10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

COVER FEATURE - FEBRUARY 2005

THE HOBBY TRUCKER
DOES PAT JOHNSON HAVE HIS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT?

By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

After 36 years in trucking, Pat Johnson still puts golf first on his list of priorities. An owner-operator from Tremonton, Utah, Pat has so many interests outside of trucking, he has been branded as a “Hobby Trucker” by his friends and associates. When Pat rolls into town, he first calls for tee-times at the local country club, then looks for a backhaul to get him home. He is also obsessed with cleanliness – so much so that he even has a sponsorship from a truck wash. His super-clean Peterbilt is a common sight along Interstate 15 between Salt Lake City and Southern California. Lately, he’s been cleaning up at the truck shows and was lucky enough to be picked to appear in a television program about truckers and the truck show scene. And now he’s on our cover. He must be doing something right to be getting all this attention.

Pat was born and raised in Tremonton, Utah – a small town about 70 miles north of Salt Lake City – and has lived there his entire life (except for a four-year stint in Arkansas). Most of his family still lives there and all of his kids and grandchildren live nearby. As a sophomore in high school, Pat took a job at a local grain elevator, shoveling out grain from bins and getting an occasional ride in a truck from the elevator to the farms and back. He loved driving in the trucks. After two summers of hard work, he graduated in 1970 with a sore back and a desire for change. Seeking an easier way to earn income, Pat, who was a gifted golfer, gave up his amateur status and turned professional. This is what he thought he wanted to do for the rest of his life. What a rude awakening.

Struggling to make ends meet, Pat began giving golf lessons and competing in tournaments. And with a -2 Handicap, he was pretty good. But living in an area that has snow sometimes five months of the year, made it hard for Pat to remain competitive (and pay his bills). So he put his clubs in storage and took a job hauling produce from Nogales, Arizona to Edmonton, Canada for a local trucking company. That lasted for two years. He then switched to another company and began hauling livestock. For nine years he hauled fat cattle to the east and then hogs back west to Farmer John in Vernon, California. Then he switched to a company that manufactured steel structural ceiling joists for roof systems.

In 1989, he decided to take a break from driving and took a traffic management position with another joist manufacturer. This company was located in Arkansas, so Pat moved his family there for four years. Being on the “other end” of trucking was a real eye-opener for Pat. He realized that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than he ever cared to know. The stress was too much for Pat so, in 1992, he left the company and moved back to Utah. But the experience taught him a lot about the business end of trucking and finances. Today, he is a better businessman and trucker because of the things he learned while working in management. Back in Utah, he took a driving job hauling explosives for an automotive air bag manufacturer. He drove for this company for many years until one day when he realized enough was enough.

One day while picking up a load in Utah, an older owner-operator, driving a dressed-up Pete, asked Pat about his load and his truck. Referring to Pat’s older equipment and lousy working conditions, this old-timer said, “Well, I guess if you’re gonna learn to drive truck, you have to get your experience somewhere.” This profound statement pounded in Pat’s head all day. After all, he’d been driving for almost 30 years already; he didn’t need any more practice. He headed home with a fire in his belly and a new desire to own his own truck. The very next day he went to the local dealer in Salt Lake City and bought a brand new 2000 Peterbilt. He didn’t even know what he was going to do with it. Luckily, just one week later, an opportunity for him to haul freight for Wal-Mart opened up and he took it.

Two years later, in 2002, his Pete already had over 100,000 miles on it. One day, while driving on Highway 50 (a two-lane road), about eight miles south of Delta, Utah, he found himself cruising along at about 65 mph. Up ahead, he noticed an oncoming gravel truck. Just as it was about to go past, the gravel truck lost one of its sets of duals. The two tires flew off the gravel truck and Pat hit them head on. The impact was so hard that it knocked off Pat’s front axle, which caused his Pete to nose-dive into the ground. The frame rails of the truck sank four inches into the pavement and then it flipped over on its side and slid 180 feet before coming to rest. Pat walked away without any injuries, but the truck was totaled. Before this incident, he had never even bent a bumper. Now, he won’t even start his truck until his seat belt is fastened.

In July of 2002, Pat took delivery of his replacement truck – the very first 2003 Pete 379 to arrive at the local dealership in Salt Lake City. That truck is the one you see on these pages and on the cover/centerfold this month. For the last two years, Pat has been hauling LTL freight between Salt Lake City and Southern California for MST Trucking. Pat has been running the I-15 lane for over 20 years now and knows every inch of it by heart. He currently does two turns a week and enjoys being home most weekends. Shortly after purchasing this latest truck, he began decking it out with chrome and lights, and has never really stopped.

