00:05 But you know me, I don’t ever turn down a load. If it’s got wheels, I’m driving it. And if it doesn’t have wheels, I’m dragging it. And I literally—

00:15 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking. And we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Let’s get to the show. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Six-Figure Trucker. I’m John Madewell. Of course, this is brought to you by the folks here at Norton Transport and this evening we are very pleased to have Bryan Bonar with us. He’s one of our I guess you could say he’s a five utility player, maybe more. He can drive just about anything. Bryan Bonar joining us now. Bryan, where are you joining us from right now? Are you at home? You on the road? You in a hotel?

01:01 I’m at home. I just got home last night and flew in last night about 8:20. Got to the house about 9:15. I’m going on vacation on Sunday. I’m going to be off the road for about 3 weeks.

01:14 Oh, fantastic. How long have you been on the road leading up to this 3-w week vacation—

01:18 Working these new trucks? I’ve been getting home at least once a week for a day to day and a half, sometimes two solid days. Doing new trucks right now has been pretty profitable.

01:29 Where did you come in from on your last load and where’s home for you?

01:33 I live in Kansas City and I dropped I had a two stop. It was originally a two stopper. One was going to be in Garner, Iowa. And then other three trucks were going to be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Well, I made it to Big Cabin and my horse broke. So, I had to be towed into Joplin and I dropped the horse out and proceeded with the other three trucks and went ahead and dropped in Garner, Iowa, the one truck and then went to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and dropped the other two trucks.

02:04 Gotcha. Gotcha.

02:05 And then flew home.

02:07 Gotcha. For those people who may be joining us on this podcast and may not be familiar with some of the vernacular of the trucking industry, explain what a horse is. Horse is your lead, your drive, the one that’s pulling the rest of your trucks, just like a horse pulls a wagon.

02:22 Right. Right. Of course, when you talk about the horse in a deck situation, obviously that’s the key ingredient.

02:28 Yes. Yes. You want to have a good— You want to have a good horse on the lead. This was actually my second week in a row that I’ve had a brand new truck breakdown. This one was electrical issue and I was supposed to be with you a couple weeks ago and we had a deaf problem with the truck. So, and I had to leave that set totally cuz there was no undecking it and going on with the other trucks as the way they were set up. They were long frame Peterbilts.

02:57 Mhm.

02:58 And I would have had to undeck the whole set and Peterbilt didn’t want the whole set undecked. So that particular Peterbilt dealership will undeck it themselves and put jack stands underneath the front and then take the truck in and fix it and then put it back up underneath of it.

03:14 Gotcha. Now explain to people that what you were talking about with the breakdown. A lot of people outside of the driveaway or the trucking business in general may be surprised at how many new trucks do break down.

03:27 Oh yeah. Yeah. A and the majority of it right now in the last 5 years is all usually been deaf problems. We’re just notorious for diesel exhaust fluid. This was something that the government put on these trucks to help clean the exhaust, which may or may not, you know, it just depends on how you look at it. May or may not work. I’m old school, so I think it’s snake oil. I think it’s not necessary. I think since they took the sulfur out of the diesel many years ago that that actually cleaned up a lot of it, but you know, I guess anything any little bit helps, but it just adds more computers and more things to break down. And I bet you 90% of the breakdowns I’ve had probably in the last five to eight years has all been DEF related. How frustrating is that?

04:26 It’s very frustrating. Especially when it’s your truck, it’s your horse, it’s the one you’re driving, and nine times out of 10 when that breaks down, you have to undeck the whole set to red deck it. It’s not like you can pull the first truck out and put it on the back and keep on going. Especially the way I’m a field decker also. I just started doing new trucks because it’s more profitable right now. The way fuel prices are because they pay for all the fuel. When I’m running used trucks, I have my own pickup and trailer that I go from load to load from and when hit only makes 8 miles a gallon and you’ve got a 3 to 500 mile dead head, you’re eating a lot of your profit up before you even get to the trucks, right? Right.

05:15 So, right now with the fuel prices as high, it’s just easier and cheaper and more money in my pocket to run new trucks and park my stuff.

05:25 I got you.

05:26 But I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I have about $50,000 worth of equipment—

05:31 In your boom trailer and etc.

05:33 I have a boom trailer. I have a decking trailer. I have a knockdown boom. I have— And a knockdown boom. You’re going to probably ask what that is. That’s a three-piece boom. Iron bar that same thing as a boom trailer, but you just don’t set your vehicle up on top. It’s just lock with a fifth wheel and then it has a crossbar just like a boom trailer where chains wrap around the frame rail and hook to the crossbar. And some people use ramps and that’s how I use did a knockdown boom. I use ramps and some people use a dolly leg and they crank the dolly leg up and pick up that pick up the rear truck which is the drag truck and then slide their horse up underneath of it. And then I have about a dozen saddles the heads and half a dozen saddle plates.

06:24 Gotcha. Bryan Bonar joining us here tonight on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. I’m John Madewell and I’m very pleased to have Bryan Bonar with us. We were talking earlier about and they may not all be truck drivers, driveaway truck, you know, specialists that are joining us on this podcast. So, you’ve thrown out a lot of terminology. Let’s we have already covered the horse, which I think a lot of people could figure that one out, but let’s talk a little bit about let’s start with decking. Most people obviously in the trekking industry understand it as decking. Some people call it piggybacking, but people always associate with it when they see it on the freeway. But how would you describe it, you know, for a layman?

