The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Weather Whims, Skating Spins, and Trucking Wins: Adventures on the Road and Rink!
What if the weather was as unpredictable as a game of dice? Join us as we navigate the wild weather rollercoaster of Columbus, from a surprisingly sunny Sunday at the zoo to a cozy fireplace moment that didn’t quite go as planned. We share our misadventures with weather forecasts, pondering Mother Nature's whimsical patterns and the comedic side of winter in warmer climates as we swap tales from the road.
Skating through memory lane, we recount our escapades on ice and roller rinks. From the chilly lanes of Las Vegas to beloved childhood spots like Skate World in Eugene, each story is a reminder of the simple joy of skating. And who could forget the thrill of the DJ booth at the local bowling alley, spinning tunes for skaters doing the hokey pokey? It’s a nostalgic ride filled with laughter and the universal delights of gliding across a rink.
Meanwhile, we dive into the evolution of trucking—from the transformation of truck sleeper designs to the challenges of refrigerated trucking and beyond. Our conversation highlights the success of a growing mentorship program that’s turning skeptics into believers, transforming careers one story at a time. Expect to be inspired by tales of overcoming adversity and the power of community storytelling as we explore these highways of experience and growth.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hysg@gmail.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
Facebook: The Outer Belt Podcast
Instagram: The_OuterBelt
Are you ready, already Get?
Speaker 3:set.
Speaker 2:Go.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Belt. I'm Patrick and you're one of my friends, chili.
Speaker 2:Buttermilk.
Speaker 1:Eric and Jerry, and we're here to celebrate another day in the world of expediting. Yes, sir, and what a day it's been. It's been so.
Speaker 2:It's been crazy, grim. This whole week has been crazy, this whole week's been insane, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:And there's no end to the insanity.
Speaker 1:No, but it started out wonderful. The Sunday was just stunningly beautiful. I saw that they had a big attraction here in Columbus, which a lot of people have done is the zoo. The zoo here is. Jack Hanna was our zookeeper emeritus president, ambassador, or something, we all know Jack Hanna from, of course, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, or, as Jerry would know it, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno or, as Jerry would know it, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Speaker 4:Or, as I would know it, the Tonight Show with oh, I forget what that guy's name was, because I'm so old now Steve Irwin.
Speaker 1:No, it would be Steve Irwin or Johnny Carson.
Speaker 2:There was one before Johnny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my goodness. Oh wait, are you talking about the Jack Benny?
Speaker 4:No, I can't think of his name.
Speaker 2:Where's our fact checker? He's not over there in the gallery.
Speaker 4:Let me use my Google box and see if I can figure out who it was.
Speaker 1:Anyway, while you're looking that up, so we Talk about it. So over the winter they do, they do these like winter nights at the zoo or something like that it's beautiful. I've never been, but I've driven by the zoo and it's lit up like Santa Claus world. I mean it's insanely gorgeous. Sunday was so pretty. They had so many people go to the zoo that it was like a three or four hour deal to get out of the zoo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because traffic was so bad. Sunday was beautiful. It was gorgeous. It was gorgeous.
Speaker 4:That's what they're attributing some of the crowd to was just a beautiful day.
Speaker 2:It wasn't cold, so it was nice. It wasn't raining. It was a nice afternoon evening to go out and see it, so the days before I know our heater was having a hard time keeping up with the very cold temperatures.
Speaker 3:Super cold During the day Super cold.
Speaker 2:Sunday I opened the doors to the house and let some fresh air in. It was that nice in December. I was like what is going on? So I could see how they had so many people go out. Yes, because the temperatures got rainy and now they're going to dip down again and I can just see how.
Speaker 1:Well, sunday night I have a fireplace in my house which is pretty common up here. Sunday night I was like I'm going to have a fire, so I threw my wood in the fire and I got it started. It started making this like woof, woof noise and I'm like, all right, that's probably not good. Is the chimney on fire? Like what's making that? So I opened up the door and stepped outside and I was like, oh, it feels great out here, like I should be on my back porch enjoying, you know, the evening air and the fresh air and everything, because it felt so good. So I was excited about Monday morning.
Speaker 1:It was just miserable and it's been a miserable Tuesday, but the rest of the week's gorgeous. Can't wait Going to have some beautiful temperatures. But it's been what weather reports?
Speaker 2:have you been looking at? Thursday's going to be lovely, sunny. It's supposed to snow tomorrow and Thursday's going to be lovely, sunny.
Speaker 4:It's supposed to snow tomorrow and Thursday's going to be a high of like 20.
Speaker 2:But then it goes back up after that.
Speaker 1:One second please.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you need to get on the right weather report, homie.
Speaker 1:I was looking at the weather in Louisiana.
Speaker 3:I think, that could be New Orleans. New Orleans says it's going to be gorgeous.
Speaker 4:You're cut off. No more lanterns for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, tonight it's going to snow.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh it's going to snow on y'all's way home. Well, good luck.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, we, as long as I can get out of your driveway, but it's going to be sunshiny for the next couple days. But you're right, just for cold Ooh, 19 degrees. But then it goes back up again. It's like one dip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a weird little. We're on a roller coaster right now, and then we're like 50s next week again, I'm like.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mother.
