September 2009 TRUCKER TALK
THE BRADY BUNCH
BY WRITER & OWNER OPERATOR KIM GRIMM
On one sunny Friday morning in Vernal, Utah, Pete and I had a little down time, so we took our pickup truck to the self-serve wash to clean it up. While we were scrubbing away, we spotted a beautiful little maroon Kenworth that had been converted into a pickup truck in the bay next to ours. Pete told me that I should go over and chat with the owner. I am glad I did! I never could have imagined what a day it would turn out to be.
His name was Theron Clark and he was from De Beque, Colorado. He was happy to talk to me about his custom pickup truck, and told me that he was in Vernal to go to his friend Larry Brady’s open house just down the road. Larry had just finished building a new shop and offices, and was having a get-together to help celebrate the completion of the project. Theron told us that there would be a couple other custom big rig pickups that we might be interested in seeing, and then called Larry to see if it would be okay for us to come by and visit. Larry said, “Not a problem at all,” and it turned into a wonderful afternoon – food was served, tours of the beautiful new building were given, and then were those cool little trucks, three of them in all, to check out.
Before Theron went to pick up his wife Ronda, we chatted for awhile and I found out the story of how he came to get this little KW, which is powered by a 360 hp Cummins engine with a Fuller 10-speed transmission. Steve Magozstovics originally built the little truck, and Theron wanted to buy it – but Steve said that it wasn’t for sale. Later, Theron found out that he had sold it. Theron was bummed that he had missed the opportunity to buy it, but years later, he was given another chance – which he did not squander!
Several years after Steve sold the truck, Theron spotted it sitting in front of a local boat dealership. Thinking that it belonged to someone who had a boat there, he just kept on driving by. After a while, he stopped in to inquire about the little truck’s owner. To his surprise, he was told it was on consignment to be sold. When the salesman told Theron the price, he told him to call the owner and tell him that it’s sold. The salesman asked if he was sure, because everyone else had complained about the high price. Theron said, “I told you to call the man and get the paperwork – it’s sold!” When the deal was finally done, Theron drove off with the truck, but it was almost out of fuel. While fueling up just a mile down the road, a man approached him and offered to buy the truck for $15,000 more than he had just paid for it. “It’s not for sale,” was Theron’s answer.
Starting out driving a water truck, Theron has been driving trucks since he was eleven years old. His mom and dad disapproved from day one, wanting him instead to work on the family ranch. About ten years ago he totaled one of his trucks in a crash, luckily walking away with just a few scratches. At that point, his parents asked if he was ready to get out of the truck and work on the ranch. His answer was, “You can get hurt falling off a horse,” and then he bought another truck. Theron had been leased to Larry (the host of the party we were enjoying) at one time, but now has 26 trucks of his own.
What a great party, it was! We got to meet so many really nice people, with such interesting stories, I wish the day could have lasted longer! Next, we got to meet Lynn Mullinax and his wife Diania. Larry flew them in to Utah from their home in Albertville, Alabama so he could meet the man that had built his little Peterbilt pickup that he found (and later bought) off the internet. Lynn’s father was a trucker and he got to ride with him sometimes – but he didn’t get into trucking right away, he was an accountant first. Later, getting a truck and leasing on to a steel company that ran north and south, he trucked for about five years. After that, Lynn opened up a salvage yard and began rebuilding wrecked trucks.
It took Lynn over four years to build Larry’s little Pete, which was built on a one-ton Ford F350 frame and features a 5.9 Cummins and an Allison 1000 automatic transmission. He went all over the country to find parts and almost everything had to be re-engineered. There aren’t many off-the-shelf parts for these look-alike pickup trucks, so most of the pieces are custom. Lynn shared with me the origin of a few of the parts, but first I had to promise not to tell anyone. One part that didn’t need to be modified was the bell from a real train, which is mounted next to the truck’s “train horns” (not from a real train – those would have been way too big). Lynn said, “When building these little pickups, you have to keep everything in proportion to have a good-looking truck when you’re finished.” Lynn has no formal training in engineering or fabrication – everything he learned was self-taught.
Lynn’s wife Diania is a nurse and an artist. She likes to help her “perfectionist” husband when he is working on one of his little truck projects. He tried to start another one, but physical limitations kept him from putting together another miniature big rig. Instead, he’s now sharing his knowledge with a friend to help him build his own little big rig pickup truck.
Steve Magozstovics of Price, Utah built Theron’s KW and the little Peterbilt that he brought to the open house. Steve’s Peterbilt features a 400 hp Cummins, an Allison 3060 automatic transmission and air-ride suspension. Steve is planning to build more little trucks, and his next one, if things go according to plan, will feature a jet engine for power. He needs to make a trip down to San Diego, to a military junk yard, where he can get a good, used jet engine out of a helicopter that is gear-driven. It sounds like it will be an interesting (and fast) little truck!
I finally got to sit down with Larry on Saturday morning. He started his trucking career in 1980 with one truck. Working just one truck for many years, he finally bought a second one in 1997. By 2003, when the oil fields were booming, he had built his fleet up to 30 trucks. Growing so fast gave Larry quite an education – he learned a lot, but he also learned a lot of hard lessons along the way. Today, Larry’s fleet is up to 57 trucks and over 100 trailers, which are mostly pneumatics, but he also has some lowboys, flatbeds, side dumps and belly dumps. They do a little heavy haul, but mostly they haul frac sand to oil and gas drilling sites. Halliburton is Larry’s biggest customer.
Frac sand, which is short for fractured sand, is special sand that is used in the drilling of oil and natural gas wells. Frac sand is perfectly round and is hard enough to withstand the 10,000 pounds of pressure used to force it into the formations of the well to clear the way for the gas. The frac sand is railed in from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Texas to different locations in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, where Larry’s trucks usually load. Sand is also shipped into Houston from Brazil, and then bags of it are trucked up to a storage facility in Vernal, Utah. Larry’s drivers can tear open the bags and bulk load one of their trailers in only 45 minutes!
But the real work isn’t loading the sand – it’s getting it to the job sites. Larry told me that they have one location, that is 100 miles away, and it can take up to 12 hours to make the round because of all the off-road driving required to get there. Larry told me that the worst part is the mud. They have to chain up all of the axles, including the steer, with chains that have spikes. And when you have a bunch of mud on the chains and then it starts to freeze, it really gets ugly. Once back on the pavement, drivers have to chip off the mud to unlatch the chains and then hang stiff, mud-covered chains on the hangers. Needless to say, it is not easy work. Larry told me that the secret to success is finding a job that nobody wants to do – and then do it well.
After all these years, Larry still likes to get out and drive from time to time when everyone is out and a load comes up that needs to be done. It’s not something that he wants to do every day, but every once in a while it’s good to get out. Larry’s idea of a vacation is to take a load out of state, which he does at least once every couple of months. I hope to get the opportunity to ride along with Larry out to some of the oil field locations sometime soon – I think that would make a great story. I just hope that it is a dry and beautiful sunny day!
I’d like to thank Larry Brady for making me feel so welcome and for allowing me to come to his open house and meet everybody. I’d also like to thank Theron Clark for helping to make it all happen, as well as all of the other folks that sat down and talked to me a bit. I loved the little trucks, and can’t wait to see that jet-powered truck in action (maybe I’ll even be lucky enough to get a ride in it). The Brady Bunch television show may have ended many years ago, but the (trucking) Brady Bunch is still alive and kicking in Vernal, Utah. And that’s the way they all became the Brady Bunch!