07:04 Well, it’s just like you said, piggybacking or decking. You have that. And piggybacking is basically you’re basically just dropping one truck on the back side of another truck. So, it just piggybacks on there. It’s pretty self-explanatory even to layman. But piggyback is probably about 90% of what people do call it. I call it decking. I prefer to call it decking, but sometimes you call in to record service and you say, “I need my trucks decked up.” And then they’ll say, “Do what?” I said, “Well, I need piggyback.” As soon as you say piggyback, then they’ll know exactly what you what you’re talking about.

07:43 Right. Exactly. And you know, you were talking about the decking. We know the process how it happens. You had mentioned you have about 20 saddles, but explain to people if they, you know, they may see this on the freeway, be amazed by it because it is something to see, you know, four trucks all rolling in the same direction pulled by one horse. Explain how the saddles work.

08:03 Well, saddles, you got two different type of saddles. The saddles I have are two-piece saddles. They have the head, which is what bolts to the front axle, and then it bolts to the plate, which we call a saddle plate. And there’s two different styles of saddle plates. There’s a there’s an M frame saddle plate which gives you an inch drop and then you put a like a two-inch head on there which is the what you bolt to the front axle. It’s bolt to the front axle with two J-bolt. And that’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s just a hook that’s bent in a J and has a inch and a half nut on it and you just tighten it down and it goes on the plate and the head is bolted on the plate with a two 3/4 in bolts that hold a fork that holds the head on. And the reason I use a two-piece head, a two-piece saddle, is I can also use those heads to pin mount.

09:04 And pin mounting is basically taking the head and sliding it in the fifth wheel and then you block the fifth wheel and then you don’t have to use the plate. And you use those on flat tops or mid roof trucks.

09:19 And some of the trucks if they have side st side exhaust you’ll have to pull the stacks because you’ll be too tall. If they’ve got—

09:28 What is it 13t six?

09:31 Yeah. Most states will let you go to 14 foot and the way I deck I’m the way I deck is I usually deck I’m right about 138 or 9 and most states will let you fly with that. Kansas Turnpike they just raise their height to 14T. Oklahoma turnpike they are strictly 136. You cannot get on there. You will throw alarms on and they’ll make you turn around and get off.

09:56 Gotcha. Now this is a question that I’ve had. I’m new to the business, relatively speaking. And when we’re talking about the saddles and you guys as deck drivers, the way it works, just for people who may be new to this game here, it’s like they take the trucks, drop them off at different locations, including the horse, then usually you fly out. The question I had, what do you do with the saddles? When you’re doing new trucks, you call into the PPL service and or email them and you tell them your company name, your trip number and the serial number on the saddles and you leave them there and then they come around and pick them up themselves to take them back to their locations either Chillicothe, Denton, Mexic, Washington, you know, just the various locations.

10:46 Now, used, when you’re doing used, you have all your own equipment, so you take it when you get done.

10:52 So, if you’re doing used, your chances of flying are pretty much reduced.

10:56 No. Yeah. No, you don’t fly. When you’re doing used trucks, you just you pick up where you pick up, you know, pick up your one truck here or three trucks or four trucks or however many. You set them up yourself and then you take them to where they going and you drop them and then you put all your equipment back away in into your chase vehicle or if you’re doing the rental cars, you go get your rental car and load up your rental car and go to your next location.

11:27 Now, these saddles, they weigh what, 250, 300 lb a piece.

11:30 The Union saddles are one piece and they’re about 150 lbs a piece. They are not light. Those are the block saddles. They have three different styles. They have a inframe saddle which just like it says it sits inside the frame. The block is inside that helps support it and it weighs about 120 lbs. The block saddle we call block saddle which is block sits above the frame. It weighs about 150 lbs. And then they have a couple of pin mount saddles which they’re about 100. The tall 12 in I think it’s 12 or 15 inch tall pin mount is about 90 lb and the smaller one they’ve got two smaller ones they’ve got a 2in one which I haven’t seen one of those in quite a while but then they’ve got like a four 5 in head that’s pin mount I had one of those just the other day and it’s about 60 or 75 lbs—

12:28 Obviously you got to have something with some strength to it to hold a tractor behind you— Yes.

12:34 Gotcha.

12:35 Yes. And you know, some people think this is something, you know, for big, strong, burly guys. There used to be a guy that was a jockey. He wasn’t, but five foot tall and maybe 100 pounds. And he was he would throw those saddles around like anybody that weighed my, you know, that was my height and my weight, which is 63 and I’m 300 lb. And you know, and sometimes, especially after you’ve worked all day, those saddles get a little heavy. Putting in, you know, four to six axles and taking off brake lines and end caging brakes and dragging out the wiring, you’ve put in a good day and it’s a tiring and you’re ready for a shower and you’re ready for a bed.

13:22 Absolutely. I’m sure that’s good sleep, too, after that kind of work and the moving removing that many saddles. But I wanted to kind of circle back to what you were talking about there with that guy who was about the size of a horse jockey being able to manhandle that saddle. I spoke with another deck driver and he says—

13:38 Despite the weight there is a technique. And from what you’ve told me it sound like you know the guy that’s 100 pounds if he knows how to move something that weighs more than he does there’s got to be a technique to it. And you’ve been doing it for over 20 years. What is the technique? Well, basically what I’m, you know, basically all I do is I’ll put something on the frame rails cuz if the if they’re pin mounted, I’ll put something on the frame rails and then just pull the pin and let it slide down on the pin and then I’ll slide it back to the back of the truck and then I’ll just pick it up and rest it. And then usually I’m pretty close to where they want them set at and I can just drop it right there. But you want to move your feet fairly quick because those things like I said are 150 pounds. You drop it on your foot, you’re going to know it.