Speaker 1:Nature needs some therapy. I'd say Not prednisone, what's it? A little.
Speaker 3:She's some Xanax. Xanax, thank you. She's off her rockers, off the meds, she. She's some Xanax.
Speaker 2:Xanax thank you. She's off her rockers. She's definitely off her meds.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Where's the weather at like where you're at, is it?
Speaker 1:up and down. Yeah, it's the same as where you're at. No, I'm asking our viewers oh, okay, where?
Speaker 2:you're at, especially if you're a driver.
Speaker 4:Are you doing snow and then hot sun? I thought it was an appropriate pause for the response too. It was.
Speaker 2:It was Well I wanted to see if they responded Sure. Wouldn't it be funny if they responded to their TV and they talked?
Speaker 4:to us, it would be hilarious.
Speaker 5:I think it's oh sorry, I was just going to say it's weird, because sometimes I hear calls that come in on maintenance. From Then I remember, oh yeah, oh yeah, not everybody's cold yeah.
Speaker 1:Laredo, where it's only 98 as opposed to its usual 110. It's like the same thing happens in summer. In summer you'll get someone saying our S-PAR is not working. It's like your S-PAR is not working, what do you care? We're in Alberta.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, well yeah, your S-PAR probably needs to work.
Speaker 1:It's that first winter snow over in Wyoming, which always comes like July. Yeah, and you're like why is there a 40-car pileup?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, we used to carry our skis in the truck with us in case we got through Wyoming in July, we'd hit the slopes which you should, which you should, yes. You should, yeah, be prepared for everything.
Speaker 1:You also had the track suit. We had the track suit as well, jerry, did you keep anything like that on your truck All the time?
Speaker 2:And if you just stood? On the side of the road the wind would just ski you around everywhere.
Speaker 5:It would, yeah, and then the wind would start in August.
Speaker 1:I could see Jerry like whole Blades of Glory type thing.
Speaker 4:You out of your mind. The ice rink is open in Dublin. It is we can get you down there, you can do your thing, I know.
Speaker 2:Has anybody on this panel ever gone?
Speaker 4:No To Dublin or ice skating.
Speaker 2:The Dublin. Okay, well, hold on Dublin ice skating.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Have anybody gone?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Even just Not even ice skating, but walked around and looked at it.
Speaker 1:So the rink is too small. In my opinion, it is a very small ice.
Speaker 5:It's meant for tiny kids.
Speaker 1:It's meant for small children and they call me Black Swan, so I would be afraid I'd take out a few kids.
Speaker 2:So have you ever been ice skating period anybody? Yes, I went ice skating, You'd be surprised where.
Speaker 1:I went ice skating at the most stereotypical romantic place you can possibly go.
Speaker 3:Rockefeller Center no.
Speaker 1:Las Vegas. What there you?
Speaker 3:go yes.
Speaker 1:At the baseball stadium out in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:You've never gone ice skating in Las Vegas. No, oh, it was awesome.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, Vegas is really cold in the winter. Well, we were there in the winter that time.
Speaker 1:Well, we didn't have jackets on, we were wearing shorts, as you do. No, it was a cool course. It went around. They had an island of trees and decorations and stuff. So you had the regular round part, oval part, but then you also had all this little side stuff you could go do. It was really cool. But I mean, there was half an inch of water on top of the ice. They were struggling, really struggling, to keep the ice nice and they never once ran the Zamboni over there.
Speaker 3:Which is the only reason you go to an ice rink right To see the.
Speaker 1:Zamboni.
Speaker 2:Vince you've ice skated before.
Speaker 4:I have ice skated before. Yes.
Speaker 2:Was yours in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:Yes, was it inside a mall?
Speaker 4:No it was in a proper ice skating facility.
Speaker 2:Oh, did you like it?
Speaker 4:Sure, I never got good at it. I never got my balance.
Speaker 2:I mean, I could roller skate like crazy yeah me too.
Speaker 5:I've always heard that ice skating was easier.
Speaker 2:No, it's hard. You have to have really good ankle strength.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Roller skating. You got four wheels.
Speaker 1:I don't want to brag about my ankles.
Speaker 2:Mine aren't good.
Speaker 1:But I did okay at ice skating. I was not Black Swan, but I did okay. I can't roller skate to save my life. Oh, I love to roller skate, if this was like a good 80s action movie and the final big moment was we had to strap on our roller blades or our skates and you know, go out and do whatever, I'm dead. I'm the guy that's like go on without me. I don't have that gift at all you know what they say.
Speaker 4:You don't have to be the fastest, just not the slowest.
Speaker 2:Right, I did ice skating.
Speaker 1:I think that's what a bear is chasing you right, anybody's chasing you the cops.
Speaker 2:I did ice skating in Sun River, oregon, in their pavilion. If you've never been to Sun River, it's just south of Bend, oregon, in central Oregon actually, on 97. And they've got like a oh, it's like a resort, but they've got a community in the middle and there's this whole pavilion with, or shopping center. It's really fancy, cobblestone, you know, little businesses selling everything you never thought you needed to have on vacation. But they've got the pavilion in the middle and in the wintertime they make it into an ice skating rink. And that's where we went At the time. We lived about 20 minutes from there, so we went and I was on my butt more than I was skating.
