Hay haulers are a unique group of people in trucking with very specialized equipment and skills. Out west, where these rigs are a bit more common, you’ll find some old school truck and trailer setups, typically cabovers, but more often these days you’ll see 2-axle configurations, with short wheelbases and oftentimes small sleepers, pulling sets of hay doubles. This month’s cover feature, a 2018 Peterbilt 389 hooked to a set of cool matching hay trailers owned by Jason Flores (54) of DanDee Dairy in Dexter, NM, is a perfect example of one of these modern hay-hauling combinations – and boy is she a dandee!
Growing up in a family with dairy farming and trucking on both sides of his lineage, Jason was the first to have both – dairies and trucks. His grandfather Sam Visser was a dairy farmer in Southern California in the city of Cypress, not far from Artesia, which was well-known for its dairies. As the Los Angeles area grew, the dairy farmers got pushed out, including Jason’s grandfather Sam, who moved northeast to Chino, CA in 1962. In the late 1980s, one of Jason’s uncles moved to New Mexico, and then two years later, another uncle moved there, too, as the dairy farmers who had relocated to Chino from Los Angeles, were now being pushed out once again by the ever-expanding urban sprawl.
Born in 1970 in Upland, California, Jason grew up around dairy cows and trucks. Jason’s dad Gary drove a hay truck his entire life (55 years), and Jason spent a lot of time with him in his Freightliner cabover hay truck and trailer. In 1990, shortly after graduating high school, Jason bought his first truck – a 1984 Freightliner cabover. Featuring a dark red paint job with cool gold and brown stripes, this was a slick little 2-axle rig that pulled hay doubles. Freightliner changed the headlights on these cabovers from round to square midway through that production year, and Jason’s was the latter version, featuring the square headlights. The license plate on that truck read “WTADNDY” (what a dandy).
A few years later, in 1993, one of those uncles who had moved to New Mexico (Tommy Visser) began encouraging Jason to come out. Apparently, there was a small dairy available for rent, and he thought Jason should start his own deal there. Jumping in head-first, at just 22 years old, he sold his truck, and then he and his buddy Billy moved to Roswell, NM. With help from his uncle, Jason and Billy formed DanDee Dairy (the name was inspired by that license plate), and shortly thereafter they were milking about 280 cows at the 20-acre facility. Unfortunately, Billy didn’t last long in New Mexico, and after just a couple years, Jason bought him out and he moved back to California.
Over the next few years, the dairy grew to 700 cows and was flourishing. Needing a bigger place, in 1999 he bought a 160-acre site in Dexter, NM and took on another partner named Kevin Robinson. Kevin was only supposed to be involved for five years, but 25 years later, he’s still there. At the larger facility, the herd quickly grew to 1,600 cows. Jason eventually began buying land around his original dairy there in Dexter, which now encompasses over 600 acres, and has 2,800 cows. Today, he also has a second dairy with another 2,800 cows, along with a 3,300-acre farm, 160 miles southwest in Dell City, Texas, where he grows all the feed for his dairies and some outside customers.
From 1993 until 2007, Jason did not have any trucks, but that changed when he bought a new 2007 extended hood 2-axle Peterbilt 379 with a sleeper. After that, he just kept adding trucks and various trailers. Currently, Jason runs about 15 trucks on a daily basis and probably has another ten (or more) that either don’t run regularly or are awaiting restoration. The working fleet is all Peterbilt trucks, comprised of 2-axle and 3-axle 379s, 389s, and a few 362 cabovers. The truck on the cover this month (and these pages here) is one of those non-working rigs, but it didn’t start out that way.
Purchased as a glider kit from a dealership in Pennsylvania in 2015, the Peterbilt 389 truck, with a 36” sleeper, sat there for a few years because Jason did not have an engine for it. Way back when, you could buy a glider (a complete truck with no powertrain) and just take it home, but as time went on and the emissions standards tightened, this was no longer the case. Peterbilt completely halted glider kit sales in 2019, but in the last few years leading up to that decision, they put stricter rules on glider kit sales. A glider kit, after purchase, could not be taken home until the drivetrain was installed, by a certified installer, and then the truck had to be taken back to the dealer to be inspected and certified. Then, it could be put into the system and titled.
An engine was built in-house by one of Jason’s mechanics in 2018, and this was no “regular” engine. Every internal part of the 6NZ CAT that could be, including the pistons and bearings, were ceramic coated, twin turbos were installed, and other power upgrades were made, as well. This painted-to-match green engine is now pushing 1,000+ horsepower! After it was built, the engine was shipped back to Hoover’s in Pennsylvania, and once the drivetrain was installed and certified, the truck was finally titled as a 2018 and brought home. But it didn’t go home – it went straight to Pickett Custom Trucks (PCT) in Arizona to be customized.