14:30 Oh, absolutely.

14:31 And if they’re just frame mounted with four U-bolts like you know 90% of them are, I just slide it to the back and same technique. I just lift it up and pull it off. And if they’ve got electric hoist, I’ll use electric hoist. I’ll pick it up with electric hoist. But if they got a chain manual hoist, I’m not going to waste any more time on a chain manual hoist. I’ll just pick it up and drop it on the ground.

14:57 Just do it by hand.

14:58 Yeah. And so in some places, if they’ve got a dirt parking lot, I’ll just get over there on the tire and pick it up and throw it on the ground cuz it’s not going it’s metal. It’s heavy. It’s not going to hurt anything. But you go to some of these places like KC Custom Trucks here in Kansas City and if they get catch you throwing one off on the ground, they will ban you from the place because they’ve got a nice concrete lot. But they also have a nice high-speed electric hoist. So there’s no reason to throw it off on the ground. You can just take your strap, run it through the handles, and pick it up and drop it on the ground and then scoot it over. And especially like KC trucks, KC trucks, they get quite a few trucks in a day and there’s always usually someone around that can help you move it out of the way.

15:47 Gotcha. Now, you talked about at the very beginning here, this is Bryan Bonar on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport that you’re doing a lot of news versus used right now. Talk about I mean some of them would be kind of obvious the advantages, but what are some of the benefits of running decking new versus decking used? I guess it’s pretty I’m guessing it’s pretty clearcut.

16:07 Well, decking new is just that your new truck, you don’t get very dirty. You’re in a motel every night cuz they don’t want you sleeping in the truck cuz obviously they want the customer to be the person sleeping the truck and it’s clean inside. You know, you normally you don’t have to worry about them breaking down, but like I said before, I’ve had to break I was scheduled with you for two weeks in a row and two and the trucks broke down or, you know, something happened where, you know, I couldn’t get to you. So, and it’s a little nicer because you’re not completely filthy dirty by the end of the day. On the you side, you’re dealing with trucks with anywhere from 300,000 to million miles. They’re dirty. They’re they’ve just come off the road. Some places will wash them up. Some places won’t. And by the time you get done decking them up, you’ve spent four to six hours out there. You’re filthy dirty. And all you want to do is get a shower in bed.

17:11 And normally back when I first started back 20 years ago, I could deck up all day, drive, and then, you know, get a motel or take a truck, take a shower at a truck stop, you know, and use trucks. We can sleep in them because they’re you like, you know, you’re not the first one. And, you know, and some people don’t sleep ever in a truck, you know, which is fine. And really nowadays, by the time you pay for parking and pay for a shower, you’re better off just easy just to get a motel because you’re paying almost the same amount. And you’ve got a nice private shower, you’ve got a TV, you’ve got a place to do your paperwork. And that’s, you know, that’s another thing you need to stay up on top of. Here’s your paperwork at the, you know, doing your loads and at the end of the year and stuff like that. Got you.

18:10 I want to kind of tap into your memory here a little bit. Tell us the best experience or the smoothest seamless experience you can remember on a deck load as far as man everything went perfectly well. Got everything unloaded on time. No problems with the saddles, no breakdowns, no deaf problems. Everything was just as smooth as it could be. Is there one that pops into your mind as far as that’s—

18:37 Not? Not really. I have one that’s the worst, but I you don’t really remember the good ones because usually, you know, they’re just like a normal run. You know, the worst ones are the ones that stand out.

18:50 That’s what I was going to ask you next. But—

18:53 The DM I had I picked up a pair of DM600 Max that came— This was many years ago. It wasn’t for Norton. It was for another outfit. And this was back probably I’d been doing the shop maybe two years. And I hadn’t I wasn’t a full-time decker. I was just dabbling with decking. I was mostly doing boom loads. I just got my trailer probably six months. And I was always probably the first three years I did this, I always had a partner with me. But when I first started 20 years ago, I don’t know how long you’ve been around and a lot of guys had been around a long time. So they’ll remember the heyday when Freightliner was leasing out trucks and all these trucks were all coming in off a lease.

19:44 So there were tons of trucks to run and you could always find four or five trucks to run at it at a time. Now it’s getting real hard to do that because they just don’t lease them or they just don’t turn them in like they used to.

19:58 But I we had a pair of DM600 Max we picked up at the Rock Island Illinois auction. We got them out and we needed to swap some tires cuz we were originally going to boom them and they had a big we were going to do this. Actually, I didn’t have my trailer at the time yet. I think we still were doing we had two knockdown booms and we’re going to put a I’ve got a kit that you can bolt to the front of trucks. Usually bolts to you know where your hooks where your lifting hooks for decking. And this one didn’t have any, but I had holes that were drilled into my crossbar. And I called my dispatcher and I said, “I have no way of hooking my bar up here.” And I said, “Well, there’s I told him my dispatch I said there’s a big steel bar bumper on here.” He said, he said, “Take it to welding.” He said, “Take it somewhere and have drill holes in it. Customer will never know.” I said, “Okay.” You know, it’s a big steel bumper.

