Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/426944
VOICES 10 | Overdrive | December 2014 You may well have caught hazmat hauler and songwriter Bill Weaver's video in Overdrive's Trucker Talent Search competition last summer. If you took a shine to his country-rock take on trucking songs, take heed: Weaver's got a record that at press time he projected for a launch this month. Weaver's been trucking for 20 years throughout the lower 48, and the native of Flippin, Ark., has a soulful approach to music. The record of original songs, "Ev- ery Mile I Drive," will be available via online retail channels — iTunes and others — for download and on CD, he says. A GoFundMe.com funding campaign helped in the production, offering donors access to downloads, CDs autographed and otherwise, T-shirts and more. Regular readers might remember Chad Boblett from Overdrive's October feature on using data to maximize spot-market rates. Boblett spent 10 years in the Ma- rine Corps before becoming a com- pany driver, bringing in $70K-$80K a year, he says. During that time, "I always wanted my own truck. I wanted to run my own company," he says. "But anybody you would talk to said, 'You'll never make it, you'll be married to it and make less money.' " After nearly four years as a driver, he came off the road for knee surgery. "I knew I'd be living off short-term disability and couldn't afford the house and the car," he says. So his family packed off temporarily to his wife's original home in Japan. "I rented the house out, sold the car and moved into a cheap motel" in Lexington, Ky. – the kind of place you might see in a local TV crime report. Indeed, says Boblett, "Occasionally I do see it on the news and think, 'Hey, I used to live there.' "I went from having everything in life – getting back from Iraq and hav- ing a good thing – to back to nothing. Only thing I did have was great credit. And when you have that, you get a lot of offers [for more]. A whole lot." *WJTM\\\PMVLQL_PI\VWÅVIVKQIT adviser or owner-operator consultant would ever endorse. "I said, 'You know, it can't get any worse. I'm going to take advantage of it.' " He got approved for enough credit to "come up with $35,000. That was going to be my magic number to use and go buy a truck." He found a Volvo within that price and with 420,000 miles (his mileage cutoff was 500,000). "I didn't care where it was – I was going to buy it." He got a big surprise when he learned the truck's location: Lexing- ton Truck Sales, literally down the road from the motel. "I went ahead and bought a dry van for $15K. I was $50,000 in debt and didn't know any- thing else about what I was doing." Boblett got his operating authority, and went out trucking in January 2011. Eventually he did well enough to commonly work two weeks on, one off. Later his knee took him back off the road and into a dispatching/ negotiation service for independent owner-operators. The family "just closed on our second house," he said in September. 1\OWM[\W[PW_\PI\KWVÅLMVKM and careful planning sometimes can balance out what appears to be a risky move. Going against the grain " I rented the house out, sold the car and moved into a cheap motel. " — Chad Boblett, on his transitional period following an injury A disabled driver takes a big financial leap – and lands it BY TODD DILLS Sample some of hazmat hauler Bill Weaver's recorded music, including a wonderfully crafted rock rambler, "Mr. D – O – T," in the Oct. 30 post to the Channel 19 blog. Special delivery: 'Every Mile I Drive'