The Viper Red Pete is powered by a C-15 Cat with 550 horsepower and features a 270-inch wheelbase, an 18-speed transmission, 3.55 rears, a 70-inch sleeper and lots of polish. Pat added 8-inch stacks, an 18-inch bumper, and single round headlights with Double JJ hangers and turn signals. He also put “spinners” on his drive wheels, which he almost took off a few times because of all the attention they draw (one time Pat watched someone rear-end another car because they were not paying attention to the road and were instead gawking at his wheel spinners). Pat’s Pete, which has almost 400,000 miles on it, pulls a 48-foot 1999 Great Dane van, painted to match the tractor, with a roll-up door (which is essential for hauling LTL freight) and sliding tandems. But what really puts this rig above the rest (besides how clean it is) are its lights.

As shown on our cover this month, the lights on this rig are bright enough to lighten up the darkest of deserts (we took that shot in the middle of the desert about 10 miles north of Baker, CA in complete darkness). Pat took the time to count all his lights and then did the math to figure out exactly how many individual diodes there were as well. He counted 332 LED lights and 4,936 diodes! Another neat thing this truck has is sequential turn signals. Pat spent countless hours (and dollars) wiring up his turn signals with special relays that allow the lights to blink sequentially, that is, one after the other, in succession, toward the direction that Pat is turning. He has three sets of these turn signals on each side of the rig (46 total lights) and they all blink in perfect unison with each other.

Pat washes his truck about every other day – a couple times a week at home and at least twice a week at the Vernon Truck Wash in Barstow. Pat became such a good customer and friend, owner Bill Donahoe asked him to be an advertiser for the wash. Free truck washes? How could he refuse! The truck wash’s logo is prominently displayed on the back of Pat’s sleeper and on three sides of his trailer. And since the wash’s slogan is “Class is a Clean Truck,” Pat really has to keep his rig spotless (which is NO problem for him). He and Bill play golf together as often as they can at Silver Lakes in Helendale, CA (between Barstow and Victorville).

Since trucking has never seemed to be enough, Pat has had many interesting side-jobs over the years, one of which was a fly-fishing guide. Pat would truck all week and then, on the weekends, take fly-fishing groups out on rivers in Utah and Idaho. He really enjoyed the experience, but related it more to babysitting than fishing. He doesn’t get to fish much anymore – not at least since the invention of the snowmobile. Now, on the weekends, he loves to rocket through the snow on a hopped-up Polaris sled that he claims can go from 0-90 mph in about 300 feet. Pat and his wife Gwen enjoy going to their second home in Island Park, Idaho (on the west side of Yellowstone) to ride their sleds. Apparently, with over 600 miles of groomed trails and unlimited riding in the mountains, this area is one of the snowmobile riding capitals of the world.

But lately, Pat has been filling his spare time with truck shows. Over the last two years, he has competed in about six shows and racked up some 20-plus trophies for his efforts. He also was recently featured in a television program about trucking. The show was called “Kings of the Road” and was shown on The Travel Channel. Pat’s portion of the program was about ten minutes long, but it took twelve hours to film.

Pat has some very outspoken opinions about what it takes to be a successful owner-operator today. He believes that the biggest mistake most owner-operators make is assuming that all the money they earn is theirs to keep. The secret to success is reinvesting your profits. As he put it, “The only income a truck should generate is the equity you build with it.” He believes that besides paying yourself a fair wage, you should put your profits back into your business by paying down your equipment. Both his truck and trailer are paid off, and have been for some time. He is very proud of that fact and firmly believes that others would do well if they did the same. Over the years, Pat has seen a lot of changes in the industry, some good and some bad, but the true aspect of trucking has never changed – going from Point A to Point B.

Married for 23 years to the love of his life, Pat and his wife Gwen (a Licensed Electrical Contractor) have four kids and four grandchildren. “Grandkids are the reason you have kids,” joked Pat. He loves to spend time with the grandchildren and looks forward to spending even more time with them in the future. His goal now is to start slowing down. At 53 years old, Pat feels like he’s done enough trucking. He just bought a 1970 A-Model Kenworth with a V-12 Detroit and plans to restore it over the next two years. At that point, he wants to sell his current truck and start running the old KW, but only doing one turn (or less) per week.

With 36 years of trucking under his belt, it’s safe to say that this “Hobby Trucker” takes his hobby very seriously. And although trucking still takes a backseat to golfing, his family still trumps the golf clubs. Maybe this trucker’s priorities aren’t so messed-up after all. It must be true that “Class is a Clean Truck,” because Pat Johnson is one class act.