Here’s a video that’s proof – if it were needed – that it’s not the car (or the truck) that matters. It’s who’s behind the wheel of the thing.
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There are spots where I’ve seen truck drivers, UPS drivers, etc and so on make the moves exactly as I expect passenger vehicle drivers to. Plus then there are the spots where I do it better on my bicycle. I know my standards are too high when it can be done on a bicycle or in UPS truck with ease.
Like the way the truck driver uses the WHOLE road on turns. That’s the great way to drive.
I recall driving empty back up the canyon which I had done 100s of times. I knew every curve and pothole. I would back off the gas for a sharp corner coming up, and some out of state jack ass would run up close behind (not tailgating because there was no tailgate or even a proper bumper). Then coming out of the corner I would hit the gas (because yeah I had things to do like get another load) and leave the out of state jack ass far behind for a while. That old torquey GMC v6 would really get up and go empty without even shifting.
This would all rinse lather and repeat as there were a lot of sharp corners and the jack ass would just about catch up by the next one. You didn’t dare push it around those bends because there could be another tourist coming down halfway over the center line. So glad now that we no longer live in a tourist area 😉
^^^ Supposed to be a reply to eightsouthman below.
Anon, I figured as much. Those old V6’s were just 6 of a 348 V8 but they did have some low down torque. I had a friend the age of my dad and those old V 6’s and 292’s were all he’d drive in heavy pickups, often with workbeds. Those were pretty good rear-ends too and the trannies were damned stout.
My 55 Chevy had a granny 4 speed and the Blue Flame 6 could never hurt it even if I blew a clutch.
That run you’d made hundreds of times sounds familiar. We were building a large pipeline terminal with a huge tank, lots of offloading spots and big pipelines with big pumps and such, quite a job. Covered an entire steep hillside we broke up into level areas and packed thick limestone over the whole thing. Day after day for months, the same 6 miles to a pit and back. The road was a really good limestone road and very wide.
Go across the highway and through a big cattleguard and then it was downhill and left hand curve that was made with a hell of an angle so you could haul ass. After weeks, and 20 loads a day it was boredom city. I ran the road so much I’d use that big Cummins in a KW880 and a big belly dump to continually go faster and faster if there was no other traffic which was often. I got to the point I knew when to roll into the throttle in 9th gear, dive deep into the curve and accelerate hard coming out ending up right on the outside edge and this would be running empty. It finally got to the point I was drifting the whole rig right out to the edge and about the time you got to the end of the curve, I’d shift into 10th and let it roll without power since I was doing over 60 at that point. It was just entertainment for the most bored guy out there.
I took another driver with me once and he just shook his head and we both laughed. He asked if I did that every time. Yep, every time nobody’s coming the other way. It was at the end of the curve he realized the entire rig had broken lateral traction and we were drifting to the edge.
Well, you do what you gotta to maintain some sanity. I got on another job and was using a short day cab KW 880 and a larger trailer. Even when I got back to the yard that was 7 miles from my house, I’d use it the same way on the dirt road with curves on it to my house. There was a liquor store at the edge of town and I’d always pull around back and get a six for the ride to the yard. Even if I didn’t the boss would stop me and hand me a couple cold ones. Every job we were on I hauled more loads every day than everyone else did. One job the pit was 1/2 mile from the location we were building. The first day I hauled 45 loads and the next day, 46. The day after that the old rear-end that I’d removed a couple handfuls of metal from when we first bought the truck finally lost some teeth on the rear diff. I went back to that sleeper cab and almost finished that job in it but finally got the day cab back. That was the one that nearly killed me with an exhaust leak the boss said we’d fix every day for two months. It was always something out in the patch.
Yeah, the canyon road was also for most of the year the only way in and out of the high mountain valley where we lived and worked. The other roads were high mountain passes that were typically closed October through May or sometimes into June. So it wasn’t just hauling logs but almost everywhere we went like to get groceries was up and down that canyon. I did haul a lot of logs over one of the passes July through September. Most of that was 10-15 mph in second gear up and down, loaded and empty. It was so rough you couldn’t go any faster, especially empty.
But…but…Eric, “CDL” drivers don’t need assistance because they’re “trained”. So therefore, if a driver doesn’t have a “CDL” (i.e. a government-issued piece of plastic), (s)he is obviously an incompetent buffoon because credentials.
That trucker just might have things to do.