{"id":961,"date":"2020-06-08T16:17:18","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T16:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/?p=961"},"modified":"2020-06-09T14:33:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T14:33:02","slug":"new-trick-for-veteran-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/other-news\/2020\/06\/08\/new-trick-for-veteran-driver\/961\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Old-school’ Driver Learns New Trick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Veteran Jeff Watson has come to embrace the TDC experience, wins LB3’s in-house event over the weekend<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Al Muskewitz
 
WEDOWEE, Ala. \u2013<\/strong> Jeff Watson is a self-described old-school trucker. A solitary soul, content to stay out on the road for weeks on end, coming home for a couple days when all the loads were delivered or the laundry or calendar ran out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, when LB3 CEO Brian Lindley suggested \u2013 again \u2013 the Dadeville, Ala., driver take a run at the Alabama Truck Driving Championships last year he was understandably reluctant. Competitions and tooting his own air horn just weren\u2019t his thing. He was all about the work.
 
Apparently, you can teach an old trucker new tricks. Watson went through the state TDC a 62-year-old rookie and, to his surprise, discovered it to be quite an enlightening experience.
 
Fast forward to this first Saturday in June. The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the entire nationwide TDC schedule this summer, but with an eye towards giving his drivers a fun day for a job well done and a little taste of what they\u2019d face when entering the competition next year Lindley conducted LB3\u2019s inaugural TDC \u2013 and guess who won?
 
Jeff Watson. The 45-year driving veteran scored 420 of 480 possible points under the same conditions as the state program and posted the field\u2019s top score on three of the six obstacles on a challenging road course.
 
\u201cI\u2019m just old school and I thought this ain\u2019t for me; I just like (driving a truck),\u201d he said. \u201cBack in the day trucking was kind of like a last-of-the-cowboy thing. I truly enjoyed (the TDC) after I got there, but if he hadn\u2019t had rodeoed me into it I wouldn\u2019t have went, but he asked me to go.
 
\u201cI really enjoyed it, I really did, but I really dreaded it (at first) because I thought OK he\u2019d asked me several times, I feel obligated. After I got there it was educational. I really enjoyed it.\u201d
 
The things Watson learned that day in Pelham helped him in the company competition, like what to look for on the pre-trip inspection and the obstacle course. Years of driving experience gave him confidence that he\u2019d hold his own, but he never expected to win, partly because he was still getting used to the view from a sloped-nose Freightliner after a lifetime of driving an extended-hood Peterbilt.
 
He earned his driving chops back in the day doing intrastate runs, but he\u2019s been running interstate the past 42 years and estimates he has 7 million miles under his tires. He\u2019s been hauling chicken for LB3 from Ashland, Ala., to Savannah, Ga., and Batesburg, S.C., and back the last three and a half years.
 
\u201cIt\u2019s an honor for us to having someone with 40-plus years of experience and no accidents a part of our team,\u201d Lindley said. \u201cHe resisted the competition, he kind of resisted anything to do with accolades or competitions, so to see him fully endorse it \u2013 like he just said, he loved it \u2013 that\u2019s a big statement for somebody like him. He\u2019s all in now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tim Frazier (R), the Alabama Trucking Association’s vice president of safety and compliance, formally presents LB3 CEO Brian Lindley with the ATA’s Fleet Safety President’s Award.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tim Frazier, the Alabama Trucking Association\u2019s vice president of safety and compliance, set up the road course and drove it twice in advance of the competition. He said it was \u201ccomparable\u201d to what the drivers would see at the state event and had \u201csome difficulty\u201d to it.
 
Watson scored the best among the day\u2019s 11 competitors in the serpentine start and on each of the last two stations \u2013 a rear tire scales stop and a rear stop, which the drivers agreed was the most difficult obstacle on the course. In between, they navigated a front stop on a bull\u2019s eye, a left steer tire maneuver to a rubber duck and a right turn.

“I killed the duck,” Watson said.
 
\u201cIt was a pretty tough little course,\u201d Frazier said.
 
Arvin Kelting, a 20-year driving veteran in his first year with LB3, placed second. 
 
\u201cI probably didn\u2019t do as good on the written exam, but as far as the obstacle course I think I did really well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Arvin Kelting (L) was runner-up<\/strong>
in LB3’s in-house Truck Driving<\/strong>
Championship.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The day also gave the carrier a chance to celebrate a big year in safety.
 
Frazier formally presented Lindley the ATA Fleet Safety President\u2019s Award, emblematic of the safest in-state fleet in the state. All the Fleet Safety Award winners were announced in a Facebook presentation in April.
 
LB3 had zero reportable accidents over 477,586 miles in Alabama, zero loss claims and improved in every safety category from the previous year.  
 
\u201cI salute you as drivers for the state of Alabama,\u201d Frazier told them before formally presenting the award.
 
Al Muskewitz is Editor at Wright Media. He can be reached at <\/em>musky@wrightmediacorp.com<\/em><\/a>
<\/em> 
Main photo: LB3 CEO Brian Lindley (R) presents driver Jeff Watson with the trophy for winning the company’s in-house Truck Driving Championship.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Tim Frazier of the Alabama Trucking Association walks LB3 drivers through one of the obstacles on the carrier’s Truck Driving Championship road course. Winner Jeff Watson is in the right foreground holding the red cup.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran Jeff Watson has come to embrace the TDC experience, wins LB3’s in-house event over the weekend By Al Muskewitz WEDOWEE, Ala. \u2013 Jeff Watson is a self-described old-school trucker. A solitary soul, content to stay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[251,252,219],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiremaster.com\/trucking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}