Speaker 4:That's what happens with ice skating.
Speaker 2:Jerry, I was on my butt more than I was skating.
Speaker 5:That's what happens with ice skating, jerry you you said no, you've never been ice skating, but you rollerblade. I have been rollerblading and roller skating I'm not good at either. You'd rather DJ, absolutely. I can see that I used to DJ.
Speaker 4:I can hear Jerry right now. This next song is couples only. Couples only for the next two songs.
Speaker 1:And then you get out there and it's like feel the beat of the rhythm of the night, dancing to the morning light.
Speaker 5:Copyright. Sorry, I used to be a night manager of a bowling alley and occasionally the DJ that we had come in for rock and ball on Friday and Saturday nights. He would call out or whatever, and I would have to DJ, so I was never really good at it.
Speaker 1:Were you.
Speaker 5:DJ Boogie no, I would just throw a CD in.
Speaker 1:Just throw a CD in.
Speaker 5:Yeah, throw a CD in.
Speaker 1:He'd let it play, and he'd take the ones that weren't doing anything. I could fade the songs. Oh, that's good.
Speaker 5:That's about as.
Speaker 4:Next two songs coming up Sadie Hawkins Ladies, Choose your Guy. Two songs for Sadie Hawkins, All Skate.
Speaker 1:You know what I always loved back when I was a kid, about doing the bowling alley. What's that? Not the bowling alley, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:The ice skating rink. The skating rink yeah.
Speaker 1:Not the ice skating.
Speaker 3:This was just regular roller skating South Louisiana.
Speaker 1:We had one ice skating rink Leo's. Leo's also owned Leo's Rollerland. They were side by side to each other. We never went to either one of those because they were in the bad part of town, but we did have a bowling alley next to us which is now a furniture store.
Speaker 2:Anyways it's not a bowling alley, a skating rink, which is now an American furniture, something, something, something Not anymore.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, not anymore, but that place I loved it because at least once while I was there, they would do you put the right foot in.
Speaker 3:You put the right foot out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they would allow us to run out there without skates. So I would go out there without skates, but other people would be on skates doing it show offs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah.
Speaker 2:We'd do Skate World in Eugene when I was a little girl First grade to fifth grade. So we'd go to Skate World and parents would drop you off. You'd be there for hours just skating. It feels like one of those memes you see on Facebook nowadays, but that was definitely what we did.
Speaker 4:We did Skate Depot in Cerritos, California Skate.
Speaker 2:Depot Love these names. There was one not far from our house.
Speaker 4:I don't know what it's called, but it's called, but it's now a swap meet, basically Nice.
Speaker 2:Big old building. So the one next to our house was Skate City.
Speaker 1:Skate City Yep. Skate City was the place to be.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:And then it was such a high-end place, you walked in. Do you remember those old metal bars? Oh yeah, that spin around like bars, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:It's been around yeah turnstile.
Speaker 1:So you're going in like a minimum security prison to get in, and then you're in this in between them and then you pay your money right there and then you go into the next one or whatever. Oh yeah, and then you exit the concession stand.
Speaker 4:We had a place like that too in LA, but you can only go in if you're over 18.
Speaker 2:Ooh, skating.
Speaker 4:Oh, no, sorry, I'm thinking about something else, never mind.
Speaker 1:Oh man, so many good memories. I'll tell you what Fort Wayne Indiana, if you ever get a chance to go out there, fort Wayne Indiana still has, and I say this because we have a lot of trucks that go to Fort Wayne. You hear the maintenance phone calls. We have a Freightliner dealership we work with there, the Thermo King we work with there and our sleeper manufacturer is based out of Fort Wayne. So we get there quite often and our drivers get there quite often.
Speaker 4:But they have a roller dome, so it's still a skate alley.
Speaker 1:It's still a skate alley, but it's crazy because it's got this big dome but if you look at it, there's another building that comes off the side of it. That's actually where you skate. The dome is like the concession stand and the seating and stuff. Wouldn't you think the dome is like? Especially if you're going to name yourself after it, would be like the place you would skate. But no, it's not.
Speaker 2:There's skating here in town too, in Columbus. I think it'd be fun to go do on a weekend.
Speaker 5:The problem is I might hold on to the wall so I don't injure myself Because I'm too old to injure myself. I'll get one of those walkers. They used to give them to the people who couldn't skate.
Speaker 4:We saw that we did in London last Christmas.
Speaker 1:We saw the kids out there with the little push thing. There was dinosaurs and stuff there. Pushing wasn't it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and the one kid ate it.
Speaker 1:And then it became a projectile. It did.
Speaker 3:It took out six more kids.
Speaker 2:Eric have you been ice skating yeah.
Speaker 3:Las Vegas as well. You were talking about kids pushing dinosaurs around. I did a trip to Gatlinburg, actually, ober Ober.
Speaker 1:Ober Gatlinburg, yep.
