10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

COVER FEATURE - MARCH 2006

DRIVEN TO DRIVE
Hector Santos Never Wanted Anything Else

By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

Hector Santos was born to drive. All he ever wanted to be was a truck driver and that’s all he’s ever been. Since the age of 15, Hector has been running a truck and loving it. The only thing he enjoys more than his job is his family – namely his two sons, Hector Jr. and Cesar, and fiancé Faith. And there’s no mistaking these two boys, as they are both the spitting image of their dad (see photo below). And at only 28 years old, judging by his ride, Hector has done pretty well for himself already.

Born and raised in Riverside, California, Hector has only moved three times in his entire life – and never outside of Riverside. School was always hard for Hector because he didn’t really want to be there. He wanted to be driving. His dad (Fermin) was a driver for Dole Citrus in Riverside, and as the company expanded, Fermin bought more and more trucks. At only ten years old, Hector started going out on trips with him on a regular basis. He’d get out of school, pack up some food, and wait at the curb for his dad to pick him up. At 15, Hector started riding along with his brother-in-law who had just recovered from a back injury. He could drive but he couldn’t load or unload, so he brought Hector along to do that. When he turned 16, Hector got his CDL even before he ever got his regular Class C driver’s license and started running one of his dad’s trucks.

It got harder and harder for Hector to make it to school so he left his high school and entered into an independent study program. At this time, Hector was hauling hay out of the Brawley, CA area and bringing it up to the dairies in Chino, all the while trying to find the time to study as well. But as trucking goes, he was often late for his once a week meeting with his teacher who finally told him that he should just take the GED test and graduate early. And that is exactly what he did. He graduated six months earlier than he would have if he had stayed at the traditional school.

Now that he was totally free of school, he really started working hard. His dad bought him his first truck – a 1985 Pete cabover – but only paid him $200 a week. The way Fermin saw it, most of Hector’s pay went toward the truck payment. But this arrangement didn’t bother Hector. He was still living at home, and besides a few pieces of chrome and food out on the road, he really didn’t need to make much anyway. Well, that was until his girlfriend got pregnant, at which point Hector told his dad they needed to “tweak” the arrangement a bit.

At 18, Hector moved in with his girlfriend and just before his nineteenth birthday, his son (Hector Jr.) was born. Two and a half years later, their second son (Cesar) was born. Around this time, Hector was hauling hay for D & M out of Chino and the owner offered to sell him one of their trucks with a job. On his 21st birthday, Hector signed the papers and became the proud owner of a yellow 1994 Pete cabover. Hector broke away from his father’s company and formed Hector Santos Trucking. The following year, he bought a 1993 conventional from his dad and a house. In a very short time, Hector went from having no payments or responsibilities to having many payments and lots of responsibilities.

Trying to make ends meet, Hector found himself on the road all the time. It was a rare occasion when he was home. For a short time, he and his longtime girlfriend (and the mother of his two sons) broke up. Trying one last time to make it work, they got married on a whim. That lasted about nine months. Today, oddly enough, they get along just fine.

Shortly after his divorce was final, Hector met Faith. They have been together for about four years now. They are planning to get married in the near future and are looking forward to possibly having more kids when Faith is finished with her schooling (she’s studying to become a nurse). Hector’s boys really get along well with Faith and they spend a lot of time together. Hector told us that every month, when the new 10-4 Magazine comes out, he brings a copy home and the whole family sits down around the coffee table and does all the games and puzzles together.

Hector ran that 1993 conventional until he bought his current truck – the 1999 Pete 379 with a 48-inch flat top sleeper on our cover/centerfold this month. The truck was pretty stock when Hector bought it, but it did have the baby blue and white paint job already. It took a lot of work to get the chrome and paint cleaned up to its present condition and Hector did most of that work himself.

Hector takes pride in the fact that he has done almost everything himself. After bending one of his stock front fenders on a pole in Phoenix, he ordered fiberglass replacements for that “classic” look. He also changed out the headlights to old 359-style double rounds and he’s changed the pipes three times, each one going bigger than the last, ending up with eight-inchers that go all the way down. The tapered 20-inch front bumper was custom-made by Valley Chrome and features a 10-inch “break back” which allows it to line up perfectly with the radius of his fiberglass fenders.

