The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Motorcycle Dreams, Bourbon Beams, and Trucking Themes
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Ever wondered why some TV shows lose their magic over time? This week, Kelly and her husband Jimmy join us once more on the Outer Belt Podcast to shed light on their vital roles in FedEx Custom Critical and our maintenance team. Prepare for a hearty laugh as we recount a bizarre wake-up call involving a bitten tongue and dive into a spirited debate on whether you "ride" or "drive" a motorcycle. Our fact-checker, Don Juan, makes sure we get everything right, as always.
Thinking about getting into motorcycles? You'll love our chat about various bike brands, from Yamaha to Ducati, and the must-have accessories from stores like Iron Pony. I share my own experiences, from my college days favoring Hondas to eventually falling in love with a Suzuki Boulevard. We break down essential motorcycle terminology and explore the features of classics like the Goldwing and Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic, offering tips for both newbies and seasoned riders.
If you're a bourbon enthusiast, you'll enjoy our recount of a weekend at a bourbon festival, complete with a heated pool and a reunion with Dan the Bourbon Man. We wrap up with a deep dive into our journey of building and customizing a fleet of trucks, from maintaining identical trucks for ease of maintenance to rewarding our top-performing teams with specialized Super C trucks. Expect insightful stories, practical advice, and a sprinkle of humor—an episode you won’t want to miss!
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hyfieldtrucking.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
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Instagram: The_OuterBelt
Motorcycle Test and Podcast Guest
Speaker 1Gets hell up in your business.
Speaker 3Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Bell Podcast. I am Patrick and you all know my friends Chili.
Speaker 2Buttermilk.
Speaker 3Eric, jerry, and we have our special guest in the house tonight. Mr and Mrs Kelly, that's true, you're not wrong.
Speaker 4Oh, and Mrs Kelly, that's true, you're not wrong.
Speaker 3Oh, Aiden Jimmy, her husband.
Speaker 4Kelly's husband. Kelly's husband. Kelly's husband.
Speaker 3Better known as. Better known as Mr Jimmy. Mr Jimmy, isn't that like an old Bond reference or something Like Mr Jimmy won't take it to the cleaners, or something?
Speaker 5No idea, it sounds like something like that.
Speaker 3Mr Jimmy sounds familiar, super familiar.
Speaker 4You're a fact checker. Like you're a fact checker, you can Google that real quick.
Speaker 3Okay, it's working for ABC, so um.
Speaker 2The one with the blacklist, mr.
Speaker 5Mr T.
Speaker 2No, what was her name?
Speaker 5No that was Mr.
Speaker 2She was a woman. And she was the cleaner.
Speaker 5Mr Kaplan.
Speaker 2Yes, Mr Kaplan.
Speaker 5I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 3It was on Blacklist Great show. I've never seen the show.
Speaker 2Anyway, sorry, squirrel, squirrel.
Speaker 3It was good for a while, until they just kind of went off the rails with some crazy. Well, that's like that other show that was really good for a while and went crazy All of them.
Speaker 1You know, tends to happen.
Speaker 3I think Seinfeld was right when he got off TV. When he did. It's like if you stay in too long, your show just falls apart. I mean, look at Friends. It went past the first season and just fell apart.
Speaker 1It took it a while.
Speaker 3Well, welcome everybody to the show. We do have Mr and Mrs McDonald up in the house. Kelly, as you all know, she's been here on the podcast before she is our fleet manager for the whole fleet, but she specializes on the FedEx Custom Critical side. And then Jimmy, her husband, runs the maintenance department. How are you all doing and how was your trip up here it?
Speaker 1was good. It was good on the way up. How are you all doing and how was your trip up here? It was good.
Speaker 4It was good on the way up. It's been nice there.
Speaker 3Yes, it always is. It's like pulling teeth. She's also part of the.
Speaker 2Expedite Chicks as well. Some people may have seen her there.
Speaker 1Jimmy's been on the show before too, though I do remember we were up here before.
Speaker 4How soon they forget. I know how soon they forget, how soon they forget.
Speaker 3Three years ago. It must not have been memorable. It hasn't been three years, it's been something. It's been three seasons. We're on our third season.
Speaker 2Who has their phone on, not me.
Speaker 6It's because it's him I'm on theater mode, but he is allowed to come through.
Speaker 1He was fact checking he was fact checking, sorry he's not discriminating. So see, he's checking everybody.
Speaker 4Does everybody know who our fact-checker is, by the way? I mean, we've referenced him like twice yeah so our fact-checker is back in the house.
Speaker 3It's Mr Don Juan.
Speaker 4Also from Highfield Maintenance fame. Yeah, we don't tell everybody all that.
Speaker 6We take that on the dizzle we try getting him on here and he refuses.
Speaker 3We prefer to call him Baker Don right.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 3Baker Don. He's the one that equips our green room when we go live Very occasionally Not our green room, sorry, expedite Boogie's green room.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 6And also the green room for the interview. Highfield interviews.
Speaker 3We have a green room. Yeah, since when? Since every time I do an interview. Are you shipping? Good out oh you don't mean outer belt, you mean okay, now I'm on, now I get it. Boy, I am slow today.
Speaker 2That's okay.
Speaker 3I'm kind of off my rocker. I'm not going to lie to y'all. Last night, as I was asleep, I woke up. Something freaked me out. I woke up and I bit my tongue and it hurts like you wouldn't believe. So I'm a little off my game. I'm trying not to slur too much. My tongue feels like it's huge and hurts quite bad.
Speaker 4Well, you took a big stressful test today too.
Speaker 3I understand I did take a big, stressful test. I am now permitted to ride a motorcycle in a classroom setting.
Speaker 4Oddly specific, but Oddly specific Hold on Ride or drive Ride. Ride, it's not driving. So, you cannot drive yet.
Speaker 3I cannot.
Speaker 4You can't drive a motorcycle yet.
Speaker 3You're not allowed to drive. There's no such thing as driving motorcycles. It's very confusing, but you can ride one.
Speaker 4Anybody can ride one. You have to take a test to ride a motorcycle.
Speaker 1He's saying that they don't call it driving a motorcycle. It's called riding a motorcycle period. It means by virtue of it being a motorcycle, you're driving it.
Speaker 3I know it's ridiculous. The whole time I'm reading through the manual and they're like when you're riding a motorcycle and X, y or Z, then you should use both brakes and I'm like, as a rider, I don't think I should have access to the brakes. But I mean is this like an old-timey Coltrane, where I'm the brakeman in the back of the bike and then, you know, Vince is up front, just zoom, zoom, Like I don't know. You think I could ride on the back of your bike Like? And reach.
Speaker 5I could ride on the back of your bike Like when we used the handlebars and the controls. No, I mean like, probably not.
Speaker 3Like just wrap around and both of us on the bike?
Speaker 5No, my bike's too small for that. Do bikes have weight limits?
Speaker 4Yes, I never thought about that yes they do, oh they do.
Speaker 1That wasn't in the manual.
Speaker 3Of course it was and I passed. That part of the test really threw me off. It was quite confusing. So they said read. In full fairness, they did disclose this. But they said read the Ohio State driving manual. And then read this motorcycle manual. And I'm like I've been driving for a long time and I'm a great driver and I've only totaled one vehicle. And so I just read the motorcycle manual and called it good. Well, lo and behold, I get there and all the questions like not all the questions, but half the questions are just driving questions Like what does this orange diamond plate, diamond edge diamond sign? What do they call that A sign on point? I don't know. What does it mean?
Speaker 5It's like octagon Square. It's a diamond.
Speaker 3But a diamond like diamond and it's like, well, it's road construction, like I know that. But then there was these like rules that were oddly specific to Ohio, probably because I'm like I have no idea.
Speaker 2Oh no.
Speaker 3I'm like in Louisiana, because there's insurance questions but it's based on the damage done to the vehicle in the event of an accident as to if insurance has to be presented and stuff. So I said, like all the time and that's the wrong answer In Louisiana it's all the time If you get pulled over, if anything happens, you have to present your insurance and apparently here it's $400. So if the damage is less than $400, you don't have to present it.
Speaker 2What are you getting your insurance adjuster out there right there on site? You know?
Speaker 1You know, you know how you do. Here's what.
Speaker 3I think you don't keep your pockets State Farm guy in the corner. You couldn't because your pockets.
Speaker 1State Farm guy in the.
Speaker 3You couldn't Jake. Jake Right, that wouldn't work either, because then you're proving you have insurance. But still it was very strange. A lot of things like that. I got more questions wrong than I would like to admit. They were silly stuff. None of it was about riding. Everything involved riding the bike. I got fine, but like there was one that was like okay, if you're riding a bike with a minor on your back which will never happen for me but if you are, what does a minor have to have?
Speaker 2A car seat, a helmet A helmet.
Speaker 3I'm like duh, of course a helmet. So I select helmet, Nay, nay, oh, I just have a helmet, foot pegs and a seat back Like how would I know that.
Speaker 4So it was multiple. Was it in the book yes, okay, that's probably how you know it, and coming from.
Speaker 3Louisiana there was a period in time when you didn't even have to have a helmet as the rider on a motorcycle.
Speaker 5So you don't.
Speaker 3Ohio does not require you to have a helmet. Just minors do so. If you're under the age of 18, you have to have a helmet on a bike If you're riding it as the driver or if you're riding it as the passenger. That's weird.
