Ricardo and I headed out for the day with our oversize load in the early morning light. We had eaten just enough to not be hungry, and got some fresh black truck stop style coffee for the road.
I will say Ricardo impressed me with how he drove and handled the extremely valuable oversize load on the truck.
To Ricardo fuel mileage is very important as it is one of his highest costs to run the business. He combats it several ways and one is his driving style. His approach is the egg under the pedal theory. This means you never floor the throttle; it is very lightly touched to achieve enough speed to grab the next gear. His shifting of gears and acceleration was so smooth, I could not really tell when he was shifting other than the sound of the Caterpillar surging under the hood.
It is always best to not be in a hurry when you are loaded. Leaning on the truck for speed is hard on the mechanicals, and fuel mileage. Plus, the fact speeding tickets are a trucker’s worst insurance nightmare, short of being in a wreck, or being put out of service by the D.O.T.
Thank you again, Ricardo, for all you did to make this run happen.
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