inches to accommodate what’s now there, the 132-inch ARI Legacy sleeper you see in these photos. At once, the truck was repainted with an old Peterbilt design and matched to the 2010 Utility trailer, giving the combo an old-school look.

And how about the lights? Between truck and trailer together, there’s more than 200 all told, the owner noted, accenting the rig at night over more than 3.3 million miles now. The drivetrain here features a 500-horse Detroit Series 60 engine, a 13-speed Eaton transmission, and 3.58 Spicer rears.

It’s a head-turner, that’s certain, and a well-deserved win this year after Castaldi placed second in last year’s competition in his working class. Here’s to all the work put into it, and a congrats to owner-operator Michael Castaldi, champ in Working Combo for this year’s Pride & Polish competition.

And that’s a wrap for this year’s final awards event, but not the end of line for Overdrive’s Pride and Polish by any stretch. We’ll have feature stories in the weeks to come about all of the winners, and you can keep an eye out for that at OverdriveOnline.com via the Custom Rigs section of the website. That’s OverdriveOnline.com/custom-rigs.

To all the finalists, know that award plaques are on their way to you, so keep an eye out for the mail, and here’s a big thanks to all the owner-operators who competed, entering their rigs in the field this year.

For the rest of you, thanks for joining us for another year of Overdrive’s Pride & Polish. Keep tuned for the entry period for next year via OverdriveOnline.com/pride-polish. I hope to see your truck there. Over and out.