Speaker 3:They had an ice skating rink up there.
Speaker 1:Huge Hockey size.
Speaker 3:Went there for vacation, I saw the parents pushing their kids around on little dinosaurs.
Speaker 4:It was cute Coming up next backwards skate, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, that used to make me so mad. So my dad and sister, so Melissa who if you drive a high-field truck now, if you're thinking about it, you'll meet her in the yard Her and dad were just disgustingly good at skating and so they would do all that stuff like run circles and do the backward like decide, like let me just turn around the crisscross. Let me just oh yeah, or let me just turn around and skate backwards and how are you doing? And carry conversation and turn back around or whatever.
Speaker 1:and you know, when they go to make the turns they're like leaning into it and all that stuff me. I'm going down, grabbing down, grabbing the wall, just trying not to fall, because sometimes you'd fall holding the wall. That's really embarrassing. But there was always that one space in the very back. The very back had no handrail, so there was handrail on three.
Speaker 2:So then you do the little shuffle all the way.
Speaker 1:So you have to just get across the back wall and then you're just holding your hands out, hoping you have enough inertia to get you to the next wall. You just slam into it, and that's better than falling. You're like I'll slam into it and grab the handrail Memory. That's trauma.
Speaker 4:I was good at skating forward. I could skate forward, no problem, get a little speed going.
Speaker 2:I could not skate backwards the same way in my life.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just couldn't do it. I ended up buying my own skates at some point, but again, I could never figure out how to do the backwards Did you guys ever have skates with steel wheels?
Speaker 4:Ooh.
Speaker 3:Never heard of them.
Speaker 4:My first pair of skates had steel wheels. Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Right before Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1:Which was Steve Allen by the way, steve Allen oh, he was the guy that was the host of the Tonight Show before Carson, and then it was Jack Parr, Steve.
Speaker 4:Allen, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson. So thanks for letting me squeeze that in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're welcome, but of course we all know the best one was.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Jay Leno.
Speaker 1:Right, I don't know Fallon's pretty good, I think that the redhead guy was pretty good.
Speaker 4:Oh, I forgot about Conan Conan.
Speaker 1:I can't believe I forgot about Conan. I listen to Conan's podcast every single week and I completely forgot he existed.
Speaker 4:I'm listening to it right now in my headphones.
Speaker 2:Okay, nice.
Speaker 4:He's interviewing Johnny Carson.
Speaker 2:I liked it with Letterman Letterman. Letterman's good he's all right, I liked his laugh.
Speaker 1:Have you seen? My next guest needs an introduction with Letterman's good he's all right, I liked his laugh.
Speaker 3:Have you seen the? My next guest needs an introduction with Letterman. Yeah, yes, I've seen a couple. I've seen a couple.
Speaker 1:We've seen it. Lizzo, he did Lizzo. That was fantastic. And then I saw what one I just saw recently that I really liked. I can't think of it. Anyways, that's a really good show on Netflix. If you ever get a chance, if you have something to watch, you like interviews, that one's really good, nice so.
Speaker 2:So I just had a nice little story for the week, I guess, working, and it would be about the mentor program and all that it offers and if you've done your research on our website or you're interested or you've met mentors or anything about Highfield in our mentor program, I guess the moral of my story is definitely how it can assist you when you come out here and the importance of fellow contractors and people out here who've done this for a hot moment and who understand the industry and how to make the revenue and they're giving of you know that peer-to-peer knowledge that it's really vital, if you're going to opt into it, to really use that program because it can maximize your revenue and and I talked with some people and they're just like aha, and it does make sense and I'm so glad and it was a really great conversation I had with somebody and they're like I don't know how anybody would come out here and not use it when they don't know in the industry.
Speaker 2:And it was a great conversation I had with this team and yeah, so I'm just really proud of you know the program that Highfield has and that we offer and the knowledge that's shared in the industry and when people utilize it and they realize how important it is. It just feels like everyone's winning and it was just a really great conversation. So just a little something that happened in my work week this week. I just wanted to share it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love the mentor program and what we're doing with it. As some of y'all who are watching know most don't it was a blip that happened, but there was something on social media put out about our mentor program. Sure, it was not in a positive light. By the time I saw it, it was in a private group, so if you weren't in the group, you didn't see it Before I had a chance to respond to it. So many high field teams had chimed in and said hey, you don't know what you're talking about. Like it helps, like this and it does that, yeah. So I did go in there and comment a little bit on it as well.
Speaker 1:But seeing everybody else come out and say how valuable it was and how much it helped them be the team they are now and everything it really like. It was kind of something that started out as a bad situation. It also kind of warmed my heart at the same time seeing this of like okay. I'm not crazy. This really is a good thing that we're doing and it's it's a really cool program and um, it's been fun watching this thing mature throughout the years and see where it was where it's how it started, sure yeah, if y'all saw how the mentor program started eight or nine years ago, you would laugh, because it is.
Speaker 1:It was so fly by the seat and hope you can figure something out. Just like going from that to what it is now. It's just unbelievable. And that has nothing to do with me or Eric. That has everything to do with Dina and the mentors we brought on and getting that feedback and tweaking the program and tweaking the program and tweaking the program, and tweaking the program and mentor retreats and being and mentor retreats and being in Tennessee or being in Ohio or being in Indiana. Like all that feedback and dialing into it is now.