21:00 There wasn’t a straight panel on these trucks. They come out of the steel. They come out of the steel mill in Ohio. And I think they used whatever they could to stop.

21:10 Right.

21:11 So, whatever. Yeah, exactly. And what’s funny is these things had cruise control and Jake brake. Top speed was 50 miles an hour.

21:21 What year are we talking about now?

21:22 This I don’t know what year these trucks were, but they must have been— This is probably about 2008. Those had been 90 95 96 DM600 map with big tall fifth wheels. They were just junk. I mean, just— But you know me, I don’t ever turn down a load. If it’s got wheels, I’m driving it. And if it doesn’t have wheels, I’m dragging it. And I literally have picked up a repo that had no drive tires on it. It had two steer tires on it. And I picked it up and I dragged it. But go back to the DM600s.

22:01 We spent time getting tires swapped around. So, we had good tires that we’re going to drag it on. And we’re just about ready to go and we’re getting it boomed up and the frame rails were too close. The fifth wheels the frame rails were over each other—

22:19 And I said this is not going to boom. So we this was also around Thanksgiving time in November in Illinois, you know, so it wasn’t real warm. We’d been out here fighting with these trucks for two days already. And I told my partner at the time, I said, “We’re going to the motel. We’re going to get up in the morning. We’re going to call dispatch and tell them that these just aren’t going to be able to be boomed.” So called dispatch and said, “Hey, you need to find us a couple of horses to get these things down. We’re just going to deck them up.” And you want to talk about a nightmare. I did, you know, like I said, I was just dabbling with decking. So I didn’t really have all the equipment to get everything done. We had to have a tire company come back out, break the steers loose so we could deck them. But at the time I didn’t know I could have pin mounted these and not had to pull the steers, but you know I this was maybe my fourth deck set total ever done.

23:18 So you know I still learning myself on how to deck.

23:22 So you know that’s another thing. If you don’t know how to do something and ask find someone that ask or find I got drivers that will call me for directions or how to do something or what to do. You know, I’ve been doing it for 20 years. They know I have a knowledge. I had a guy chase me down one day to ask me how to do this job and now he actually now is running his own company as a deck driver.

23:52 It’s got to be rewarding for him. And I guess encourage encouraging for you.

23:57 He still calls me up and asks, you know, where to go and how to do it, do something. And he’s been doing it for probably six or seven years. But, you know, but by the time we got these DM600s decked up, we he finally found us a couple horses that were going down to a dealership just about five miles from where these DMs were going. So, we went down there and got them down there, but oh, what a nightmare. They broke almost every single axle chain I had. They had walking beams on them and but now that I’ve been decking for so long, I could do that set a whole lot easier and would have not had the problems I had. But at the time, I didn’t really have a mentor to ask questions on. You know, I, you know, I was shown how to deck and just, you know, and this was also way before cell phones were so cheap, you know, so you we were, you know, having to make phone calls, you know, 1-800 numbers, you know.

25:00 So, but that was the worst that— Oh, we in fact let those trucks sit out there out in front of the auction for weeks while we did a couple other runs while they found us a couple horses. Gotcha.

25:15 To take them down. Now when you go through something like that, I mean obviously you can re you can recall that in great detail because it burned such an impression in your mind. Did you think about why am I doing this? Did it put you on the edge of thinking career change at that something that frustrating?

25:33 I yeah a little bit but you know I just know the rewards from the job. I’ll tell you the story. I worked 10 years for Warner. I did two years for Gainy and then I got a job here at town running an LTL and I dearly loved it but I was just slowly going broke and I was pretty much broke when I started this job. I took the last $1,000 I had. I had a 97 Ford F350 four-door DY and it blew the clutch out like two to three years prior. And I tell you what money I was making. It was either make the payment on the truck or fix the truck. I did not have enough money at the end of the month to work on the truck. So, I finally took the last $1,000 and I finally committed to it. I said, “I’m going to do this job.”

26:25 And I took it and put a new clutch in the truck. And I quit. I didn’t even quit smoking because I didn’t have money to smoke. I like eating. It was either eat or smoke. So, I liked eating more than I like smoking. So, I quit smoking and put the truck together and that first week I made $1,000 only working eight hours a day. I was in a motel every night. I had made that kind of money ever driving a truck. Most I’d ever made is about six $600, $800 and not been in a motel every night.

27:03 So, you were decking at this point? No, no, no. I was running singles. Running singles. S. I was running singles. It was me and two of my friends. We started with a company. I’ll say the name. It was Dealer’s Choice at the time, which is aka Truck Movers now. And we were running singles. And it was three of us. We all started. It was me, my buddy Shawn, and my best friend Dave. We all started. Sean couldn’t get hired on with him at the time because he had one too many tickets. He had to have the ticket dropped off and then he could hire get hired on. So at this time, this is like back in the time when I saying all these trucks were come coming in on lease off lease. Warner had a bunch of them, had a bunch of them, and Hy had a bunch of them. And we were getting $35 a truck to run them from Omaha down to Pacific Junction. Some of you older guys that have been around know PJ at Pacific Junction. That was the big drop yard that they that Freightliner had there just south of Council Bluffs there on I-29.