Speaker 5It seems weird, though, that specifically a minor has to wear a helmet. Does he have to have light on the front? Still? Does he have to carry his pickaxe with him?
Speaker 4I'm just having a hard time understanding why Depends on if you're driving him to work or not.
Speaker 5Why a minor he? Does have to whistle all the way to work and then, while he works, that's one of the, you know, because there's nothing like riding a bike with your passenger just whistling Right in your ear. Right in your ear the whole way.
Speaker 3And you're like how do I turn this comm off? Now I I get to start two weeks and then I'll start my actual on-the-bike riding class. I can't wait. Y'all are all motorcycle riders and I'm the only one who's not.
Speaker 6Jerry, what about you? No, I'm not. Never I've ridden on one with my brother.
Speaker 3Ever have a desire.
Speaker 1Sometimes, I don't have my endorsement. I ride on the back of his.
Speaker 2I plan to get one, but I don't currently Same shoes.
Speaker 4Well, can't wait for you all to come up to the North Georgia mountains and see what's in our backyard.
Speaker 3Come up to them.
Speaker 4Down Higher elevation, come up to the mountains.
Speaker 3That saying come up to that's from being down south. Like I used to live in Louisiana and we were going up to do anything. You know what I mean. Like, unless it was going to southern florida, which we never went to. You're going up to something, you're going up to dallas, or we're going up to, uh, alabama, we're going up to mississippi or memphis or where I don't know where else we go, but like, everything was that kind of way.
Speaker 4Makes sense.
Speaker 3New Orleans that's down in two different dimensions.
Speaker 2How exciting Congratulations on passing.
Speaker 3Yeah Well, I'm excited to do it. Now we've got to go clothes shopping. Apparently I've got to buy Iron Pony trip. Yep, I've got to buy an Iron Pony, a little one hood ornament, and I have to get, I guess, riding gear and a jacket and a helmet. So you do have to wear a helmet for the first year. I did see that.
Speaker 3I suggest you wear a helmet all the time oh yeah, I plan on it, but I'm just saying they do require. So it's minors with their pickaxes, and doesn't a pickaxe sound like a terrible thing to have on a bike?
Speaker 5It does. That's why I was curious about it. It's kind of dangerous.
Speaker 3And first-year riders.
Speaker 2Have to wear the helmet.
Speaker 3Have to wear a helmet and then after that that baby can.
Speaker 2But you do have to have eyewear right without a helmet.
Speaker 4Yes, at all times.
Speaker 3Yes, yeah, I have these really cool glasses from Harley-Davidson that I got years ago when Eric and I went with the Crafty Truckers. Do you remember them, the old Jason and Heather Crafty Truckers? We went out to Yellowstone and to Rapid City and they rented us these. I guess they're called like side-by-sides, but they go really fast. They're not like the I was thinking side-by-sides like a mule that you know goes maybe 20 miles an hour and you throw stuff in the back of the bed and you know, use it for a farm. But no, these things went like stupid fast and we were tearing up trails and getting all muddy and it was a blast. Well, as soon as we got in it, we started going.
Speaker 3Eric had his glasses on and I had nothing on and I mean I had to just like look straight down until we could get to town so I could buy some sunglasses, because the wind was just killing me. I was like I had no idea, like 30 miles an hour with no windshield. Our helmets Do we even have helmets? I don't think we had helmets with those.
Speaker 2You had seatbelts, 55 point harnesses, something like that we got to Harley Davidson.
Speaker 3That was the only store that we could find any kind of sunglasses at. The sunglasses are like goggles. They have this foam padding that goes around the eyes. They're amazing. I plan on using those, too, when I ride.
Speaker 1Jimmy has a pair of those.
Speaker 3Yeah, I got a pair. They're stupid, expensive, but nice.
Speaker 1Everything at Harley is stupid expensive. Have you priced the bikes?
Speaker 3Yes, we own a Harley.
Speaker 5Stupid expensive.
Speaker 3Stupid expensive. Stupid expensive Even the clothing and stuff.
Speaker 1It's crazy.
Speaker 3They don't have a $5 souvenir shirt, right? No?
Speaker 1They don't have a $55 souvenir shirt. I mean that's about what you're going to drop in there on any T-shirt.
Speaker 3I've never. The glasses are the only thing I've ever bought at a Harley Davidson place.
Speaker 1Poke a chip. That's about the only thing you get for free.
Speaker 2Have you all been to Iron Pony here in Columbus?
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2When you've ever been around. No, no travels.
Speaker 3So it's not Harley, it's like All Makes or what. How do they call it? It's a bike store.
Speaker 2This is a motorcycle superstore of some sort, just kind of all brands. What would you call it? Vince'm not going to call it an outlet mall, but it does have all the brands, all the clothing brands.
Speaker 5It's a cycle shop.
Speaker 2What do you call Iron Pony, a cycle shop?
Not Mentioned
Speaker 5Yeah, it's a cycle shop. It's a multi brand dealership so they do sell brand new bikes, they're not just a single brand like a Harley dealership. They sell Ducatis, triumphs, indian, so they're like one of the major dealerships in our area. There aren't very many around here.
Speaker 2No, and they've got the dirt bike. So, like Yamaha dirt bike, they've got those kind of clothing in one. They've got the children and women's, they've got the men's, but then they've got, you know, that upscale, like the Ducati or the super racer bikes or whatever those kind of things are you know?
Speaker 5Is this an ad for Iron Pony? I know, right, sounds like it.
Speaker 2And then they've got parts. Well, if you use our discount code, I know They've got a parts department.
Speaker 5They've got everything you need for riding for all types of riding.
Speaker 4Scooters, motorcycles.
Speaker 5Well, your accessories are different for whatever type of bike you're on Exactly.
Speaker 4You have different equipment, different accessories, different everything. That's a pretty cool store.
Speaker 5They also sell what's the side-by-side, that's, the three-wheeler, not a side-by-side A Can-Am. They also sell Can-Ams and the Spiders, so they're a multi-brand dealership.
Speaker 2You can spend hours, hours there.
Speaker 3When I first went to get into motorcycles back in college, years and years and years ago, there was a Honda dealership and I wanted a Honda. I'm like Honda's a great bike. A guy three doors down had a Gullwing. And I'm like Honda's a great bike. A guy three doors down had a Gullwing. And I'm like Honda just seems like the way to go. They seem super reliable, yada, yada, yada. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to rebel, start on that bike, and then we'll go from there. And I get to the place.
Speaker 3There was a Honda dealership in Baton Rouge. It's been there since Honda came over originally. They're one of the first dealerships. It's way downtown, it's not the best area. So we go down there and it's a huge, huge place and they actually do all the distribution for the area too. So if you go to a Honda dealership 100 miles from there, they got their bike from this distributor and so go there and the guys I'm talking to them, telling them what I'm thinking about doing I was going to take the Harley-Davidson course and all this stuff, and here's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3This is the bike I'm kind of interested in. He's like let me bring you over here and let you sit on one and see what you think he's like. I'm not sure you're going to like it. And so I did. I walked over there and I sat on the bike and I felt cramped. I felt like I was trying to ride an old BMX bike, you know, because I was a bicyclist. So going down to an old BMX bike, just being cramped up on it, and I'm like, oh yeah, this does seem like it would be miserable after an hour of riding.
Speaker 3And so I didn't realize then they were a Suzuki, kawasaki, I think, maybe Indian and a couple others that they also sold. So he brought me over and put me on a Suzuki, which I was like I don't want a Suzuki. I think they're kind of cheap, they're not great cars, so they can't be great bikes, that kind of logic. And I sat on a boulevard and I mean it was like just putting on a nicely fit leather glove. It just was really comfortable. So I'm kind of curious now. I mean, obviously I'm not the same body physique I was in college. What am I going to like? Where do I want the pedals to be at? That kind of thing.
Speaker 5We call those controls Controls. Yeah, we don't call them pedals, we call them controls.
Speaker 3What do you call the, the things up on?
Speaker 5the controls there's nothing.
Speaker 4Pedal footboards or floorboards, you don't call them pedals, you don't?
Speaker 3you don't like no, you put your foot on the footboard, you don't? Yabba dabba, do I have so much to learn? Okay, you will. Well, are they?
Speaker 2what did you call them? Floorboards? Floorboards or footboards, but on the back for a rider, the other kind of rider they're footpegs.
Speaker 5Well, you might have floorboards. You might have floorboards. So, our bike doesn't have floorboards.
Speaker 6No, mine's are pegs.
Speaker 5Our bike has pegs.
Speaker 3I did see on the front of a Gullwing and this might be what you're talking about. The Gullwing has a huge engine but they have like floorboards definitely coming out from those. Parquet, if I'm not mistaken, tile, it's a left ceramic, the drywall was weird Anyways. And then one guy had pegs kind of sticking out from his engine. But I'm like, man, to stick your legs out like that, to be able to use them, seems extremely uncomfortable.
Speaker 5Well, they were probably highway pegs.
Speaker 4They weren't functional. They're there to be comfortable. Yeah, they're there. So when you're on the highway you kick your feet up and just relax.
Speaker 3I got you.
Speaker 5You're not controlling anything there. There's no controls up there.
Speaker 3And that kind of bike probably has the linked brakes and everything right where you don't really need your brake.