Speaker 4:I think what's fun, too, is watching from our perspective where it was when we became when we started out as contractors and then when we became mentors and watching the teams that came after us as mentors and how they have adjusted and molded the program and kept improving on what was the base originally that foundation and just kept building on that. So I think that's been that's been a lot of fun to watch I love when we do so.
Speaker 1:We do a monthly meeting with our mentors, uh over zoom, and it is so much fun or not so much fun, but it's so rewarding to hear a team go.
Speaker 5:Rewarding that's the word yes, very rewarding.
Speaker 1:Well, just to hear a team go like a mentor team one of our best people. Through conversation, through another mentor talking about something, I hear another mentor team going like oh, I never thought about that. Yeah, like that's what's so cool about. What makes the system better is the mentors are like we're helping. They're helping each other.
Speaker 1:It's this huge grouping huge community where all these things are being talked about, discussed, and it just really elevates what they're able to do with the contractors and it just the people that you know. A few weeks ago we put a thing out, a video out, where we had the whole staff here and we were talking about the mentor retreat we were doing and Carla who does our settlements, and nobody really ever talks to her like from the driver's perspective, right.
Speaker 1:Right, she's just kind of in the background doing her thing but her talking about. She can see it in the settlements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who's using?
Speaker 3:the program, who's using it and who's?
Speaker 2:not yeah.
Speaker 1:It's that dramatic. So again, it's a really cool program we have. I'm really happy that we are constantly investing and developing it and to get the positive feedback it feels good.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing is other humans are wanting to see other humans be successful in their business endeavors and that's the biggest reward out of all of it. And if you embrace, coming out here, the mentor program, you're going to be successful. And it's again. It's a great feeling for everybody when everybody's winning, you know, and who doesn't want to succeed in your own business?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Like well, we talked about the getting something out of it. Let the mentors get. Yeah. Like we do compensate the mentors. That's not a surprise or secret to anybody, because they do a lot, of a lot.
Speaker 1:They spend hours on the phone, especially in the first couple weeks of a team yes pretty much all of them would say, if we came to them tomorrow and said, hey look, we can't continue the compensation part of it, they would all still want to be mentors. Because of that, that emotional feeling you get, that reward you get from it I used to call it filling my love tank when we mentored.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when somebody got it and embraced it and were succeeding and making their monetary goals or whatever their goals were, absolutely I always got. I told Vince I'm like it fills my love tank, but that's as a human being. It's filling my love tank and our mentors, I think, get that feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Just down at FIDA the other day. Uh, fida Freightliner, we get a lot of service done and we buy trucks from there. Them and I was there meeting with one of our owner operators. Um, I didn't know they were going to be there. That was there for a different reason. But I did run into them while they were there and we chatted for a while and you know, here's a team that came to us. They were laid off their job that they had for 30-something years. Their company put them through truck driving school Well, any school they wanted. They chose truck driving school and then they came out and I would have went to med school.
Speaker 1:Well, they chose differently. So they came out, ran with us for a little while well, not for a little while. For a while they were really good. They became mentors of ours. They wanted to take it a step further, so we sold them their first truck and they've been in our owner-operator program now for a few years and we were discussing they are going to run one more year and then they're going to call it quits, they're going to finally retire.
Speaker 1:But they were talking about how they've been able to pay their house off. They've been able to pay their vehicles off. They bought their last vehicle cash money. They like all. Now he wants, he said he wants to squeeze another boat in. That's what they're going to run another year for, so he can buy the nicest bass boat he wants, pay cash for it, walk out with a nest egg in their retirement fund and all this stuff, and that's awesome to hear. That was a bad situation. I mean, like you know, lots of people my dad is one of them have this experience of working in corporate America for 20, 30 years and then they get laid off because it's not about loyalty anymore in that world.
Speaker 1:It's about pleasing stockholders.
Speaker 4:Pleasing stockholders exactly about loyalty anymore in that world.
Speaker 1:It's about Pleasing the stockholders Pleasing the stockholders exactly so. Now people are trying to find ways to advocate for themselves and work for themselves, and the great thing about trucking is you can be your own boss. You can be a company driver if you want Right, or you can go out and be your own boss.
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 1:And it's really taking control of your future and it's really cool to see these stories of people doing that and being successful and you know it sucks to see them go. Like we talked about six months ago, we lost it, not lost the team. We had a team retire that had been with us for 10 years yeah, 10 or 11 years, yeah and they met all their goals and now they're retired and they've got money in the bank and they're financially secure for the rest of their life. Like that's amazing to to be able to come and help people walk through that and it's happening right now. We've got lots of teams that are doing the same thing. Um, it's it's a really cool industry we're in and it's a really cool um niche we have of being able to give people that ability to basically be an owner-operator without the risk of being an owner-operator.
Speaker 2:It's a really cool.
Speaker 1:Happy meeting we're in. That's my sales pitch.
