How Are Your Driving Skills At 100+ Miles Per Hour?

It’s cold and absurdly early on this Las Vegas morning, but 30+ people couldn't be happier. Not just because it’s Vegas, but because East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales is hosting their Richard Petty Driving Experience again. If you’ve never been, the Richard Petty Driving Experience is a thrill ride you control - starting at 100+ mph!

Every year, the folks at ECTTS ask a number of their friends and customers to come out for the driving experience of a lifetime. This is a chance to drive a car as fast as you can – without any fear whatsoever of a ticket. In fact, the faster the better! So much so, we keep track of the stats. 

The day starts with a facility overview of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There’s roughly 1,500 acres to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, consisting of over 10 tracks.  There’s the 1/2 mile World of Outlaws dirt track, the quarter mile NHRA drag racing facility known as “The Strip” and the 3/8 mile “Bullring”, which is the home track of NASCAR superstars Kurt and Kyle Busch as well as Brendan Gaughan – just to name a few.

But before you’re allowed to put a 600+ HP car through its paces, you have to go through safety and instruction and in-car/on-track training. This isn’t just a formality if you’re driving these beasts, this is absolutely necessary. You need to know how the brute you’re going to be doing your best to control will handle in a curve, or “out of the groove.” You’ll hear from the instructors/drivers just what you’re going to feel, and at what speed. They know these finely-tuned monsters; they drive them every day.

Now it’s your turn at the wheel; right? Well, first you’ll be taken on a ride-along to get a feel for the track, and experience the car “at speed.” You get to see what it feels like to take a curve as fast as possible without slamming into a wall. Then you get to feel the acceleration push you into the seat – when you’re already doing over 100 mph! You’ll amusedly remember when you used to get a thrill punching the accelerator on the family sedan to pass a sluggish truck. And this is just the instructional phase.

“OK, this should be easy”, you convince yourself, as you climb into the driver’s seat. What you don’t understand – until you try it for yourself, is that the instructor made it look easy because of their experience. For you, getting this race car up to something even close to 130 mph is taking some work. Not that the car won’t do it, but because you’re having a tough time getting up the nerve to go much faster. Way too soon, this thrill ride is over, but you get a chance to see just how much bravado you had. After it’s all over, you get a packet that includes a time sheet with a breakdown of every lap you drove on the track.

Finally, at the end of the day, ECTTS holds a dinner for their customers, friends, and employees. The food’s good, but the stories and laughter are even better. Let’s face it, half the fun of this type of outing is comparing how you did with the rest of the guests. The only problem lies with the inevitable request to see the hard copy of your exploits, to confirm those “enhanced” tales of the track. Chris Kelly, one of our customers, posted this year’s top speed at 141 mph! We’ll keep the lowest speed to ourselves, so as to keep the embarrassment to a minimum.  As we said earlier, we do keep track of the stats.

Keep Your Diesel Particulate Filter From Dying an Early Death.

Keep Your Diesel Particulate Filter From Dying an Early Death.

You’re 25 miles out of the truck stop; settling into the long haul, and then the regen warning light comes on - again!You know you just did a parked regeneration to clear the diesel particulate filter yesterday, and you’ve been driving this rig at speed today, so shouldn’t the filter be clean? Well, probably not. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re running a disposable filter system, which are a must in the mining industry and some off-road equipment, the DPF is probably still clogged, but not with soot. The DPF works by trapping soot and other particulates in a network of cells before releasing the smaller gasses through the pores in the filter structure (usually cordierite or silicon carbide). The DPF, like any filter, eventually gets clogged with this material. Unlike other filters, this filter can usually be easily cleared – either while you’re on the road, or parked, by simply heating the filter to the point where the soot burns off to become gasses that pass through the filter. The problem arises when other particles besides soot become trapped in the filter. While hydrocarbons burn, metals and other contaminates from oils in the exhaust don’t burn off at the temperatures used for regeneration, so you end up with a clogged filter – even though you’ve just done yet another regen.

• Why does this happen? The heat from the regen can cause the metal particles to simply fuse into solid masses (sintering), and like the metals, the non-soot particles aren’t going to burn off either. In some cases the filter itself is damaged by the heat being created by the regen. As regeneration happens at temperatures around 850 to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, and damage happens to some filters at 1200 degrees, the range between clean and damaged can be fairly narrow.