Speaker 5A Goldwing would. Yeah, I don't know that Harley does linked brakes. I don't think so.
Speaker 4Well, not the one I got. I got a 2011 Electra Glide Ultra Classic.
Speaker 3It's nice, but it's not, you know lightest, greatest. I tell you one thing that surprised me was I always thought and I know people are like why are we talking about?
Speaker 5motorcycle Transportation. That's what we talk about on this show.
Speaker 3That's exactly right.
Speaker 5Thank you.
Speaker 3There's a lot of people. I was reading reviews and checking out the Gullwing because in my mind it's like maybe one day, right, it's a dream for years from now. A lot of them were comparing them to the Harley whatever the big Harley is. And the big Harley on a lot of the reviews won out Like I thought the in my mind the going's kind of the end-all be-all. But I guess, whatever that Harley Davidson one is, people just brag about how great it is and I mean to be clear. They're not like talking about the engine or anything. They're talking about how soft the suspension is. They're talking about how big the LCD screen is on the inside, how good the stereo is. They're not talking about the motorcycle features.
Speaker 3They're talking about the creature comforts.
Speaker 5Right.
Speaker 3So it's weird hearing people talk about Harley in that perspective, because my version of Harley is what we saw when we went camping a few months ago and they were doing the rat rods and it was like, oh yeah, I've got a 1973 handlebars with my. Harley Davidson frame or whatever. That's what I'm used to Hardtails. You know, that's kind of what I was thinking of. When I think of Harley, I think of like that kind of spirit.
Speaker 5Yeah and those things are total rat rods. They had cobbled together parts from everywhere to make their bikes. So that was pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 4And you know they usually make them themselves. That's the cool part about it.
Speaker 5Oh, these guys did these guys did.
Speaker 4They're doing it all themselves. They're not taking it, so yeah, that was so cool.
Speaker 3They had a Mr T van following them with all the gear. Yeah.
Speaker 4So yeah, because we were wondering like right, he drove it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3So I'm like oh, I guess it is Okay, whatever. So I'm thinking like, where's all their like? Did they just leave all their trash and all their stuff, or whatever? So I walked over there no, it was all clean and they're all leaving or whatever. And it was oh yeah, they just put a van. I never thought about having a follow van. That never occurred to me.
Speaker 2The van fit the rat rods. Their clothing was kind of era or timepiece, like they were embracing late 70s, early 80s.
Speaker 3I wasn't crazy off with the Mr T van. It wasn't as nice as the Mr T van the women were dressed very 70s kind of hippie bell-bottomy.
Speaker 2They were very neat people. No tents, no tents.
Speaker 3They were camping under the stars. Yeah, camping under the stars. It was very cool. They were super nice people too. I mean I could see when we first walked over there, I'm like, oh, this could go, because they caught something on fire. They caught their pants on fire their pants.
Speaker 5Yeah, one guy ripped his pants. He was trying to dry his pants or something.
Speaker 3Yeah, it like burns and they just sort of like, oh heck with it. They threw it in the fire and that leather burns like bright. So we were freaked out what's going on over there, and but again they ended up being just the nicest people in the world, just yeah.
Speaker 1Now we know why they have a follow van.
Speaker 3They'd have me tense.
Speaker 1Yes, bad weather, we're in the A-Team van.
Speaker 5They had ridden from Michigan.
Speaker 2I think it was they were on a very long ride.
Speaker 3They were on a very long ride, so yeah, it was so funny too, because they said hardtails or whatever and Vince was like ooh, and the girls were like it's killing us yeah. And even the guys were like, yeah, we had to stop after so many miles. It's just brutal. And I'm like, why would you do that? Why would you?
Speaker 4It looks cool. Motorcycle enthusiasts.
Speaker 2Oh, very much.
Speaker 1That's the only reason we have the second bike. Trying to even go an hour on the first bike. I couldn't do it. I just it's murder and I've told him anytime we're going anywhere. Now I have a back. I have to be able to sit back arms the whole nine yards. Yeah, that makes everything doable for any long trips.
Speaker 3I tell you what would be nice. I saw it in some of the old World War II movies. They have this little pod they can actually bolt onto the side of a bike. Might be fun.
Speaker 1No, thanks, I want to go back.
Speaker 4I wouldn't get in one of those. It seems dangerous, right, just no control. You're just, you're out there exposed. I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 3Well, we talked about how y'all got up here. We had actually a pretty great weekend. We told y'all last week we alluded to that we were going to be at the Bourbon Festival and we went and it was nothing short of fun. It was a really great time, very educational, got to listen to some pretty cool music and just hang out with a bunch of people. It was kind of nice being the second time around. Vince and I and Melissa and Eric. We ran into people that we'd actually met previous years. That was so weird.
Bourbon Festival Experience and Tastings
Speaker 3That was pretty cool we were like chilling in the I was going to say the tub chilling in the pool, and it was one of those like modern pools where they have like a really shallow.
Speaker 3It's not a kid's pool, it's just a shallow like lounging area like you can kind of like lay in it and you'll be mostly covered with water, but not all the way it. It almost makes you think of um, you ever seen those uh hotels that have the like the little swoopy chairs that you can sit in, where you're like half using the water?
Speaker 5half like a lounger. Like a lounger like it.
Speaker 3It should have those and maybe they just haven't come in yet, kind of thing. Because it's a nice, flat, huge, shallow area Easily fit for those chairs oh, easily. And we were just sitting over there in a corner waiting for the sun to go down because it was baking us. It's a heated pool so it's not super refreshing. It's nice but it's not super refreshing. So we're waiting for the sun to go down and this guy just rolls up and he's like hey, how y'all doing. I haven't seen y'all since last year. I'm glad to see you and melissa immediately. You picked up on it right away I'm like I'm like, who are you?
Speaker 3yeah, like it took me a little while to remember him it was dan the bourbon man yeah it, it took me a hot minute to remember him and then he just picked up on everything and then I think it was when you said the charity, because he, he runs a charity, um, that's uh sponsored by a bunch of bourbon enthusiasts, and uh, that's when I was like that's right, there was the guy here last year, the charity thing, but um, this was fun.
Speaker 2It's a good time. The weather held out. Yep, you know, because when we first started planning, like earlier in the week. What are we all packing?
Speaker 3you know, Just bringing snacks et cetera.
Speaker 2It was. Don't forget your rain gear, don't forget the umbrellas, and so what? Were you going to say Vince?
Speaker 5I was going to say it was forecast to rain all weekend.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 5And all we got was Friday morning, a little bit before we even got out.
Speaker 3Half an inch of rain each day, that's a lot of rain.
Speaker 5And we got none, nothing but sunshine.
Speaker 1And hot.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 3Hot.
Speaker 1It was a fun time Boy.
Speaker 3Friday was muggy, though that rain had come in that sun had come out. It was like back to South Louisiana. Remember that South Florida heat where it rains and then the sun just bakes that rain, Jerry. And it's just thick, you know, it just is brutal and it's just thick.
Speaker 2It's just brutal that first day. There's a portion of the festival that's more under shaded trees and I'm always looking for it. Can we go that way? Even if we go over there the trees created a breeze, and it was shadier and always cooler on that side.
Speaker 3Yeah, we felt really bad. They actually moved the craft fenders, craft fenders, you know your genuine leather wallets and your soaps and candles and beard wax and cool bourbon fest. So your cool spirits, bourbon jellies, bourbon jellies, your bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, come on somebody.
Speaker 1It was so good.
Speaker 3That dude was. Did you see him walking around? He had his little foldable carts, the wagon.
Speaker 1The little wagon.
Speaker 4That's when we had the sample.
Speaker 3He had the little thing and he's like you want to try it and we're like sure it was so good. And I was like you want to try it and we're like sure you know, oh, it's so good. And it was like where can I buy it? He's like, if you get cash here, if you don't, they got a booth over at the other part or whatever. But they put them in such a weird spot. A it was hotter than I mean, like it was bad. I couldn't think of a good analogy there was no shade, brutally hot.
Speaker 4It was in a parking lot. Yeah, parking lot, no shade, brutally hot, even under the in a parking lot.
Speaker 3Yeah, a parking lot, no shade, brutally hot, even under the tent, so you could just feel the heat radiating off of everything and then so nobody wanted to go over there, nobody. And it was far enough removed that like it wasn't even inclusive. It almost most of you had said that they could actually have moved the entrance barely any and then made all that, for the coal community could have gone and gotten.
Speaker 2They could have opened it to the public.
Speaker 3Yeah, and support it too.
Speaker 2Because they were right on the main thoroughfare of town, that's true, so the main people could have done it. So they could have moved the entrance. Just built another fence right on the grass line and that's where it was last year and put the entrance because the food vendors were actually there where the crafters were, and they were open to the public, just like they were this year, even though they moved them to the street.
Speaker 1I still think what we talked about. They could have put those vendors, intermixed them or intermingled them.
Speaker 2They're they're small. They were a little six foot.
Speaker 1By then people would have seen it, would have bought, bought it would have, you know.
Speaker 3Yep, and last year that's what it was. Last year it was actually in a very shaded tree area and there were constantly people walking through that area buying stuff left and right.
Speaker 2I bet they complained. Oh, I bet you they do too.
Speaker 3I would have.
Speaker 2Yeah, or I'm not coming back.