Speaker 2:The Facebook post you're talking about. Most of those people that I saw were at least here a year, which I think is great. The team I spoke to was on their third load.
Speaker 3:Nice, nice Right.
Speaker 2:And so very different, different, whatevers, but it just was really cool to hear and to see because I did see that post as well, but just that people really appreciate that mentor program. Sure, yeah, so that's it. That's all. That's my story for the week.
Speaker 1:So I'm trying to remember where we left off the other day. By the other day I mean like Three months ago, Three months ago, when we were discussing the trucks and Highfield's history a little bit our lineage.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And at all. But I had an interesting conversation come up today and I was like let me talk about this. I think it'd be fun and kind of an interesting. It's taught me. If we've already talked about it, Sure, or let me go on.
Speaker 2:The listeners love anything about Highfield and history there's no, stopping it.
Speaker 1:We honor that. It was proposed to me. Did you say yes, no, that I was actually a hard no.
Speaker 3:And I think Jerry's about to understand why it was proposed to me.
Speaker 1:what if we, to save money on these trucks, specifically refrigerated straight trucks, what if we made them a factory sleeper, high roof factory sleeper, and then put a notched reefer box on the truck and ran like that?
Speaker 2:I have to picture what this looks like Wow.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I've ever seen one like this.
Speaker 2:What's the benefit? Is that what you're getting to? The money Less expensive.
Speaker 4:Than a custom sleeper A factory sleeper.
Speaker 2:Got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 1:So people don't realize what these trucks cost and what a sleeper is, and stuff. So when you buy a truck from Fre freightliner and it has it has a factory sleeper on it.
Speaker 1:a day cab to a factory sleeper might be like an additional five to ten grand depending on how it's equipped. A custom sleeper like our typical eight foot custom sleeper we buy from bolt um is somewhere around eighty thousand dollars. So it's quite a bit more expensive. It's not a little bit more expensive, it's quite a bit. The bathroom ones are sitting around $120,000 more. So those sleepers are a huge chunk of the money involved with that truck. So if you can get rid of that expense and only have $10,000 for the nicest factory sleeper you can get it's a pretty good deal. So I said no for a couple of reasons. One is market's too competitive. You'll never get a team to drive it Like if you bought that truck and then you bump, dock and you're next to Jerry and Jerry's in a nice truck running from the the same carrier making the same money.
Speaker 1:How long are you going to stay in that factory sleeper truck?
Speaker 4:We've had those conversations when we're on the road, when we bump a dock and there's a team in a factory sleeper.
Speaker 1:Which is way more common on the dry side Way more common.
Speaker 2:They look at our truck and go how do I get into one of those? That happened a lot.
Speaker 1:Most of those people still drive for us? Yeah, they do. But so I said let me help you out this from a different perspective. And what it made me want to talk about is we're going to talk strictly about refrigerator trucks. So if you are a dry van or you want to go drive for Panther, this might be boring, but if you are a FedEx and wanted a reefer truck, I think it'll be. Uh, I'd like to take you through a little bit of like how we got to the build we are at now on the refrigerator unit and box spec. When we first so when this whole like exped refrigerated situation got started, so back in the day in the early 2000s, late 90s, expediting, when they started building these trucks, what they were doing was a lot of like day cab kind of Penske Rider-esque type trucks and they would just go run from automotive to automotive places and haul a pallet of pistons or a ton of tires or a wagon of wheels, things like that.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:The DOT started coming down and saying like, hey, you're doing all this over the road stuff. You need to have sleepers on your trucks, right. So there was a couple ways they went about it in different dealerships that did them different ways. You need to have sleepers on your trucks, right. So there was a couple ways I went about it In different dealerships that did them different ways. A lot of them went and took their existing, like you know, international rider truck or whatever they had and they would stretch the frame a little bit and slide in a little like 24, 36-inch coffin sleeper. I've seen those and that's how they would work it. But then when the DOT said that's cool, but the amount of hours you're running needs to be team Like, you can't do that as a solo person. So then the sleepers got bigger. So ICT, illumabunk, or, as we affectionately know them, illumajunk. And there's another company out there I can't think of who it was they started and Bence. They started making sleepers that were bigger, very basic on the inside, but bigger sleepers. They put them on these class six and class seven trucks. Now these trucks are running team operation and it was pretty decent for what they were doing and you know trucks would last 300,000 or 400,000 miles. But back then you were putting 50,000 miles a year on your truck. It was very little and they were getting really top dollar.
Speaker 1:Well, as anything happens, more and more people realize that got involved and those rates got pushed down and people had to start running their trucks more and more to be able to make money. So a lot of people stepped up to the Class 7 trucks with the fancy sleeper. Only they went with a nicer spec. You might have seen all the Kenworth K300s were big back in the day and they'd have a nice ICT or a nice bent sleeper on them. Again, dry vans, all this dry van stuff. The problem with those trucks is they just wouldn't last very long. And if you baby that truck, I mean there were tons that got a million miles out of them. But when you talk to the people they're like, yeah, a million miles. I say man, I'm only on my third engine.