28:09 And it was there until probably eight or nine years ago when it got flooded again for the second time. And we were running trucks out of Sioux City, Iowa for Hiles. And we got $125 a truck on those. $35 a truck for Warers and $50 coming out of Lincoln Creek. And since Sean could couldn’t drive a truck for him and my pickup wasn’t put together yet, we took my Lincoln I had a Lincoln Mark 8 at the time and we were just paying him to drive to follow us in the Lincoln driver and drive us back.

28:51 He was doing our chase for us. Yeah. So, and we were paying for the gas and we pay for his motel and then and pay him $100 a day, you know, which at that time was pretty good money. This was back in n in 2003—

29:06 Right?

29:06 So, you know, $100 a day and that’s taxfree. You got a free motel, free and you know, it was good money.

29:14 100 bucks to drive. That’s it. And you know we were working Monday through Friday and we’d come home on Friday night and then we work on the pickup truck and it took us you know probably 3 weeks and we got the pickup truck done and then about that time Shawn was able to drive so we started doing that and Sean Dave and I we ran together for probably three months and then Sean went and bought himself a brand new Duramax diesel and went on his went out on his own and then Dave and I ran together and— We got we in the meantime we done a load we done several loads that we started out in Iowa cleared down to Texas over to Florida to Georgia out to California. We did a total between the three of us around 16,000 miles including dead head. Got home had a buttload of money.

30:09 I was going to say—

30:10 We didn’t have to buy much fuel. We ended up having between the four of us, we ended up buying 400 gallons of fuel. And this was back when fuel was still, you know, cheap. It was like we weren’t even getting a few our fuel s charge when we started out. We were getting a quarter a gallon—

30:28 Right?

30:29 That’s how cheap fuel was.

30:31 And we did this in like three weeks. We had it was just a big tourist trying for us. And that’s another thing when you get out here, you know, find some time to go to the museums and go to the races and do things you like to do because it’s basically you got to pick up on point A on time and deliver to point B on time, but you also need to have some time for yourself and go to museums, go to the movies, see relatives that you haven’t seen, and you get paid for it. I went I’d never seen the big crater out there in Arizona. I probably would have never seen it without doing this job. You know, been to the Grand Canyon. I’ve been to tons of places. Been to races. I mean, the first few years, every Friday, Saturday night, I had, you know, I had a book that had the racetracks and I call up the racetrack and see if they had truck parking. And if they did, that’s where I was going Friday and Saturday nights.

31:38 Let’s talk about that. I mean, you know, that story you were telling us is a 16,000 milei run you made with your buddy there. That’s living large cuz I’m sure you made a lot of money. But now that you’re here with us here at Norton Transport and by the way, this is Bryan Bonar joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And talk about I guess you know you’re in a position now where you are living large not just monetarily but you get to see and do a lot of things that most people don’t have the opportunity to do.

32:06 Yeah. I mean that’s I you know that’s one thing nice about this job. You’re your own boss and like I said you pick up a point A, you deliver to point B, get there on time or reasonable time and that’s another thing. You’re the one that’s in that truck. This goes to any trucking job. You’re the one that makes that call. If you feel unsafe doing the job, you park it. You know, rain, snow, sleep, cuz we’re going to be coming up to wintertime here in another two months. You know, chain law is already up in effect or will be in effect here in 3 weeks and in Colorado. So, if you don’t feel comfortable, you park it. You tell your dispatcher to go pound sand. Today and I will you know I don’t need you know especially I mean I love Norton you know and Norton actually came after me I was not looking for an outfit I was perfectly happy with the two outfits I had and Norton calls me out of the blue and said hey we’ve heard about you and we’d like you to come work for us and it’s like okay and first few months was a little tough cuz they just didn’t have the boom load cuz at that time I was just doing strictly used booms—

33:25 And or used deck loads and they just didn’t have it and it was tough to and they were really pushing that need to do one load a month and I finally got them to say hey look you know this one month you know I just can’t do it you know but then all of a sudden they found some good salesman or some good loads and I’ve been doing pretty good over here I haven’t been doing any loads for any of my other companies because I’ve been too busy over here.

33:54 Well, I got to say as one, I mean, I’ve only been here eight months, but I’ve heard a lot about Bryan Bonar. And we’re lucky to have you. We’re glad you said yes back then.

34:01 Yeah. Yeah. And I’m one of the only ones that’ll I do boom deck combinations and that’s the guy telling you that chased me down, Kent. He’s the one chased me down. I was doing a— Oh, that was another nightmare load. I’d gotten a hold of some bad fuel on some little ABF. No, those weren’t ABS. Those were Old Dominion single axle baby bunk c baby bunk hoods. And I got hold of some bad fuel. And I just it was a nightmare. I picked those up out of Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, picked up a freeway. I was doing a boom deck and—

34:40 Just having to change of fuel filters all the time and just could not get rid of that fuel. And it just it was just a nightmare. It had so much water in it. I think I changed the fuel filters from Mount Pleasant out to F I was going wasn’t going to Fontana, but I was going into the other LA dealer, other Freightliner LA dealer, and I can’t remember where it was.

35:06 Anaheim.

35:07 I’m not sure it was Anaheim, but it could have been. But all I remember is I was having to always stop and pull the petcock and let that fuel drain. Thank god he had one of the external fuel filters that it was catching 90% of it, but boy, it was just a nightmare.