Speaker 4You'd see a handful of people, yeah, thousands of people walking over here and a handful of people over at the I saw their statistics 15,000 people over the three days.
Speaker 3I believe it. Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 2And 60 vendors.
Speaker 3I think it was 60 distillers, yes and over. I think it was 350 expressions of bourbon so different types of bourbon you could drink or whatever Cool thing. I mean like everybody gets a little small glass and then you go up and you taste them and it's not just like here. Let me take a chug of whiskey. They actually A. They're giving you a quarter ounce. It's very little.
Speaker 2It's fat.
Speaker 3It is enough to taste and that's it. But then they're also explaining what they do, how they're different than everybody else there, because there's 60 people there making the same exact product. How are they different? Why does it taste different? And getting to go through and hear all their explanations, some of the places we liked a lot. They gave us their information on where to go visit their distillery and actually see it in action. Some people were doing some really cool stuff with technology where there's one brand-new whiskey distillery Well, I guess not whiskey, it might be All Spirits but a brand-new distillery where it's completely automated and it's literally just one guy sits in a computer control room, homer Simpson style, and runs the whole plant. It's completely automated. They said something like 1,500 sensors are points along the way that actually guide the whole process. It's fascinating stuff. Making whiskey is a very labor-intense process. It's kind of cool to see what they're doing. Also a little scary, because I don't want people to lose jobs. I don't want this to adopt too much?
Speaker 5Oh sure, just automation.
Speaker 3But it's still neat to see what they're doing. There's another company that was talking about ways they figured out how to do what was it called Rapid maturation.
Speaker 5Yes, rapid maturation, rapid maturation, it never works.
Speaker 3They got some work to do there works.
Speaker 5They got some work to do. There have been a few places that have tried that. There's one here locally in Ohio, cleveland Distillery. They do rapid maturation. I want to say with sound waves. I shouldn't have you have that wrong, but there are a few that have tried different ways of rapidly maturing whiskey, elevator music. No but you do get that with another brand that's owned by a popular rock group, that they blast their whiskey in the barrels with their music.
Speaker 4It works for chickens, Does it? Yeah, chickens, I mean, depending on what kind of music you play? Yeah, chickens produce more eggs. They do yeah, chickens I mean depending on what kind of music you play.
Speaker 2Yeah, chickens produce more eggs. Yeah, wow Music I don't know if it's working for the bourbon. I doubt it will no what we tasted there.
Speaker 5Tasted very thin.
Speaker 6Yes.
Speaker 3Obviously, it was only three to six months old Experimental phase.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. There were a lot of experimental phases.
Speaker 3Yes, and it's still fun to see people try and people do things. We had one. It was a corn whiskey. It tasted like buttered popcorn. Oh yeah, that was really good Buttered popcorn at the movie theater and I'm like this is unbelievable. Actually, you know what it really tastes like. Are you all Jelly Belly people? Do you all like Jelly Beans Jelly? Do y'all like jelly beans, Jelly belly?
Speaker 5in particular.
Speaker 3Do you remember they used to have one, or they used to have one called buttered popcorn? Yes, it tasted just like that, just like a jelly belly butter popcorn, and I'm like literally all they're using is corn and a little bit of Water. No, what's the Yeast? Yeast right, sugar Malted rye. I think it was like 95.5.
Speaker 5Oh yeah, I think you're right. I think it was 95%.
Speaker 3That's just 95% corn, 5% Malta, dry, and it tastes like butter popcorn.
Speaker 5But what makes it corn whiskey and not bourbon. This was aged in a used barrel, it wasn't a brand new barrel. It was a used barrel so it couldn't be called bourbon.
Speaker 3And it wasn't an amount of time necessary. It looked really yellow. It looked like they were pouring butter out, it really did Bananas. Yeah, but that was a great time, enjoyed it. Stayed at that usual hotel, fairburn Bardstown, bardstown Motor Lodge. It's a great hotel. Lodge it's a great hotel. It's reasonably priced. They have a great pool. It's super convenient. There's zero truck parking. Do not attempt it, but that's in Bardstown in general. They're very not super truck friendly. It's old school Americana.
Speaker 2Sure.
Speaker 3I had a great time. I was so glad Kelly and Jimmy were able to make it up there. It was kind of iffy for a few minutes but it was a lot of fun hanging out. We get together and we work hard, and it's nice to be able to break away sometimes and enjoy each other's company.
Speaker 1Yeah, we had a good time.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was fun. So what we've been doing, kelly and Jimmy, on this podcast is, over the past several weeks we've been going and doing a history of Highfield. People want to know a little more about us hit, our history, our heritage, where we come from, chicken or the egg, etc. We started out by doing our first six months, then we did our first year, second year, yeah, yeah, and it's been kind of fun because we've explored the whole. Patrick and Eric as in high field, starting up as independent contractors who run for a fleet owner, we buy our first truck. We're owner-operators too. We've started a small fleet and we're at five trucks, I think it is. We just bought D-8803.
Speaker 1We just bought a baby carrying the equipment for 38 Special and I was seeing that truck Now baby, carrying the equipment for 38 Special 38 Special. And I will see that truck. Oh yeah, that's right Now it carries rock equipment for 38 Special, a lot of options for these reefer trucks.
Designing Unique Sleeper Trucks in Trucking
Speaker 3Yeah, so we buy D8803, which is our first brand new truck, and then, immediately after, we buy D8814, which is Old Blue. Blue is a great truck, dry van. You saw the pictures from it last week and why we call it Old Blue. If you didn't see it, go check it out, it's interesting. And then we get on a little kick and we, you know, buy a reefer truck here. A few months later, down the road, we buy it. It's identical twin trucks. We had two matching trucks and we're thinking at that time that's what we're going to do. We're going to have identical trucks, we're going to have nothing, but exactly the same that way it's going to make maintenance easy.
Speaker 3It's going to keep our fleet consistent.
Speaker 4All great ideas.
Speaker 3Those are the only two trucks we bought that were identical, of that series. That's because we had a new great idea we were going to buy a couple bathroom trucks to reward top-grossing, top-producing teams. You do really, really well, we're going to get you in a bathroom truck. Now, at the time FedEx had no load board and there was a classification of trucks called a Super C. So with FedEx, a C unit is a 12-foot box. That means you have 12 feet of usable space.
Speaker 3That means you can haul on a reefer three pallets, because their pallet is typically four foot by four foot, so it's three pallets. And then on a C unit dry van, you could put six pallets in there, because you could do three side by side. Because you don't have that insulation of the walls, you don't have that thickness. You're actually able to Wider inside, exactly wider inside. You're able to put two pallets side-by-side. But you can't do that on a reefer truck, not with a 4x4 standard pallet. And then it has to be able to hold, I think at the time, 5,000 pounds, thousand pounds. Well, we found out from people and places and things that the five thousand pound rule it was flexible, right, jerry?
Speaker 3yeah it's very flexible, very, very flexible. Uh, we at that time there people were building trucks that could haul like 25 pounds, very, very heavy trucks that could barely haul any weight, and FedEx was letting it fly. But we didn't want to do that. We wanted to have a super seat. So a super seat was they would take that same minimum criteria and put a third axle on it, so you still have a small box but you could hold a ton of weight. And that worked out really nice for us. So we put not 12-foot boxes, but we put 16-foot boxes on these trucks. And then we put 120-inch custom sleepers. And when I say custom sleepers I mean I went down to AA Custom Truck in Fort Worth, texas, and sat down with them, designed these things with their people. And the first one was very traditional Bathroom in the front left corner, right behind the driver's seat, big kitchen behind the passenger seat wall and the typical diner bunk in the back, and then the refrigerator was underneath the countertops and then there's a big closet behind the bathroom. Those trucks were super. It was a really nice truck. The bathroom was quite large, it was very spacious, it was super comfortable. It was a good design.
Speaker 3Then the second truck I was going to build. I approached that original team. We've talked about now a couple different episodes where we've had them in different trucks. Right, they're doing great, they're killing it. They're killing it, they're doing wonderful job. So I'm like I'm gonna make you a custom truck. What do you want? Uh, I showed her what we were doing for the first truck and she was like that won't work. And we're like what? Like? Like she literally said she'd just stay in her old truck and I'm like how you gonna turn on a bathroom and all this night, like what's going on? So she told me her truck, if you remember, the bed was on the side, so she essentially had six or seven feet of countertop space and she cooked in that truck every single meal they had they never ate out. And so she was like I cannot afford to lose that space. So I'm like, okay, let me put my thinking hat on.
Speaker 3I had seen Bolt Custom Trucks had actually built some 150-inch sleeper trucks, massive, gigantic trucks that we never would own their toilet in their bathroom and this is weird, it had the ability to pivot 90 degrees so you could kind of face it any direction you needed. And I was like, huh. So I actually found a picture of that on the internet. Go down to Texas. I talked to Wayne, who was running AA at the time, and I showed him this picture.
Speaker 3And then I threw a floor plan of a truck that I had drawn out on graph paper Because I'm so technically savvy. I'm surprised and I said can we do this? What we did is when you walk into the sleeper behind the driver's seat, it was counter space from directly behind the seat to about eight feet in or so, and then the last two feet, I guess seven and a half feet. The last two and a half feet was actually a bathroom, so where the shower, or like the shower, if you were standing in it you would be facing the front of the truck. You would now be facing sideways, like you're facing the passenger side wall. It's kind of a unique floor plan. Then, if you look, the bed is obviously on the side where traditionally it would be, and then Then, if you look, the bed is obviously on the side where it traditionally would be, and then the refrigerator is in front of the bed. So it actually made this very spacious, super comfortable sleeper.