Speaker 1:And it's a second transmission and you know, they kind of had that attitude of like we can just keep rebuilding it Because the platform, the frames, the cab were solid, so that part could handle a million miles, but the engine and all that stuff couldn't.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, engines start getting more and more expensive. The emissions control stuff, you know, drastically changed the pricing of all that stuff. So there was a real step up to Class 8 trucks, which is your typical semi-truck tractor seat going down the road. What happened then is now these trucks have sleepers built onto them. Right, you can buy a semi-truck with a factory sleeper. And so there was a bunch of people Expedire Services was one of them would buy like a Kenworth or a Freight Shaker Freightliner and put their box on it with a factory sleeper.
Speaker 1:Well, when FedEx said, hey, we're going to start this new division of FedEx Custom Critical called White Glove Services that deals with temp control, t-valve temp control stuff, so we want you all to take boxes off your truck and put reefers on them. So when it first started happening, they literally did that. They would literally take a truck that was already built, take the box off it, slap a new box on it that was insulated and they would mount the reefer in one of two spots. So option one was they would notch the box. And by notching the box what they do is they took three foot down by three foot deep. Might have been four foot deep out of the box and they would literally just rebuild the box. So here's a picture of it right here, so you see where they took that gap out and the reefer sits right there and that is how the reefer would work.
Speaker 1:Now these sucked. They would constantly leak. Jerry, did you ever have a box like this? I did not. I had a couple. They constantly leaked. They were terrible for airflow, because in a reefer truck, what makes it work is the fact that cold air is blowing across the top of the box, it goes down to the doors and it comes back to the front and you have a constant turn of airflow.
Speaker 1:Well, if you have a notch in the front, there's no air going in there, right, so it was terrible for airflow. It had a hard time keeping the trucks cool properly. That notch leaked badly. Every year you had to go in and get it resealed, and so they were just a nightmare. Option two, which a lot of people did, was keep the box intact and then mount the reefer unit under the sleeper. Now, jerry, you had one like this, I had two, you had two like this. What?
Speaker 5:kind were they? The first one was a Western Star. Don't quote me on the model, I'm not good at that. And the first one was a western star. Don't quote me on the model, I'm not good at that.
Speaker 1:And the second one was a peterbilt and for the fine people out there, describe what it's like trying to sleep on top of a reefer.
Speaker 5:You cannot, yeah it's a whole new ballgame. And then also to what you said a minute ago airflow, it sucked at airflow, it would get hot. We would constantly have to stop going through the desert and we would stop off at a truck stop and grab the water hose and spray it down. That would keep it from overheating and shutting off. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, because you're trying to keep the box cold. Yes, yes, with your merchandise in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you think about, like, if you know, high-performance cars or something, cold air intakes where they pull the air from up high, where it's cooler than right at the road, where that black asphalt is just absorbing the heat, it's super hot right there, super cool up in the air. That's why if you look at a commercial truck, semi-truck, their air inlets for their engine are up high on the hood. They're pulling that cold air in because that hot air just does nothing. It's not meant for that. I had a friend of mine. She had one of those on her trucks mounted underneath the sleeper and and had a constant Freon leak. And so every like six months or so she'd go back into Thermo King and they would just top her off with a little more Freon and she'd be good to go for another six months and then come back. And I bet you California would love to hear that right now the.
Speaker 1:EPA it was a different time back then one might say Of course, and so then we got these big, nicer custom sleepers, and so you still had the same thing. People were either putting them underneath the big sleeper or they were notching the boxes, and this went on for several years. If you look at really old, used Expedires, which aren't even easy to find anymore because they're all so old now, there was a huge, maybe 10, 15 years where they built them like this, and then Bence came out with a sleeper that was like a low-roof model and the reefer could actually sit above it, so you didn't have to notch the box and you still had a nice sleeper with the reefer unit having space for the reefer unit, and these were wildly popular. They were built on Freightliner Columbias, correct?
Speaker 5:Did you have one. That's what I had Okay. That was my first custom sleeper.
Speaker 1:And they were nice I don't know if they were. Oh, it was nice.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was nice. It was nice, like like we're talking surround sound built into the side of the wall, surround sound all throughout the ceiling. So when you watch tv or movies or anything like that, it was all piped through the ceiling like it was really really full fridge and all that like we have now. But did it have the skinny steering wheel?
Speaker 1:no, okay, some of the older, older columbias, especially the cheaper ones. The steering wheel was like really really skinny. Like an old 1970s car has that really skinny steering wheel. So I don't know if it had that one or not, but, um, yeah, so that was the. That was the cream to crop. So people were like now they built that as a way to make the reefer unit work better, keep the box cooler. But because they had the bigger sleeper, because of that they made them nicer. And then people got kind of accustomed to hey, I kind of like a nicer sleeper. So AA, never really. Who was the other competing sleeper company never did that. They always said you know, when we looked at it there was enough room, so we're not going to do it. So Bence took it a step further when the Cascadia came out.