Going for that “classic” look under the hood, Hector had his 475 Cat painted white and then added chrome valve covers and painted the intake tubes blue. Another nice touch Hector did was paint the inside of his wheel wells white. He does it a couple of times a year, before shows, but it never lasts for very long – especially when he runs in snow or other harsh conditions. Under the bunk, he mounted four blue LED light tubes (which look similar to neon only brighter). He finished out the exterior by adding smooth stainless steel deck plates, custom battery boxes and steps, tanker lights all around and seven cab lights with glass lenses.

This “old school” Pete pulls a set of 1999 Utility trailers that are painted to match the tractor and covered with tanker lights. Both the 28-foot semi and 28-foot pull trailer feature 34-inch quarter fenders that wrap almost all the way down to the ground. The pull trailer has extenders which allow Hector to haul just a little bit more freight. The exterior of this rig is flashy, but it was the interior that really caught our eye (see inset photo on centerfold).

Looking inside of the cab, the dash and steering wheel take center stage. When Hector first got the truck, he installed low-rider leather seats and loaded up the dash and interior with wood pieces. Later, he decided that he didn’t like the “mismatched wood” look, and opted to pull his dash apart again and paint it blue to match the exterior. It was a lot of work but it cost practically nothing and really looks good. Keeping with the truck’s color scheme, Hector found a white leather-wrapped billet steering wheel that he found in a hot rod catalog and then used an adapter from Colorado Customs to mount it. His friends thought he was crazy for buying a white steering wheel, thinking it would be hard to keep clean. But Hector hasn’t had any problems. He keeps his hands clean and always carries baby wipes with him. He also ordered a whole new gauge package from our friends at 4 State Trucks and installed a chrome shift tower boot plate (a birthday present from Faith). The throttle and brake pedals are chrome and the clutch pedal is a chrome foot peg off a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Hector painted the door panels blue and added chrome armrests. He’s thinking about installing a blue and white checkered tile floor but, again, everyone thinks he’s crazy. The bunk is small so there isn’t much back there besides the bed, but Hector recently purchased a few flip down LCD screens so that his boys can watch movies and play video games when they go out on the road with their dad.

Since the dairies started moving out of Chino a couple years ago, the hay business has slowed so Hector started hauling plastic pipe to fill in the gaps. Today, he hauls more pipe than hay, but the hay still pays better. Operating mostly in California, Nevada and Arizona, Hector runs with friend Scott Armas almost all of the time. Scott has a very similar 2-axle Pete, painted a darker shade of blue with silver fenders. If and when you ever see Hector’s blue and white rig out there, the blue and silver one will surely be close behind.

Hector’s dad had to retire a few years ago because his diabetes got too much to handle, so he goes out with Hector whenever possible. Faith and the boys ride along from time to time as well. But Hector’s absolute favorite thing to do is watch his boys play sports. He takes them to practice a couple times a week and loves going to their games. He used to think that those fanatical parents at the games were ridiculous – now he’s one of them! Getting his boys every weekend and a few times during the week, Hector actually spends more time with them now than he did when they lived with him.

For someone who had such a little interest in school, you’d never know it by talking to him. Hector is articulate, intelligent, hard-working, honest and soft-spoken. He rarely loses his temper, but Faith told us that he had an “episode” that involved throwing his cell phone while trying to get his truck ready for our photo shoot. It must not happen very often because he was pretty embarrassed about it – but we thought it was funny.

Hector likes being a single-truck owner operator and has no plans to do anything different. His schedule is loose and his work is predictable and profitable – and that’s good. He might consider buying a new truck down the road, but he says that he wouldn’t get rid of this one, which currently has just over 450,000 miles on the odometer. “I’ll just give it to the boys when they’re old enough to drive and let them tear it up,” said Hector. When asked who he might want to thank, he answered, “I’d like to thank my parents for raising me right, Faith for keeping me alive and my boys for putting up with me.”

Most of us stumble and fumble through life, wondering why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing. Hector Santos never had that problem. He may as well have been born with a steering wheel in his hand, because truck driving was his destiny and his calling. He loves what he does and he likes who he is, and that’s more than most of us can say. Congratulations Hector, at only 28 you’ve already figured out what many of us never will.