Rod Pickett and his team have built many trucks for Jason over the years, but this one was going to be Jason’s personal work truck, so he wanted it to be special. Over the next year or so, PCT did quite a bit of work to this bone stock little 2-axle truck, including doing a full body drop, installing an air-ride front end, and adding 8” Dynaflex exhaust with Pickett elbows (yes, they are named after the Pickett boys because they came up with the idea and made the first ones). The Medium Emerald Green truck, which was adorned with Ultra Violet Purple accents and stripes, also got a wide Pickett visor, Pickett step boxes, big-hole wheels, 379 dual square headlights with shaved blinkers, and seven plastic chrome LED cab lights.
A lot of custom fabrication was done to this Peterbilt, as well, including chopping the breather screens and adding breather light panels, the straps were removed from both the fuel tanks and breathers, the air bags on the back of the sleeper were hidden, and custom aluminum cab and sleeper panels were installed. The truck also got a painted flush-mount aluminum deck plate, Hogebuilt stainless-steel quarter fenders, painted window chops, and eleven grill bars were added. Not much was done inside besides painting the dash panels purple and adding all the available Rockwood dash accessories. The stock black rubber floor was kept, because Jason had planned to work this truck, so he wanted it to be somewhat practical.
The custom hay trailers were ordered from PT Welding in Woodland, CA. Painted green to match and covered in LED lights, the trailers feature big-hole wheels, air-ride suspension, and Pickett’s own billet oil hubcaps. PT would not paint the purple stripes on the trailers, so Rod and his crew did that. Once it was all finished, the combination sat at PCT for at least another year, before Jason himself finally flew out to pick it up and drive it back. After getting it home, he decided it was a lot fancier than he thought it would be and decided it was too nice to work, so he parked it. Besides taking it to a few local shows near the dairy, the truck did not see the light of day until Jason brought it to Rod’s truck show in Chandler, AZ in April of 2024.
After that show, Rod told Jason if the truck was going to be strictly a show truck, he needed to take it to the next level – and Jason agreed. So, back it went to PCT for a second round of even more dramatic customizations. One of the biggest changes was the headlights, which were switched to large round headlights from a 1932 Ford, mounted on custom brackets, that are attached to the fender braces (not the sides of the grill surround). And speaking of the grill surround, the stock aerodynamic 389 surround was replaced with a 379 version with more square edges and 13 grill bars were added. The painted deck plate was replaced with a stainless one, the window chops were removed, and the stock mirror brackets were replaced with a set of polished brackets from 12 Ga. Customs.
Going even deeper, an 18” stainless 12 Ga. bumper with lights on each end was installed, along with a rear painted light bar to match the back of the trailers. The visor was swapped out with a slightly smaller Pickett/RLK stainless visor, the plastic cab lights were replaced with chromed metal ones, all the watermelon lights on the truck and trailer (almost 100 of them) were switched to glass lenses, and the sliding 5th wheel was lowered and made fixed. The stock 23” diameter fuel tanks were replaced with shorter 26” tanks, the straps were reintroduced, and the fuel filler caps were hidden (they are now accessible through the sleeper side doors via trapdoors in the floor of the sleeper). But the PCT crew didn’t stop there!
To get the truck’s “stance” just right (and level), the PCT crew modified the truck’s Reyco air-ride suspension brackets by moving them about 4” up to get the rear of the truck even lower. Once they did this, the Hogebuilt quarter fenders were too long, so they trimmed 2” off the bottom. Also, the tires on the truck and trailers were not the same size or brand, so brand-new Bridgestone 255s were purchased and mounted on every wheel. The same step boxes from the first build were kept, but new billet step plates from Lifetime were added, along with stainless wiper arms and chrome wiper blades from GGE Products, and more under-glow lighting was added, especially under the trailers. The final exterior detail was a bunch of added pinstriping by local painter Ron Hernandez.
Moving inside the cab, much was done here, with the biggest change being the painted (and pinstriped) floor and door panels, a custom overhead console for the CB radio and speakers, a small steering wheel from Billet Specialties, billet pedals from Spare Time Fab, and polished Rockwood door sills. The sound system got a major upgrade, as well, and now features a Kenwood head unit with (3) big 15” Rockford Fosgate subwoofers under the bed and (16) 6.5” mids/tweeters throughout the cab and sleeper. The chrome tilt steering column was modified to tilt even more, the shifter knob was replaced with a purple #4 billiard ball, several green watermelon lights were added, and the stock seats were lowered and moved back using Pickett adapter plates. The sleeper also now features a high-quality memory-foam mattress from our friends at West Coast Foam.