Speaker 1:When the Cascadia came out, Team Run Smart was a huge deal with Freightliner and they actually worked with Freightliner, with Stoops Freightliner, so with Freightliner Corporation, with Stoops Freightliner, the dealership Jeff Jones in New Haven, Indiana, and Bence got together and said we want to build a new sleeper Instead of just modifying what we had before. We want to make it EPA run smart, like all that stuff compliant. And so Freightliner said all right, we like what you're doing, we're into how can we make these things more fuel efficient? How can we sell them? And so they worked together and designed a roof mold. That's really nice. It emulates the existing Cascadia roof mold. And when they did that, they actually decided since we're doing all this, what if, instead of notching the box because the new roof mold is tall to get airflow over the box, what if we notched the sleeper? So what if we took that roof and we cut it out and put the that way? The roof would allow space for the reefer unit but it would still be tall and still allow for airflow and everything. Check that picture right there. So that's kind of an example of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:And so Vince went on to do this. You could only buy it exclusively from Stoops Freightliner and it was a really cool product. Well, Vince went out of business. One of their suppliers bought them out, changed the name to Bolt and they kept making this product, still making it to this day. Double A Sleepers down in Texas looked at it and went we can do that too. And so they went and they actually did it as well. Now they did theirs a little differently. Theirs was more of an industrial solution. It was not as pretty. No, it was not as pretty at all. They literally just cut like straight down and straight out and threw some fiberglass in there and called it good. Um, so it was a little more less pretty, uh, but it still accomplished the same thing, and with that and with that, no one ever notched a box again.
Speaker 1:no, no one ever put a reefer under sleeper. That was it, that was done. And because they have all the space, because we had to have a custom sleeper to be able to do all that. The whole industry has gone custom sleeper and no one would even consider anything else.
Speaker 2:Makes sense.
Speaker 1:I mean again. I want to reiterate when I got started in this business, those 2008, 2007 Kenworths that were all over the road from Expedire Services were all factory sleepers. Nobody really gave even a mind to like what do you mean a custom sleeper? We're not going to have that right. And the custom sleepers you saw on those Class 7 trucks, they were not nice, they're not like. They look cool on the outside but if you went in the inside of them you're like, oh, this is kind of like bare bones, I mean like oak cabinetry they bought from.
Speaker 3:Home Depot. You know what I mean, just real basic, real bow runs.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how we got to where we're at. So nowadays it is standard we're not notching the box. The reefer's going to mount above the sleeper in a notch that's already been made there. Um, there's been two other companies, ari and uh premier custom has modified that are gone to that model as well and uh, it's new standards. So when it was proposed to me factory sleepers with a notch box all I could think was we're not going back to that you're not going back to the dinosaur.
Speaker 1:No, been there, done that. It's a nightmare. Nobody wants to go get their box resealed every year. Nobody wants to deal with.
Speaker 2:Cooling your engine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or cooling the engine, or having to deal with the fact that water is pulling up in the front of your box because of the leak or anything.
Speaker 2:So anyways, I heard that I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of how we got where we're at and um, just this idea and it it made me, um, it made me chuckle. I like it, so you're like that's a hard pass it's a hard pass.
Speaker 1:They said they might build it like order a couple and see how they work, and I'm like yeah, I don't think you should I think they're gonna sit there.
Speaker 1:So wow, uh, I'm curious out there, if you've been driving, driving with FedEx or Panther for years and years and years, what are your interesting trucks that you had Like? Right now the M2, the Cascadia, the Western Stars and the Volvos are all pretty standard across the industry, but did you ever have anything that was unique? Did you ever have one of those old Kenworth T300s or any of the Expeditor Services trucks, those old Kenworths? Do you remember those? Did you ever drive one? Did you have any experience in that? I'm curious. Drop us a line, let us know.
Speaker 2:You could email us pictures too.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Email us pictures of those trucks.
Speaker 4:That'd be cool to see when would you email them to?
Speaker 2:The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:again the Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 5:In a masculine voice. The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:In a real masculine voice. The.
Speaker 4:Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 5:This show is over. I'm shutting it down.
Speaker 2:No I just shutting it down.
Speaker 1:I just thought I was being a ventriloquist and I was getting all those notes. I was just joking. I'm sorry, babe, but I am curious. Have you ever been in Jerry's situation? Have you ever had to get out of the car or out of the trunk and spray the reefer down to keep from overheating? If you have experiences like we've had, or if you have anything fun, let us know. We'd love to hear your story, we'd love to share it with you. That's storytelling.
Speaker 5:That's what we live for.
Speaker 1:Jerry, anything else we're forgetting?
Speaker 5:Make sure you hit that thumbs up button. Hit the subscribe button if you haven't. It really does help us out with the algorithm. And if you're interested in learning more about high field trucking and what we do over here, or interested in talking to someone and joining high field trucking, check us out at highfieldtruckingcom or give us a call at 833 high field, that's 833-493-4353 we can talk about the mentor program or or anything else, are unique trucks are unique trucks that have reefers not underneath them.
Speaker 2:I'll be happy to talk to you, or Delina.
Speaker 1:Or Delina or Jerry, if you use our chat function. Yeah, sometimes, in the meantime, y'all stay safe, make good decisions.
Speaker 5:We'll catch you next week, don't leave money on the table and keep those rules of Turner no-transcript.