35:26 How do you approach something like that? I mean, you’ve told us some great stories of the trials and tribulations out there on the road, but from a standpoint mentally, how do you go into that? Because I mean, you know, the scenario you just laid out there that could make, you know, some drivers crumble, but how do you—

35:44 Oh, yeah. It is stressful. That’s another thing. If you’re a boom or deck driver, everybody says, “Well, that’s too much work.” And it’s like, “Well, it might be too much work, but you also have two other truck, one to two other trucks that you can raise parts from.” I had a what was that? Fan belt. I had a fan belt break one day and going up I was coming up 40 coming up out of the canyon there in North Carolina into Tennessee.

36:12 Mhm. And coming up on the hills and I didn’t know the fan belt broke and the gauges will fluctuate and when you’re running down the road it really doesn’t need the fan but as soon as I started pulling that hill the heat shot up and I and then I looked down and I saw my gauge was below 12 volts I said oh I broke a belt so I you know pulled over and sure enough and of course I’m in the middle of nowhere it was like 60 or 70 miles to the nearest truck stop. So, I’ve got a truck, same I’m dragging the same truck. I’ve got tools. I just raid the fan belt off that back truck, put it on the front truck, call my dispatcher, says, “Hey, you owe me $75 for fixing this truck.” And they say, “Okay.” And they’ll tell the customer that, yeah, it was either pay, you know, $150 road call and then however long to fix the truck or pay my driver an extra 75 bucks.

37:13 You saved them a lot of money.

37:15 Yeah. So, but you got to be mentally and physically prepared to break down like that. And you just got to roll with the punches. And once it’s done, you just go to the motel and recoup or you get to the truck stop and just chill out. You know, the money really outweighs the stress. You know, especially if you work a month, 5 weeks, and then you can take two weeks, 3 weeks off. I’ve got a friend, he works two weeks, and then takes three weeks off because he can make enough money in two weeks and take three weeks off. And he can do his side hustle at the house. He’s got a couple he’s a plumber. He was a plumber before he was a driver and now he’s doing a little bit of both. You know, he’ll drive he go out and drive for a couple weeks if there’s a load he wants to do and then he’ll go home and do a few plumbing jobs and then he’ll sit around for a week, you know.

38:19 So, that that’s the biggest thing about this job. Even though it can be stressful, it can be a toll on you, the freedom is worth it to me.

38:30 Gotcha. Now, you were just talking about the money really outweighs the stress. The freedom is worth it to you. You’ve got a big vacation coming up. And did you say you were taking off for three weeks?

38:40 Yeah. Yeah. We’re going to leave out on Sunday and go to— My parents have a winter house down in Arizona. So, we’re going to go down. My dad and I are going to go down there. Had some damage down there about 3 weeks ago. They had a hell of a hail stom. It broke three out of the five sunlight on the roof, the dome lights, whatever they are, and then did some other damage. We’re going to go down there and take a look at it. They had 9 in 9 in of rain in an hour. Wow.

39:10 Down there. So, it’s just— So, we’re just going to go down there. And right now, it’s a little slow. And it got slow this time last year for some reason. Usually, it doesn’t get slow this time of year. Usually, it’s slower towards Thanksgiving and about the middle of July. It usually is not slow during the end of August versus September. They say it’s because they don’t have parts, but I don’t know. So, it’s a good time to take off right now since it is a little slow. And I, you know, I’m least on with five different outfits and they’re all slow. So, it’s just not Norton. It’s just everybody’s slow. You’re listening here to Bryan Bonar on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And if you’ve been listening here, you can probably pick up on the fact Bryan knows a lot about this industry. He’s been in it for 20 years. I’m going to brag on Bryan here for a second here. Listen to the credentials on this driver here.

40:12 And again, we want to reiterate here at Norton. We’re very happy to have Bryan Bonar moving trucks for us. He’s got his Passport. He’s got his Twick. He’s a manual shift certified right-hand drive, deck driver, boom driver, and Zbar. Did I leave anything out, Bryan?

40:29 Well, I do singles. I do singles. I do boom deck. You know, there’s not very I do boom deck and I have all my own equipment, too. You know, there’s not a lot of there’s not a lot of guys out here that have, you know, it’s just like right now couple my other outfits. One company has three trucks in Greenwood, North Dakota. Come to Kansas City. It’s too short. It’s too short to deck up. But I could go up there, boom them up, run them to Kansas City. Then there’s they still got one more truck up there with another truck in Grand Island, Nebraska, which isn’t that far from Greenwood. I could go go do those two trucks, bring those trucks to Kansas City, drop the one Kansas City truck. The other truck that I picked up, you know, that you pick up in Grand Island, Nebraska goes to South Carolina.

41:20 Well, I dropped that truck. Drop my dropped my truck and my trailer here. Pick up my single truck, single chase vehicle, go to South Carolina, drop that, run to North Carolina, up to Statesville, which everybody’s familiar with Statesville.

41:35 You pick up a single there that goes to Indianapolis, and then from Indianapolis, you run over to Chillicothe and you pick up the Chillicothe that’s coming to Ohio.

41:45 Now I’m back in Kansas City or THA, I meant pick up in Chillicothe, Ohio. The truck coming to THA. I pick that truck up. I come home, I’ve made a nice little round, not very much dead head, and I’m back home.

42:00 That’s what we call a good load plan.

42:02 Yeah. Plan your loads. And you’ve got to be flexible. Always have a plan A and a plan B. And maybe a plan C if plan A and plan B fall through. It’s just like Norton. One time I set up a load, had a load for Norton, and then it was going to get me to another load from one of my other companies. Well, I did the first load, deadheaded after the Norton load. Get to the Norton load. Someone had put it on the board that was tractors. Well, I get to the tractor. I get to what they call tractors. And they’re two flatbeds.

