Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/269152
DIVERSIONS 50 | Overdrive | March 2014 The Hampton Roads area of Vir- ginia is a hotbed of history, from pil- grims to Redbeard. It almost seems fi tting that the Tidewater area should have the best chili-cheese footlong. If you happen to be delivering at Langley Air Force Base, Smitty's is less than a mile from the King Street gate, at 1313 N. King St. in Hamp- ton proper. It's not hard to fi nd – just ask the locals. We lived within walking distance of Smitty's for almost two years. I've tried just about everything on the menu, and it's all good, but the Chili-Cheese Footlong is the be-all end-all. The Smith family, who owns Smitty's, has a closely guarded chili secret that hasn't changed since1956. The hamburgers still are hand- made, and you can get patties stacked as high as you'd like – the record for a stack is fi ve. No meal is complete without tater tots or french fries, and you simply must top everything off with an order of fried apple stix. Smitty's Better Burger hasn't changed much since the Smiths opened it in 1956. Oldies music is piped through outdoor speakers, and some of the signage has been there since the beginning. Smitty's is the ultimate in family-owned drive-in nostalgia – and great food at a great price. Eats: A Virginia Tidewater gem By Wendy Parker Smitty's Better Burger in Hampton, Va., has space for bobtail parking. Custom-carved trucks winning awards Alaska Frontier Services driver Christopher Vallee, operating seasonally, has been spending his off-time on a budding business of building model trucks. The Bent Rodz Customs proprietor is working almost entirely on one-of-a-kind projects sculpted with wood. Vallee has won ribbons for his woodworked trucks and hot rods at events such as the Alaska State Fair and Furrondy Festival. After posting a shot of one of his rigs to the Facebook page of 10-4 Magazine, the response motivated him to start his own page. Soon he was "backed up with about 20 different orders," he said. Before you inquire about an order, consider that Vallee puts about 50 hours of work into each rig. A large part of that is fi nishing the wood. Vallee starts sanding with 150-grit paper and goes all the way up to super-super-fi ne 6,000-grit. The hardwood comes out looking "really like a marble surface," he said. Hardwood "is tough to work with – it dulls your blades, and it's hard on your equipment," but the results are spectacular. Vallee learned his craft in part from the proprietor of a hobby shop on a correc- tional farm where he spent a brief period following some "stupid mistakes" he made in his 20s, as he puts it. He's been carving as a hobbyist for more than four years. Find more of Vallee's work, and get in touch with him, via his "Bent Rodz Customs" page on Face- book.com. By Todd Dills This model was built for the general manager of Kenworth of Alaska for display inside the shop. "The hood opens up, and there's a motor in it," Christopher Vallee says. "The inside of the cab is detailed down to the Kenworth emblems on the foot pedals." Diversions_0314.indd 50 2/26/14 10:36 AM