Once the Peterbilt’s second build was complete, and just in time I might add, Jason took it to Rod’s 2025 truck show in Chandler, AZ. The day after that show is when we took it out in the desert to capture the pictures for this feature. We would like to thank Narcie Soares (72) and his wife Patty, who had just celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary, for spending the day with us out in the desert for the photo shoot. Narcie has been driving his entire life (about 5.5 million miles) and has been a driver for Jason for the past 17 years. Narcie’s daily driver is a red 2015 Peterbilt 389 with dark red stripes, which he uses to haul hay, that currently has about 900K miles on it. But, when it comes time for a show, Narcie is the one who gets to drive this stellar show truck – and his next event is scheduled to be our Truckin’ For Kids charity show and drags this coming May 3-4, 2025, in Bakersfield, CA. We are excited to have this truck there, along with a few other sharp DanDee Dairy rides.
After the truck show and our photo shoot, Jason sent the truck back to Rod’s shop for a few more final touches. The engine was painted green and had some polished tubing, but it wasn’t a show quality engine compartment, so Rod is currently in the process of pulling the motor, painting it purple, and having a bunch of pieces chrome plated. They also decided they didn’t like the color of the LED lights (too white), so Rod is changing out every bulb to new JML bulbs, which are a more amber color, the 18” front bumper is being replaced with a 16” bumper, so the truck can sit even lower, and the door jams are being painted to match the exterior, including the stripes. I tried counting all the lights and came up with a total of 275 (not counting the under-glow lighting), but I’m sure I missed a bunch.
Although Jason’s story sounds like a trucking fairytale, there have been some “bumps” along the way. On March 12, 2018, an EF-2 tornado blew through Dexter, NM and went straight across his dairy. Coming through at night, Jason was there to witness it all, but being a guy from California, he didn’t know what to do or which way to go, so he backed his pickup inside a silage bunker, and hoped for the best. The tornado varied from 150 to 350 yards wide and traveled a total of 15 miles, clocking wind speeds up to 135 mph, and ended up destroying three of Jason’s hay barns, 40 of his vehicles, including many of his trucks and trailers, and killed several of his cows. A piece of steel that was ripped from one of the buildings at the dairy actually came through his windshield, as Jason sat in that bunker in his pickup, and narrowly missed hitting him in the head.
After the tornado, Jason needed to find some trucks fast. Thankfully, he quickly found an almond farmer in Northern California that had five low-mileage Peterbilts sitting in his barn. The farmer told him, “You got to buy them all or nothing,” so Jason bought ‘em all. To this day, he still has all of them except one, which got rolled over at some point. Rod and the PCT crew repaired several of Jason’s trucks after the tornado, including Narcie’s personal truck, which sustained heavy body damage. The truck itself was all good, but every single body panel besides one sleeper door and the roof cap on the cab had to be replaced. Just talking about this past ordeal and sharing some pictures with me brought back some haunting memories that got Jason a little choked up.
Another casualty from the tornado was a set of mangled hay trailers. One of them was bent like a pretzel, but the other one wasn’t too bad – it would never be roadworthy again for a load, but it might work for a special project they had in mind for the truck shows – a custom smoker! Cutting a large portion of the frame out and throwing it in the trash, a 14’ long and 30” diameter pipe, which became the barrel of the smoker, was sunk into the trailer floor and welded between the remaining frame rails. Two large access doors were fabricated, along with the firebox, a wood storage box, and built-in cutting boards, creating the ultimate party smoker trailer. This smoker was designed to take to truck shows and feed not only Jason’s people, but anyone else who was hungry, as well.
Married to his wife Leigh Ann since 1997, the couple has no children. They wanted them, but it just never happened. They even tried adopting at one point, but that didn’t work out either. Nonetheless, Jason is so happy to have had his wife by his side, through thick and thin, for almost 30 years now, saying, “I wouldn’t have made it without her!” These days, she spends much of her time at their house in Chandler, AZ (like Jason’s old friend Billy, she too has had enough of New Mexico). Jason is thankful to everyone who has given him opportunities over the years, but most thankful to his uncle Tommy, who helped him start his dairy business.
I can’t tell you how many people said the same thing – that Jason is a super humble guy, and that he flat-out just loves trucks. With about 75-80 total employees, Jason likes (needs) to get out and drive at least a few times a week to clear his head. When asked about the future, he said, “I have enough cows, that’s for sure!” The tornado made him realize that he needed to do more than just work, he needed to have some fun, as well. That is one of the reasons he built this truck – so he could go to more shows, with all his guys, and enjoy some relaxing downtime. He’s not sure where the future lies regarding DanDee Dairy and all his other ventures, but one thing is certain, this amazing “alfalfa cruiser” makes Jason Flores and many people who see it say the same thing – “What a dandee!”