Speaker 3That was my first time really getting super creative, because this wasn't just a. Let me just copy what people have done before. Let's see if we can innovate and fit this kind of complicated order up. And one thing that had been requested of us too was she wanted the up and down refrigerator. She had a bad back, didn't want to go underneath the counter for the refrigerator, had to have the up and down refrigerator, so did that. It came out awesome. It was really cool. Was she happy? She was super happy. We did white cabinets in there, so it's bright and airy. We did light fabrics, or light vinyls rather. It came out really, really nice. Back then we were putting O-Nane generators on the trucks Again, super nice truck.
Speaker 3They drove great going down the road. They were actually 38.5 feet long. They weren't quite as long as our full-size trucks are, so they just handled a little better. It was a really cool setup we had on those and I thought that's what the future of our industry was going to be. But FedEx started rumoring that they were changing the dispatch system a little bit and some of the early information we had was that hey, these changes are coming and you really need to have D units. We didn't necessarily know why or what was going on, but we knew we needed to make some changes. Going forward In 2016, we had decided we didn't really like the way the drive freight was going at FedEx, so we were debating should we go to Panther with a drive van or should we rebuild this truck as a reefer? And we did the stupidest thing you can do, which is we rebuilt that truck as a reefer. In hindsight, I was scared of what I didn't know, so we didn't go to Panther, but that was a stupid decision.
Speaker 2Should we stay or should we go? Exactly so we stay or should we go?
Speaker 3Exactly so. We rebuilt that truck as a reefer unit and we had these other reefer trucks in the fleet and everything's moving great. And that's when we finally got to meet Kelly and Jimmy and they come on the scene in late 2016. And we were so happy. They were here with us. Everything went flawless. They moved right into a truck False Exactly what we said it was going to be and there were no hiccups or any kind of issues of any kind right, False, False A little bit.
Speaker 1Muy poquito, you just got a few details off.
Speaker 3there you tell me what you remember.
Speaker 1I'm just kidding. No, seriously, I think we figured it at the time we were your ninth truck.
Speaker 4I thought it was seventh.
Speaker 1Seventh or ninth, I don't know, we'll have to get that fact checked. Yeah, but I think seventh or ninth, and honestly I had to find out what Jackie was, because that's how we found y'all.
Speaker 3Well, I can say y'all were in the or Frank was in 8803. And then he got the first bathroom truck he did, and then Jackie and Mike got into 8803.
Speaker 1They did, and that is how I found you.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1Because, jackie and Mike, we met them when we drove for Covenant.
Speaker 3And Jackie and Mike, just so you know they're millennials in trucking. If you're interested in seeing what some people who are, you know, young and creative in the industry and she's kind of a trendsetter and likes to disrupt things check her out. We love what they're doing.
Speaker 4They're awesome.
Speaker 5They're awesome people.
Speaker 3Absolutely awesome. And you know they do the same thing we do, just differently.
Speaker 4Mike and Jackie are young enough to be our children.
Speaker 1And they definitely were.
Speaker 4when we met them, jackie was actually 21 years old when we met them and I think Mike was 23.
Speaker 5Wow.
Speaker 1At the time, you had to be 21 to get a CDL. Do you still?
Speaker 3You still have to be 21. To go to interstate so you can get your CDL, do you still? You still have to be 21. To go to interstate so you can get your CDL. And she had a class A. You can get your CDL younger. You just can't leave the state.
Speaker 1So she went to Middle.
Speaker 3East Florida, I guess at the time Georgia.
Speaker 1Yes, it was at the time, and so she was 21.
Speaker 4And they both had class A's because they were driving for Covenant as well, and we you can tell it. We were at Covenant, I forgot why we had come back to the yard at Covenant in Chattanooga you can tell everybody, was it to get the award of the Drivers of the Month.
Speaker 2Yeah, okay, to get the award of Drivers of the Month. Nice. No, I didn't know. That was the actual reason why. Team Driver of the Month. By the way, they had multiple.
Speaker 4Yeah, for the second time in that year. And in the hallway, long hallway, they have pictures up of everybody. You know, they have the solo driver of the month, team drivers of the month, yada, yada. And so we're walking down the hall and there's this girl and a guy standing there and all of a sudden she steps out in the middle of the hall and says, hey, is that you? And points to us, and points to the picture of the wall.
Speaker 1She probably said it a little more colorful.
Speaker 4Probably, and if immediate friendship. They literally changed phone numbers right there and without knowing that anything about any kind of mentor or mentor program. We actually mentored them because they were friends and we were wanting to help them. They were brand new, young, we had been established. We figured out how to make money doing this.
Speaker 3At Covenant. At Covenant, yes at.
Speaker 4Covenant At Covenant and so yeah, and so immediate friendship formed and we kind of helped them out along the way and saw each other on the road. You know how it is. You run into somebody at a truck stop. We'd hang out, dogs would run together, eat together, whatever, and yeah, and that went on for I don't know what, maybe a year.
Speaker 1Well, we drove there for two and a half years, but then Jackie and I were friends on Snapchat.
Speaker 3Well, you had said you were only going to do it for an extra two years.
Speaker 1You had goals, Well yes, and I did leave. I did get off the truck and my nephew ran with Jimmy for about six months until Jackie's Snapchat. So one day I'm looking at Snapchat and I look at at Jackie's story and she's got this custom sleeper which we'd seen going down the road in a tractor trailer.
Speaker 4a bunch of times it was a FedEx custom critical truck.
Speaker 1I literally made jokes and used to say if I'm ever going to do this long term, that's what I'm talking about right there, kind of thing.
Speaker 5But it's a passing joke.
Trucking Recruits and Chaining Up
Speaker 1So I see on her Snapchat that she's got a picture of one of those FedEx Custom Critical trucks. What are you doing? So they had just left. She's man, we're going to drive this right now. She says these guys are great, you should reach out. You should reach out. They have another open truck, Patrick and Eric. So she texted me Patrick's number. We had just gotten another reefer truck back. You did, and so I called Patrick just out of the blue, because at the time, no recruiting, no nothing. They were still on truck actually driving for a while.
Speaker 3actually, we drove until 17.
Speaker 4We drove for a few years together. Patrick was recruiting and maintenance at the time. Yeah, right, I was.
Speaker 1So I called up and I was off the road at the time and I told him and even at that point I'm pretty sure I said to Patrick, because you asked me how long, you said a year, I said two- or two years, so I'll give you two years I said I can promise you two years.
Speaker 1I won't leave before that, because I knew it was a big deal to do that and of course that lasted way longer than that. So then we ended up in that truck and of course we did drive Old Blue that you referred to, the drive-in.
Speaker 3So things okay. So I got to back up and just say real quick, don't make excuses, my little Mike and Jackie plug. They were back to their age. They were so young that when it was time for them to get the truck, eric and I talked to them about, like, can you rent a car and bring it to us or whatever, and then you'll be able to move the truck and everything? And we were going to meet them in Memphis or something and she was like we tried, and because they weren't 25 years old, they couldn't rent a car. And so they were like if y'all rent a car, we'll pay for it. Are you taking over a settlement or whatever if you can bring us a truck?
Speaker 3And it's like a reverse way of doing it. Okay, that might, I don't. That's kind of weird, but let's see what happens. So what ended up happening is Eric and I were able to go home, grab our personal vehicle and then we just drove both vehicles up there, dropped them off at their house. Way back in the day, dropping trucks off at people's houses, you did us too.
Speaker 6Yeah, that's, you did, me too.
Speaker 3Twice, it's been a. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, you had to meet me at Panther, sorry, I had to meet you at Panther.
Speaker 1I'm like you didn't come to Oregon. No, I didn't come to Oregon. We also used to do in person. Then you had to take me to the record place. I know, right, yeah.
Speaker 3Different treatment. But no, so we brought the truck down to them and here's why I didn't meet you in oregon. We get there and we literally think it's going to be uh, here's the keys, let me show you around the truck. And then we go. We get there, a the covenant truck is still there and I'm like, oh, that's not a good sign oh yes, I'm like okay. Well, this is not a good sign and then, um, she's like y'all come inside, we're about to to have breakfast and I'm like, well, this is weird, they don't know me.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm like I don't know about all this. So we go inside she cooks us omelets made to order. What ingredients do you want? The whole nine yards we ended up having. We spent hours hanging out with them and then Eric and I finally left and had a pretty good laugh on the way home with some of the conversation we had with Jackie, because you know, if you get a chance again, melina's in trucking and she does a lot of staff writing with expeders online.
Speaker 3Women in trucking she works with them in trucking as well, and she does some stuff with expeder services too. She's kind of all over the place and she's just a firecracker.
Speaker 1That's an understatement All over the place.
Speaker 3And so it was so cool to kind of like again. I think I had a good feeling about them. But still, some of the stuff she said made me laugh.
Speaker 1So when she said she referred me, did you have a good feeling then or were you worried?
Speaker 3So by the time she had referred you, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect, and then I didn't even get to meet you. No, you didn't.
Speaker 4Eric did, eric brought the truck.