•When the filter becomes clogged with metals and ash; from burning contaminates, it creates high backpressure and triggers a warning on the dash that gets progressively more severe until the truck computer finally throttles back the power – in some cases severely. Filters that become substantially clogged with ash go through what’s called compacting, which can cause filter and engine damage, if not corrected quickly. Overriding the regen causes this compaction. To avoid those consequences, regen every time, on time. Note that the filter will still eventually become clogged with particles other than soot. So what’s the solution? It’s time to have the filter professionally cleaned, as opposed to just clearing the soot.

• Sometimes known as de-ashing, the filter cleaning process begins with an inspection, and then moves through the steps of testing, pneumatic cleaning, thermal regeneration (about 12 hours) and a final air flow test. At the end of the cleaning the air flow test will tell whether it passes for continued use, or needs to be replaced. How often you regen, vs. letting your filter compact with particulates and ash, can greatly affect the usable life of your filter. Similarly, having your filter removed and cleaned regularly increases its lifetime, so this step should be an important part of your regular maintenance schedule.

• Finally, this is not a do-it-yourself job you want to tackle. Unless you have the proper equipment, and knowledge, it will just end up being a very expensive lesson in what not to do yourself. Dealerships and service centers nationwide offer DPF cleaning services; take advantage of it on a regular basis to keep your filter and engine operating at its best.

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Drastically Extend the Oil Drain Intervals for Your Rig

Every mile counts. As a hauler you probably hear and say that often. Miles are money, and when you can keep rolling, instead of paying for yet another oil drain - in money and downtime; those miles can pay for more of what you really want.

So, how do you go about extending your rig’s oil life? If you’re like some, you keep idling to a bare minimum. Others depend on advanced formula oils, and expensive synthetics that extend the life of the oil with formulation and additives. While this works, to a certain degree, still others have found a way to keep from draining their oil unless absolutely necessary. The key to long oil life is an oil bypass filter.

Oil bypass filters (OBF) are a proven way to keep your oil clean and dramatically reduce the wear on your engine. This isn’t new technology. Having been around for close to twenty years, this is an established equipment system you can use to make more money in the field immediately. Haulers using oil bypass filters change their oil infrequently and still have the maximum protection from their oil. Oil’s life is dependent on just how badly contaminated the oil becomes. It tends to gather any number of pollutants throughout its usable life - soot, fuel, metals and moisture. All of which can considerably shorten that oil life, and the life of your engine.  An oil bypass filter virtually eliminates those contaminants because it puts your oil through a filter the removes particles down to 1 to 3 microns, and evaporates others so they don’t reduce the oil viscosity. This is far superior to only having a factory installed full flow filter, which only filters down to 20 to 25 microns. Even particles that size can damage your rig’s engine.

The OBF works in conjunction with your standard full flow filter; not in place of it, so there is no loss in oil pressure.  Typically, an OBF will filter about 6 gallons of oil per hour, and is connected to the engine oil supply downstream of the standard engine oil filter. In turn, the oil is treated by the bypass filter system and gravity fed back into your oil pan. It has a separate housing for the filter unit, with a replaceable filter medium, as well as a heat chamber to evaporate fuel and moisture from the oil; thus removing even more contaminants that can affect the ability of your oil to reduce friction.

It is an additional piece of equipment to buy for your rig, and you will have to purchase and replace your filter at certain intervals. Additionally, you will have to have your oil tested to maintain the best possible oil condition. You will find, however, that oil testing and filters are readily available at the maintenance facilities you’re probably near on a consistent basis.

The system, on average, should pay for itself in under a year with the benefits of extended oil drain intervals, reduced oil purchases, reduced waste oil costs and reduced rig downtime. That said, this system seems like a no-brainer. So, keep your oil cleaner, rack up those miles, and spend your cash on something besides oil.

Keep safe, and keep rolling.

East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales

2906 Elmhurst Lane

Portsmouth, VA 23701

800-849-2178

http://ectts.com

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Check out our web specials, too. 

In appreciation for your dedication, and hard work as a truck driver, we would like to offer you one of our T-shirts for free. There are a number of designs to choose from, so you're not limited to one type of shirt. We appreciate what you do. Keep rolling, and keep safe.

Slow Down. Move over.

Imagine working in an industry that makes the “Deadliest Catch” fishing industry seem like a cruise ship vacation. If you’re reading this, chances are good you already do. As a tow driver you work in an industry where you’re practically invisible - until it’s almost too late. In some states, you’re also invisible to the law telling people to slow down and move over when passing an incident or emergency on the highway. Even though tow drivers, like emergency workers, suffer more than twice the average occupational injury and fatality rates compared to all other industries, some states don’t require drivers to slow down and move over for a tow driver. More on that problem below.