42:38 Well, I can’t hook to a flatbed with my truck and trailer. You know, I’ve got, at that time, I had a, you know, a van and my boom trailer. Well, Norton got on, found me a couple of tractors. They gave me $100 for attempted pickup on that. Gave me some money and paid from a motel that night to go pick up those other trucks. It was a little longer dead head to go get the load for the other outfit, but it all worked out in the end. You But you got to be flexible.

43:09 I’m glad we were able to come through for you there.

43:11 Yeah. The more equipment and more things you can do, the better off you are. Just like right now, since it’s real slow on the deck and the boom side, I just jump in the single and just keep on going. But like I said, dad wants to go to Arizona. So, we’re going to go to Arizona for 3 weeks.

43:31 You know, from what you’re laying out there as far as it being slow right now, it does seem like a good time for you to make your trip out to Arizona. But I wanted to ask about one of your particular credentials here that I would think would open up for some great stories from Bryan Bonar joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Your Twick certification there. What’s it like going in and out of the ports? I mean, have you seen some crazy stuff there?

43:57 It just depends on which set of docks you go to. If you go to the Baltimore docks and used to go to Jay lot, which Jayla wasn’t actually physically on the docks, that was pretty easy to get on that one. If it’s been so long since I’ve been to the docks, it used to be a nightmare. You never wanted to be in there on a Monday or Friday. Monday morning was just a nightmare because everybody had run all weekend and they were just stacked up. And when they say they’re going to lunch at 11:00, they’re going to lunch at 11:00 and they don’t come back till 1:00. So, you also don’t want to be in there. You want to get in there before 11:00 and do your dropping cuz they’ll show you where to go and you drop and then by the time they come back from lunch, then you’re ready to be checked in. You know, docs on the most part just plan on being there all day, you know. Tward helps out. It pays for itself even though you don’t have to pay for your escort. Most companies will pay for an escort, but it’s just a little feather in your cap that they will give you the extra money for not having to pay for an escort.

45:07 Right.

45:07 So, but I’ve got my Twitter card. I’ve kept it up, but I haven’t used it in probably almost a year.

45:14 Okay.

45:15 But it’s nice. It’s nice to have.

45:17 Gotcha. When’s the last time you got into Canada? The last time I did a Canada load, I did a two stomper for another outfit. And that was the last time I went in Canada. I did a three-way deck set, four-way deck set. I picked up four trucks in Texas. Two trucks dropped in Nashville. Music City. Probably some of the guys know Music City. Oh, yeah. Trucks right there.

45:44 Right there. You know, right around International and Max right next door and everything. And then the other two trucks to Canada right across the Windsor Bridge. And that was probably almost four years ago. I’m not I’ve not been into Canada in probably four years, but it was fairly easy to get in and out. I had a little trouble getting out. They didn’t like me coming through the regular car side cuz I went in on the commercial side and then I came out on the car side cuz I had my picked up a trailer. This was when I had my I’ve got a deck chase vehicle and a deck pick a deck trailer and I went in on the commercial side and they came out and they weren’t real happy and I said, “Well, I didn’t know and I’ll know next time that if I come in through the commercial side, I need to leave on the commercial side.”

46:34 So, but other than that, I had a couple other times before running just singles up there. Never had a problem.

46:42 Did they hammer you with a ticket or they let you go with a warning?

46:46 No, no, no. They just yelled at me and said, “Don’t do that.”

46:50 Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, you’ve been in this for 20 years and we were talking about some of the things you’ve been able to see on the open road, some of the places you’ve been to the Grand Canyon. You mentioned museums. Obviously, those type things attract you.

47:04 Yeah. Oh, I’m a car fanatic. I love cars. So, like I said, I go to races. I haven’t done that in a couple years, but I used to do it every Friday and Saturday night. Especially if you had especially if you’re running with someone. That was always fun to go to the races on the weekends. But a lot of times here lately, well, past year or so, I’ve been able to get home pretty much every weekend. So, I can get to the car shows here in town. That’s another thing I like to do is I’ll, you know, get on Facebook and I’ll find car shows and I can go park at a truck stop or and unload, you know, when I’m doing new stuff, I unload my pickup and go to car shows on the weekend or if I’m deadheading and or at the motel over the weekend waiting to pick up on Monday, I can, you know, just go around town and go to car shows or I’ll go to an auto parts store if I can’t find anything on Facebook and ask if they know of any car shows in town and some of them will know.

48:06 So, but that’s what I like to do on the weekends or during the week if you can find some places like in Kansas City, we’ve got a there’s a group they’re they do it on Friday and Wednesday nights they have a car cruise. Tonight they go to Pegasus and Wednesday night they go to Red Robins over in Oakland Park, Kansas and show up with your cars and they give you a little discount on food and hang out. But it you got to have fun out here as it’s just all work. It’s just it’ll that’s another thing that’ll burn you out real quick at doing the job if you do nothing but work.

48:42 Well, clearly Bryan Bonar is enjoying what he does. He’s been doing it for 20 years. Joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Bryan, I got to ask you, you know, the name of this show, The Six-Figure Trucker. You’ve been in it for 20 years. You know, you got into it when you were about out of money, about to go broke there, and then things turned around. You stuck with it.