Speaker 3So we do go back and again a little while later y'all get involved and you're going to come over, so we do the application, all that stuff, and y'all end up going to class with another set of drivers.
Speaker 1And I think it was there you discovered that we mistakenly gave no. I didn't discover that for a long time the truth didn't come out.
Speaker 4We were sitting at a Petro or a TA iron skillet with.
Speaker 1It wasn't until we met them we met them for the first time that we found out that we made the connection between what happened to our truck and why we had to wait three weeks to get one.
Speaker 3Okay, so this was a mistake. We're just giving you a hard Okay, so this was a mistake, just the way it is.
Speaker 2It's coming out many years later.
Speaker 3I know right here comes the truth, and I don't remember this. They were much closer than I do.
Speaker 2He leaves a wake late at night.
Speaker 3But apparently there was a. We had the drive-in and we had the reefer going up and someone else recommended a friend of theirs who was already with Custom Critical and they were in a bad experience. They had a bad experience with the fleet owner they were with and were ready to move on and needed a truck to move into. So we moved them from a reefer truck into a reefer truck and then y'all unfortunately got a dry van but, y'all killed it in the dry van.
Speaker 4In December.
Speaker 3They were in that truck for a couple weeks and I told Eric I'm like well, they're getting the next reefer. I mean it was one of those immediate like oh, they're killing it, just killing it. You gave me my first really big scare fear.
Speaker 4whatever you want to call it, of the company I remember. I remember Frank had to call me and talk to me about it. Was this Colorado? Yes, yes, monarch Pass.
Speaker 3Yes, so I get a message from them about something about chaining up. I don't remember how I found out.
Speaker 4I talked to Frank and I think Frank told you and then you told Frank to call me back.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think I was freaking out. I'm like we don't chain up in our company, so like we tell people all the time like you don't have to chain up, it's not a requirement, you do what's safe, not lying. These people tell me they're chaining up their truck to go across this crazy dangerous pass we had a load to deliver man.
Speaker 4We had to make some money.
Speaker 2He also grew up in Colorado Springs in Wisconsin A monarch.
Speaker 1That changes things. Well, I didn't know that. I knew nothing about y'all. I hadn't even met you at that point, eric had only delivered your trucks to you.
Speaker 3So I'm like in pure panic mode. All is well. Yeah, I mean that's one of those Franks talking me off the ledge. He did that a few times.
Speaker 4Can I tell the conversation? Frank called me a few times, can I? Can I tell the conversation? Frank called me, yes, yes, and he said and I said well, you know, he told me we don't chain up there. It's there. If it's bad enough to chain up, just shut it down. I'm like, listen, I grew up in colorado and wisconsin. I mean we used to mess around in the snow. I have no problem chaining, I did it all the time. So from that point it was like I was good to go. Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, I thought I was in trouble, but it worked out.
Speaker 3Well, and we had like again the first team we had come on working with us, steve and Bam. They were out of West West.
Speaker 1Jordan, Utah, yeah West.
Speaker 3Jordan, Salt Lake City, and so you chain up there all the time. It's just second nature to you, you just do it all the time. And they drove school buses so they definitely had to chain up and all that stuff. So when they did some chaining up I didn't think anything of it because I knew their background history. I knew nothing about y'all.
Speaker 5You're from the mountains of Georgia. What do?
Speaker 3you know about chaining up, so that kind of freaked me out. But yeah, that was.
Speaker 2Trust me, the girl from Florida didn't know, but she married to a man who did it. Vince and I did it once we team rocked it.
Speaker 3He'd only done it one time on a bobtail in a yard in summer. Oh, but see, y'all would be the team I wouldn't worry about.
Speaker 2Are you serious? Coming from Oregon, coming?
Speaker 3from Oregon. I'm like, well, if you drove in Oregon and then I know you drove those mountain passes in California and such.
Speaker 5I'm like. You probably know how to chain. I started my career in the winter, in February, in Oregon.
Speaker 3Let me tell you how Eric and I learned how to chain. We went out to Washington and we got to Snoqualmie.
Speaker 2Snoqualmie.
Speaker 3On the backside of Snoqualmie is a Flying J. We pulled in there and we waited out the chain laws and then we drove. That's how we learned to chain. We learned don't, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1We waited it out lots of times, and you know what? Yes, yeah.
Trucking Safety and Equipment Choices
Speaker 4We didn't even chain that many times. It wasn't really worth it because when you do it. You're out in the snow and you only have a certain time frame to do it, or you get a.
Speaker 5DOT violation.
Speaker 4It's like you know, just shut it down.
Speaker 5I can count on one finger.
Speaker 4Well, and you don't go fast with chaining either People don't realize.
Speaker 3you're going 20 miles an hour and it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2It was for eight miles or something. It was over Vail Pass and we did it. We managed it. He gets in and I'm like I have warm clothes for you that are dry. He's like I only have to go eight miles.
Speaker 5Yeah, I'm like I'm not changing and then these have to come off and then take them off. I'm not changing, I'll wait until it changes off.
Speaker 2Just turn the heat on real high right now.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'll fall out, then get out and do it again.
Speaker 2That was the one and only time we did it.
Speaker 3Oh no. Well, the thing for me is they're so dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, if you're not careful, if you try to go too fast, you're still. If the snowpack's not right, you know what I mean. Chains do nothing for ice, so they only work if you have snowpack. As soon as you lose that snowpack, your chains lose traction. Think about it ice skates are just metal blades sliding on on ice, which is all your chains are at that point.
Speaker 2So well then, if you don't get them snug, I mean they can fly off so easy, or if they break underneath all of that, yeah yeah, there's.
Speaker 3there's just a lot of that goes with it. We put the chains in the truck because by law, we're required to have it on the truck during colorado, uh, during certain months of the year which is in effect now, and that's it. I don't ever require anybody to do it. There might be some time where you have to to get yourself out of a bad situation, but outside of that.
Speaker 2I don't ever expect people to, so when you do that, I. You know who was a roster on those your right-hand woman there, kayla Bender, in Fleet Support for Panther. She always was throwing chains, just her.
Speaker 3Oh, that's because she grew up in Idaho.
Speaker 2She was always throwing chains.
Speaker 3She had to throw chains to go to college. You know what I mean. She had to throw chains to get up to the pig farm.
Speaker 2She was always doing it.
Speaker 3It's funny too. You talk to these ice road trucker people and all and it's like what do you mean? It's like nothing, it's like no big deal, it's like fueling, you just do it.
Speaker 3And I'm from South Louisiana. I already told y'all. A couple weeks ago I gelled up a truck because I didn't know diesel turned to freaking wax when it got cold enough, so it was definitely not for. Even now up in here in Ohio, if it gets really bad, if we have really really bad snowy days, we talk to ops and we talk to recruiting and let everybody know there's going to be a day or two. Hold, we're not driving in this crap. We're not risking our lives because it's not just us, it's other people on the road too.
Speaker 3You can do everything right chaining and have some idiot hit you.
Speaker 2You know what I mean, jerry, did you ever chain Jerry?
Speaker 5had auto chains.
Speaker 6I was about to say every truck I ever drove before Highfield had auto chains, so my chaining was flipping a switch on the dash and going.
Speaker 5Imagine my disappointment when I watched a Jerry video before we came on board and he's running auto chains and I didn't know there was a different carrier, a fleet change I thought it was Highfield and we get here and we don't have auto chains.
Speaker 1I was ready to walk.
Speaker 6They got me out of so many sticking situations and it was amazing to just flip a switch. They come down, they engage I go. Whenever I'm done, flip the switch. They come down, they engage I go. Whenever I'm done, flip the switch, carry on down the road.
Speaker 4Yeah, they are nice, I know nothing about them.
Speaker 1I see them at the shows all the time. There's always the booth there and they've got the little thing swinging and showing you what they do. The same as those socks things. Now those look pretty doggone easy. If you're asking me, I don't think they look a fraction as effective as a chain, but obviously there's something to them.
Speaker 3I don't know the legality of them.
Speaker 1I think they're I don't even want to say Maybe if they're legal for the law.
Speaker 5I think they're legal but maybe they're not Auto stocks. Yeah, auto stocks say they're legal in all 48 states. On their website they actually link to the state. What about Canada. Canada was a question about whether they were legal in a certain part British Columbia or something. I think it's British.
Speaker 2Columbia.
Speaker 3You still carry both. There was some weirdness, and so that's why we always took the road of. We're going to put chains on your truck. If you want to buy auto socks and have them on your truck, I'm not going to stop you. But if you get a ticket, it's your ticket. You know what I mean. I'm not going to support you.
Speaker 3It's up to you if you want to use it or not. I'm not going to tell you one way or the other. And a lot of our teams did. A lot of our teams bought auto socks. I've seen that be a popular thing people grow towards. Here's what I don't like about auto socks the main reason I don't buy and utilize auto chains and does anybody want to answer that?
Speaker 4for me Maintenance. No, you mean auto socks.
Speaker 3No, the chains. Oh okay, auto chains. You know why? It makes people brave, yeah. It makes it easy to make bad decisions.
Speaker 2That's a good idea, and so it's not worth the risk, let's just not do it yeah.
Speaker 1That's fair. I'd rather pull over.
Speaker 3Yeah, if you're a novice driver and you're like all I got to do is flip this switch and drive over this pass, and I'll be, fine.