Tow driver’s fatalities, injuries and near misses on our highways happen far too often. Ask any driver and you’ll hear a story that will raise the hair on the back of your neck, quickly followed by a knowing head shake and probably an explicative. In some cases, it’s a miracle they survived to tell the tale. Some didn't.

With the exceptions of Hawai’i and the District of Columbia, 49 States now have the “Slow Down Move Over” law in place, but we still lose not only law enforcement officers and emergency responders, but tow drivers and civilians on an almost daily basis. Why? According to a national poll by Mason Dixon Polling & Research, sponsored by the National Safety Commission, 71 percent of Americans have never heard of “Move Over” laws. Not knowing about the laws also means those same people likely don’t know the proper procedure when passing an incident/emergency scene. Quite simply, if you’re in a lane beside the incident, slow down first, and then attempt to move over - if it’s safe to do so. In that order.  If you can only slow down, do so. Other reasons for these senseless deaths include drunken driving, texting, daydreaming, and simple inattention to surroundings when passing an incident.

Even though tow drivers are usually on the receiving end of motorist thoughtlessness, it’s also important to remember that we drive these same roads as a civilian ourselves. While practicing very safe operating procedures when working, they’re often forgotten while out in our non-working lives.  Far too many times I’ve been a passenger in the car with someone who should know about the law (read: driving professional), and yet I see little, if any, effort to slow down and move over when they pass an incident.

While no official statistics on the deaths of tow drivers specifically, industry estimates range from 50 to 70 tow drivers killed on an annual basis. A simple internet search returns dismaying examples just over the last year:

o   Jun 30, 2013 - A local tow truck operator was killed while he was in the process of towing a vehicle on Interstate ten.

o   Jun 11, 2013 - KUSA - A man was killed Tuesday afternoon when he was hit by a semi truck as he was attempting to tow a vehicle.

o   May 4, 2013 - MIAMI (CBS Miami) - A tow truck driver assisting a car was hit and killed by a third vehicle that fled the scene.

o   Feb 12, 2013 - MALIBU, Calif. (KTLA) -- A tow truck driver was killed in Malibu Monday night

o   Aug  28, 2012 - An 18-year-old Smithville, MO, tow truck driver was struck and killed while out of his vehicle on Interstate 35 near the Christopher S. Bond Bridge.

o   Dec 9, 2012 - A tow-truck driver helping a stranded motorist along the 405 Freeway in Long Beach was killed early Sunday after he was struck by a drunk driver.

o   COLTON, California – J&S Towing truck driver Jesus Salcedo, 56, of Colton was struck and killed late Friday afternoon while assisting the driver disabled vehicle

Unlike  police, fire and rescue, which are protected by the slow down move over law, tow drivers aren't covered by these laws in all states. So, which states don’t protect tow drivers with laws when they’re the only ones at the incident? Surprisingly, there are nine: 

·         Alaska

·         Louisiana

·         Maryland

·         New Mexico

·         New York

·         North Dakota

·         South Dakota

·         Texas

·         Wyoming

Working an incident is always a fluid situation. While you always have to have one eye on traffic and another on the job at hand, the states above make it even more difficult for tow drivers to come home at night. If you live in one of these states, speak with your legislator. 

So, how do you protect yourself while you’re out on the road? Three words. High visibility equipment. Your lights, work clothes and temporary traffic control equipment should all be high visibility; the brighter the better. Don’t work on the traffic side of the incident, if possible. While this isn't always possible, this is the reason you want to have high visibility equipment.  Your movement, because noticing activity is a function built into our brains, combined with the bright clothing creates better visibility for other drivers. 

East Coast Truck and Trailer

1-800-849-2178

Https://Parts.ECTTS.Com

Municipal Support For Towing - Imgur

Municipal Support For Towing - Imgur

towing support - Video Dailymotion

towing support - Video Dailymotion

municipal support towing copy

municipal support towing copy, a photo by miggyleto on Flickr.

Municipal Support For Towing

...http://bit.ly/ZRyFAG

Towing Benchmark: Municipal Support In Managing The Towing Environment

Towing Benchmark: Municipal Support In Managing The Towing Environment

Towing Specials And Wrecker Specials - Imgur

Towing Specials And Wrecker Specials - Imgur

basket strap file_1_96

basket strap file_1_96, a photo by miggyleto on Flickr.

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