49:01 I was probably two weeks away from declaring bankruptcy. I was that far in debt. I just— And you know what’s funny is my boss, he loved me. I was working for Chris Truck Lines, little LTL carrier here in town. They had four trucks here in town. Everybody knew everybody, you know, and I loved it. I dearly hated quit, but I just was I burned through all my savings. I burned through all my checking. I burned through my 401k that I had from Warner. I just trying to hang on, you know. I had a champagne taste on a beer budget—

49:40 And it caught up to me finally. And I told my boss, I said, “Hey, I’m only going to go do this for about six months. I just need to get myself back squared around.” And after that first week that I was able to actually, what’s funny is I told you I quit smoking. After that first week, I started smoking again cuz I could afford it. I could afford to smoke and afford to eat at the same time. And—

50:06 I guess at this point you can smoke and eat what you want.

50:08 Yeah. Well, but I’ve quit for good about five and a half years ago. I quit for good. So I you know I’ve had a couple here and there, but it’s I go like really? I used to put these things in my mouth—

50:24 For 20 years. It’s like h what a waste of money.

50:28 I understand. Speaking of money, let’s talk a little bit about what this has afforded you the capability to do. You strike me as a guy who likes to travel, likes to take in some of the finer things in life and now I mean you’re able to.

50:42 Yeah, my house is paid for and granted it’s not that big a house. I’ve got a nice custom Corvette. I’ve got a nice custom Chevy four-door DY pickup truck. I’ve got a couple other vehicles that I’m working on. You know, I can pretty much work if I want or stay home if I want, you know, but you’ve got to make your money when it’s there and you can’t blow it all. You have to save up for the time like now when it is a little slow so you can ride out the slow time. There’s been some times that I’ve, you know, it’s like, oh man, do I really want to do this job? You know, it’s so slow, but crap. You know, I don’t know if I want to take I see these trailers, we’ll pay 50 cents a mile and I’m going 50 cents a mile, 2,000 miles, you know, that’s $1,000. Do I want to take that big a pay cut? It’s like no, I can write it off. I can write it, but that’s back then.

51:42 I don’t have to do that now. You know that you know back probably five six years ago I was still struggling a little bit but over the past few years I’ve really been able to buckle down and save up and ride out these storms.

51:56 Gotcha. We’ve been talking nuts and bolts with Bryan Bonar here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. We’re about to wrap it up here with Bryan and I wanted to ask you one last question Bryan. When you look back over the last two decades that you’ve been in this industry, what one thing strikes out to you as the reason that really resonates and underscores why you did it? I mean, when you came from what you came from, when you were so close to being bankrupt, but now where you are now, what’s the one thing that kind of shines through for you?

52:26 Well, being paid to do what I want to do is basically it. I’ve been wanting to be a truck driver since I was 5 years old. All I ever wanted to do was drive a truck—

52:38 You know. And then I got into, you know, like I said, I did 10 years for Warner and it was great. I loved it. You know, I would I was on three different dedicated and it was great. But then Warner and I had a falling out and then I did, you know, two years of gaining and it was all right. But it just burnt me. That that outfit burned me out cuz they didn’t want you out for more than 30 days or 3 weeks and then they only want to give you three days off. Well, anybody that’s in this business knows three days is not enough cuz one day you’re sleeping all day. The next day you’re you move out of the bed and you move to your chair and you sleep in your chair and watch TV. Now the third day—

53:25 You’re having to do everything you needed to do in the first two days, right?

53:29 So I just couldn’t deal with it.

53:30 I understand.

53:31 And then I got this LTL company where I was home every night. I loved it, but just not the money. And then a friend of mine, the friend of mine that got me into this job, he’s been doing it about five years, and I kept telling him he couldn’t make any money. He couldn’t make any money. You can’t make any money doing this job. Well, I’ll tell you, the first 6 months I did this job, I made 30 grand. Granted, it’s not a lot, but you’re talking 2003, 30 grand is back then was a lot of money. When in this previous six months, I made $15,000, beating my ass for 40 hours a week. The next six months, I did singles for almost four of those months. And then two months I did booms.

54:22 So, you know, and it wasn’t that hard a job, especially singles, you know, that was, you know, especi like I said, we were doing two months. Two months, we did nothing but shuttles. We’d start at 8:00 in the morning, we were done by 8:00 at night—

54:41 Right?

54:41 And in the motel, you know. Well, Bryan Bonar joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker and he’s proved positive that you can make money in driveaway trucking. He’s done it. He’s, as he’s told us, the money really outweighs the stress and the freedom, as he says, is worth it to him. Bryan, we really appreciate you joining us here this evening on the Six-Figure Trucker. And we also want to wish you a really good time in the next three weeks coming up. Some downtime for you, some time with your father there. That should be, you know, rewarding and it’s something that you can enjoy.

55:12 Yep. Yep. And if you want to call me back on for another time, we haven’t even barely scratched the surface of this job.

55:20 Bryan, I can tell you right now, we will you’ll be a repeat guest here on the Six-Figure Trucker. Bryan Bonar, he shared a lot of his knowledge here, a lot of insights into driveaway trucking and why it works and how it works. Bryan Bonar, thank you so much for joining us. And that wraps it up for the Six-Figure Trucker. We’ll see you next time and have fun out there on the open road. Thank you and pleasure being with you.

55:43 Absolutely. Thank you, Bryan.

55:49 Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.