Speaker 1Everything will be fine. Right, it's not necessarily the case. And maintain the same speed. I've been maintaining and not understanding exactly what it means to have chains on the truck. I can see that.
Speaker 3So it's just like no, we don't need bravery, so we don't equip our trucks with those, and I've also talked to other fleet owners who did, and they quit because of either bravery or maintenance.
Speaker 3So people don't realize those auto chains. They're sitting on an aluminum bracket. You're supposed to take those heads off every year and put them back on every year. Most people don't Do it a few seasons they end up bending and then when you push the button, they don't Do it a few seasons they end up bending and then when you push the button they don't go up high enough to make contact with the tire, but you don't know that until you're, they're not doing a darn thing down there.
Speaker 3Exactly Until you're in a bad situation. So it's just like yep, we're not going to do it, we're not going to equip them. I know that we've bought trucks with auto chains?
Speaker 5Yes, and they immediately came off. Yep, immediately.
Speaker 3Yeah, we've done a few repos that have had them and they come off immediately. It's the first thing. As a matter of fact, we're looking at another repo right now that we're trying to work out the logistics. Repos are tricky. They're not like if you go to buy a repo truck. It's a multi-month situation, it's not an overnight situation. So we're working on it right now but it has auto chains on it and it's literally on the list of if we get this truck they're coming off and that's an expense we bear, but again, it's not worth it. If someone gets brave, they could forget the price of the truck. That's insured. I can't insure your life False sense of security.
Speaker 3Very much so.
Speaker 2How long were you in the dry van? Not to switch subjects, but it was on my mind. A month, four weeks.
Custom Reefer Truck Modifications
Speaker 3So what was happening was? He realized the error of his ways While they were in the dry van we'd already started the process of converting that other truck into a reefer, so we knew it was going to be a temporary thing.
Speaker 1It had a weird little and you could tell it was a retrofit, for lack of a better word, because the box had a nifty little notch in it.
Speaker 2It was a weird, that was a strange little deal there. So if you remember, back.
Speaker 3Clearly we have avid listeners to the podcast so two weeks ago we talked about our first reefer truck with that same reefer notch.
Speaker 4And this was the second one we did now this one, we because, we were a nice storage area.
Speaker 3It had a wonderful storage, amazing story. So because because we were building this thing from scratch, uh, we actually built the like the. We bought a full size, like a regular size box and then had capital city trailers in columbus cut it down and actually build that notch. And so because we did that, we actually had them do a full wall.
Speaker 1It was insulated and everything.
Speaker 3It's a full insulated wall. So where that notch came down, if you walked in that truck you would not know it was a notch streeper because it was a perfectly had that white fiberglass material they use inside the trucks. What's it called? Jimmy, you repair it all the time.
Speaker 2It's like a fiberboard.
Speaker 3There's a word for it, because it's common for a forklift to nudge it and we have to patch it Crimlight.
Speaker 5Kimlight, kimlight, kimlight.
Speaker 3So it had that kimlight on there, it was fully insulated, it was beautiful. And then we had that extra space and we're like there, it was fully insulated, it was beautiful, and then we had that extra space and we're like what should we do with?
Speaker 1it.
Speaker 3On the other side. On the front side, so directly under the reefer, behind the sleeper. About what? Four foot tall? About four foot tall, three foot wide, maybe Something like that.
Speaker 1No, it was way taller than that. It was taller than the box.
Speaker 4It had a side door. So on the side of the box you had a side little latch door and it might have been three feet Something like that it could fit a large pack of paper towels and a case of water yes, wide.
Speaker 3And we put steps there like some steel steps to get in and out.
Speaker 4It was very convenient.
Speaker 3Yep, so we tried Big old toolbox. We tried to use that space as best we could and I think we kept. Did we keep our pads in there and our dollies maybe?
Speaker 1We didn't. It was empty. Y'all made that up, but I think we ended up doing that. There was nothing in it when we got the truck.
Speaker 4I think that's exactly where the pads and the furniture dolly. Now the pallet jack and everything was still in the box.
Speaker 3That was a really cool truck. That was a moneymaker. We had that thing on for approximately ever.
Speaker 4That thing, so towards the end of its life we ended up making that our truck Best driving truck. Best driving truck with the least amount of problems. I ever drove when I was with them.
Speaker 3Oh man Pinky on the steering wheel, it was great.
Speaker 4Yeah, it was great. Lo Up and down Mon Eagle fully loaded like it's nobody's business.
Speaker 3Had a AA sleeper on it. So this was the truck that Eric and I had ran it was an M2.
Speaker 1It was an.
Speaker 3M2. Eric and I had ran this truck for a few months. I couldn't get the sleeper cold enough, especially because we were doing a lot of stuff in the desert. There's just freight comes in waves. Sometimes you're in the desert, sometimes you're not. We were in the desert, I couldn't get the sleeper cold enough, so we actually put a curtain up. Did y'all get it after?
Speaker 5the curtain was up.
Speaker 3So you could pull the curtain on just the bed and you could make it approximately six, maybe seven degrees cold. It was an extreme custom.
Speaker 1So it had a curtain that went right by the bed and a curtain behind the sleeper, so you literally could curtain the sleeper off, have your little cooking area, and then the bed was covered.
Speaker 3Oh, the great thing too was like if we're driving and it's like, all right, I want a coffee, I could just park the truck, pop back there, do my Keurig, because that other curtain's closed, so I could just do whatever I needed to do, albeit quietly. You try to be respectful to this person, but we had a full-on. What are those six curtains called?
Speaker 2Blackouts.
Speaker 3Blackout curtains up there. So I mean, it was pretty effective.
Speaker 4We never closed it, yeah Ever.
Speaker 5But, we also never put the bed up.
Speaker 1Our beds stayed down the whole time, but we also had dogs in the truck so that was their area. We do have a lot of teams that lift the bed and use the table pretty frequently and cook and stuff. We never put the bed up.
Speaker 2Moving all your eight pillows off the bed, your eight pillows we usually did ours, when we were camped Long weekend somewhere Holiday weekend.
Speaker 1We might have put it up a couple times when we camped.
Speaker 2Yep, but that was it.
Speaker 1Other than that, that was it too. It just wasn't worth it. It was hard.
Speaker 3We had to frequently because we still had to run a business, so we still had to get our laptops out and all that stuff. I mean you could sit in the bed for a few minutes and do something, but if you're going to sit, I have to sit somewhere for two, three hours. You'd kill your back. So it just makes sense Just go ahead and put that up and all that stuff.
Speaker 3That was a cool truck too, that one also had the upper bunk was a false set of cabinets, right? So if it was a same household team, the upper bunk could be, the mattress could be removed and there's a piece of wood that could be removed and it actually turned into a bunch of cabinets, a big cabinet with four doors, four or five doors going across. But if it needed to be a non-same household truck, with you know, two non-related drivers or whatever, then you put that wood back in and then put the mattress back in and it turned into an actual good-sized bunk.
Speaker 1I think we've got a few of those on the Western side. I was going to say we've had a couple more like that.
Speaker 5A couple of AA sleepers are like that.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, yeah, the AA's are. Yeah, it's been a long time.
Speaker 2The dark black wood cabinets that we were just talking about yesterday.
Speaker 4It's one of those. We don't convert them anymore, but we have. I wonder where that truck is now. Would you like to know?
Speaker 3That would be interesting. We got rid of that thing at six or seven hundred thousand miles Because towards the end of its life we actually just kept it as a spare truck in case someone needed something. And we finally got to a point where that truck would break down just as fast as the one the person was moving out of. So it was like all right, it's time to let this thing go right. But I, we held on the thing until it was, until it was time.
Speaker 3But it was a great truck. Um, I forgot you're on that. And then y'all left that thing and y'all went to the bathroom truck right y'all don't even go into a regular d unit, y'all went straight from that thing right the conversion right into a um is that?
Speaker 4the one. You went, we went down to fort worth and no, no, no.
Speaker 1This is the first this one was another truck that had a sister truck. Yes, it was 9242. Yeah, and we had a sister truck.
Speaker 3Yeah, so we did have twin trucks several times so this one, we, this one was four trucks in a row, so all four trucks were the same. The only difference was the generator. Two had own ends and two had Comfort Pros. We stopped using the Onans because of maintenance issues. We kept having repairs that were ridiculous and couldn't get people in and out of shops. So you would actually have a situation where people would go into a shop and they'd say, oh, it's an RV generator, cummins would, onan would. They wouldn't want to work on the APU, they'd work on the generator. So we actually switched over to an actual APU shop that way, or an APU that way. They'd see your truck shop and actually work on your equipment.
Speaker 1Although those Onans are so quiet.
Speaker 3They are so quiet.
Speaker 1They're nice, I wish they were so much better because they are so quiet.
Speaker 3Yeah, I hate it too. I mean, for a while we had a lot of Onans in our fleet at one point.
Speaker 2Is the Dynasys as quiet or quieter than the Comfort Pro?
Speaker 1I think it's quieter than a Comfort Pro, but I don't think it's near as quiet as an Onan.
Speaker 3Onans are dead quiet.
Speaker 5You walk up next time and you're like is this on A lot of?
Speaker 3times. If you walk up to a truck that has an O-Nane and you hear a rattle, it is literally a piece of metal rattling. The cover yeah.
Speaker 3It's very rare that it's actually the APU rattling. No, those were great trucks, but yeah, those four. So that one I kind of want to save that. I know you won't be here next week for us to talk about it, but that was a unique design that I sat down and put together and I want to talk about how that came out to be, because it was a design they said couldn't be done and we did it and, unfortunately, created a new standard.
Speaker 1We did. It was the standard afterwards it was.
Speaker 3It still is. So I kind of want to talk about how we got to that. But um, that's another show for next week thanks for having us on. Yeah, um oh thank you for being here I know you didn't want to do it and jimmy talked many times about. Can we please get out of it somehow? And you know well, you know, I think I told you that.
Speaker 4You know, kelly really doesn't like to talk a whole lot and she doesn't, you know, when you get engaged with her. She doesn't like to talk a whole lot when you get engaged with her, she kind of shuts down, doesn't really speak and talk and doesn't go on rants or anything like that.
Speaker 5That's more your job, so it's very good.
Speaker 4It's nice to see her out of her comfort zone doing some talking tonight.
Speaker 3Well, I'm hoping in a few weeks we can have the expedite chicks on Not a few weeks actually.
Speaker 1It is Two months, no, a month and a smidge. A month and a smidge.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3Maybe we'll have the expedite chicks on. We'll see. What about the sidekicks, the chicks and their sidekicks.
Speaker 4I don't think they're going to make the date. I think it's just going to be chicks. I heard you couldn't afford them is what it was no. The Sidekicks will be here. Sidekicks will be here.
Speaker 1You can't afford the sidekick you have a sidekick that won't be here with you. You're a sidekick.
Speaker 3Yeah, and if you don't know what that means, check out the Expedite Chicks.
Speaker 1There you go, selfish plug.
Speaker 3They do a wonderful show. They really promote the industry. They know a lot about what's going on. They can stand on task. Stay on task, Jerry, as much as he tries can't bring us in. He hasn't tried very hard. He's just sitting there stewing he worked hard today. He did work hard. Today Jerry works hard every day he does.
Speaker 2He worked extra hard today. That's right. She's not lying.
Speaker 3She's not lying. I did walk into one of their meetings. Again, you're here, so you and Don and Jerry are working on a big project together. Then I walked in and Jerry's like so all I gotta do is hit this button right.
Speaker 5That was his whole task.
Speaker 3So Don and Jerry I'm sorry, don and Jimmy, I need to get different names are for hours agonizing over this and Jerry walks in and he's like we're good.
Speaker 4Enter A little bit of anxiety before the enter.
Speaker 6My whole life is anxiety.
Speaker 4It's good to be up here working, though, though, with you guys, and to have Don and Jerry Over today. I mean because we Work from Georgia and it's like we talk on the phone and the occasional Zoom call and emails, but to actually, you know, be all around a table and getting things done Is kind of neat.
Speaker 1I will say it's pretty cool to Hear you say you guys are doing the show thing, and to think about when we came and to still be sitting here today. That is something that's really cool and I'm grateful for it. It's been a ride.
Speaker 3You've had a great path. It's funny, I know, like while we were down at KBF, vince and Melissa and Jimmy and Kelly are talking about the pathway to becoming employees of this company and how that happened and it's very different stories and it's just kind of interesting how it all has played out. But it's just kind of interesting how it all has played out and you know it's been a lot of fun, a lot of effort, yeah a lot of effort and every time we bring someone on or someone new or we change something, it just gets better.
Speaker 3Like it's amazing how we are just sharpening that knife and I think we're not far away from Cutco Sharp.
Speaker 2No, we're not, we're getting there.
Company Growth and Team Dynamics
Speaker 3It's in the privy. I mean, like I can see it, and we've got a lot of things. We've had some staff meetings and some meetings over the past week that are, you know, past week. Yeah, some exciting stuff that's coming that. I just can't wait to see Bloom, the thing Melissa was working on today. I know you're still working on some stuff.
Speaker 2Yep, it's so funny when you. I'm just going to go live tomorrow though.
Speaker 3Is it Okay? It's so funny when you get a message from Melissa and she's like if you see this online, do not touch it, do not look at it, step away, stay in your lane. It's like.
Speaker 1Jerry does the same thing.
Speaker 2Ignore those messages that come. I'm the only one doing this. Well, sometimes you're testing.
Speaker 1Works for me.
Speaker 2Yeah, yep, you're testing. You gotta do those tests.
Speaker 1You don't have to ask me to stay out of doing stuff.
Speaker 2No, no, I'm excited to see where that goes too.
Speaker 3But we all know we're all such team players that if we see something it's like oh well, yeah, I can take care of that real quick. Let me knock it out. We'll do it, but that'll screw up your test.
Speaker 3So it's like no, it's really great. I like that we have this thing going on. Some of these new improvements we're doing are great. A couple things that we have to finesse some more. Your thing's going live tomorrow. Wheels are moving, things are exciting. I told y'all when we started this. I said it's going to be an exciting fall. Things are already starting to happen that have got me there.
Speaker 4It's cool that people get to see and hear the history Because it's been ever-evolving, I mean, even since we came on as drivers. She came on staff in March of 2020. I came on March of 2021. And just the ever-changing, ever-evolving industry and Highfield.
Speaker 3It's been a great ride, it's just been fun, it really has, and you talked about like ever evolving, like it's so funny. We had a thing today that actually came up yesterday. The question was why do y'all do it this way? Oh, we do it that way because eight years ago we had this thing happen and that's not relevant anymore and we need to change it because we're not that same company eight years ago and so it was.
Speaker 5It's exciting to see that stuff too.
Speaker 3Like we have to change it because we're not that same company eight years ago and so it's exciting to see that stuff too. Like we have to go back and revisit some things because you know, things you do when you were small aren't necessarily things you do when you're big, and just trying to dial things in and figure that part out that's kind of fun too, and we talked in staff meeting today. So every week we have a big staff meeting. It's an all-call video conferencing thing, and we talked about it again.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And just hashing that out and following the logic. It is fun to see how we got where we got, how we are, and some things are really great and some things are like well, okay, let's nip that up real quick, that's a little different.
Speaker 5Let's fix it.
Speaker 3So it's just following that lineage.
Speaker 2Yeah, A quick one. Just quick because I know we're winding up. Vince and I were truck number what on Panther, when we started Eight?
Speaker 5On the Panther side. Yeah, I think we were like number four.
Speaker 2Number four and roughly how many trucks on the Panther side? Yeah, I think we were like number four.
Speaker 5Number four and roughly.
Speaker 2How many trucks on the Panther side do we have now?
Speaker 550.
Speaker 2And so that's been for us. I was just trying to put it in perspective.
Speaker 5It's been fun to watch the Panther side grow and to help it grow and to be a part of the helping it grow, Even when I got on staff.
Speaker 1to be quite honest with you, in March of 2020, I think I had 12 Panther trucks 75 total, I think around 75 trucks. So that just shows you the Panther fleet has blown. It blew up. Yeah, we've had steady growth, for the most part on the FedEx side. But even four years ago Panther was at 12. So that's been rapid growth on that side.
Speaker 3And then our tractor program's a year and a half old and are really a year old.
Speaker 5We have a couple trucks that are a little bit older than that, but really a year old and watching how that's coming along.
Speaker 3I'm excited, I sit back and I go like I know what's coming down the pipe, but I can't say everything because you have the corporate sponsors Right.
Speaker 2We've had a few tonight that we've, they don't sponsor.
Speaker 1We've kept everybody tonight.
Speaker 3Well, listen here. It's been a wonderful ride. We enjoy it so much and I'm thankful everybody here is a part of that. You each have your own stories. I can't wait to hear more about Jerry you coming on board and your strife and your excitement, and you know how you got here and you know how we can't get rid of them now. Yes, it's like athlete's foot.
Speaker 4Anyways.
Speaker 6But no, no, you messed with me, you stuck with me.
Speaker 3I say that in mess with me, you stuck with me.
Speaker 1I say that Amen, brother.
Interactive Podcast Promotion and Humor
Speaker 3Most loving fashion. In the meantime, if you like what you heard and you're like, where can I get more? Check us out. We're on the Outerbelt, outerbelt, outerbelt podcast, everywhere pretty much. Yep, like and follow. Yeah, like and follow us. Check us out on Instagram To see more of these pictures that we've talked about today or on previous shows.
Speaker 3If you thought, hey, you know what Someone else that I know might enjoy hearing these random people rant for an hour and a half, share our show with us. Hit a like if you liked us. Hit a downer if you don't like us. Leave us a comment if there's anything you want us to talk about, anything you want us to clarify, converse about. Is there any point in Highfield's history you want to hear more about? Sometimes we have to summarize and skip over some parts, but we're happy to come back and revisit them. If you're interested in driving in this fleet that you're hearing about, you can check us out at highfieldtruckingcom. You can also call us at 833-HIGHFIELD. That's 833-HIGHFIELD, also known as 833-HIGHFIELD HighfieldTruckingcom. During business hours, we always have chat available and we'd love to meet you, talk with you Until next week. Y'all stay safe and make good decisions. Don't leave money on the table.
Speaker 6And keep those wells of turner Check's out.
Speaker 2Good night, bye.
Speaker 1Hey, guess what, what? You know what the nosy pepper does, what Gets jalapeno business. Thank you,