Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/550385
Voices 12 | Overdrive | August 2015 One or another of Con- necticut-based owner-oper- ator Hank Good's "Highway Hilton" trucks has been a mainstay at trucking events and on the long-haul highways for more than 30 years. What you might not know is that the cabover of the pair had its pub- lic-event swan song of sorts late last year, at least under Good's ownership. Highway Hank donated the famous 1981 Ken- worth K100, the Highway Hilton No. 1, to the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott. There it will rest out its days as a monument to a living legend. Good's two rigs were reunited last month at the Walcott Truckers Jambo- ree, where he showed the Highway Hilton No. 2, a 2007 Kenworth W900L. The last time the two were in such close proximity was the 2014 holiday parade in Jeffersonville, N.Y., in which the operator has tak- en part for years. With an- tique plates on the K100, following that he bobtailed across the country to Wal- cott for one last ride. Over the years, says Good, the classic K100 has garnered 121 trophies at shows and has been featured "in well over 200 newspa- pers and magazines – those are the articles that I have in my possession, anyway. The AP picked up the story when I was in Poland." Good acquired the K100 new in 1981. "When I turned it over to Iowa 80, it had 1,590,000 miles on it." Those miles include European tours in 1992 and 1993, when Good became an ambassador for Cat Scale and Truck-Lite in Europe, particularly in Germany, where his moth- er was born. "I happened to go there in 1985 for an aunt and uncle's wedding anniver- sary," he says, where he kicked around the possi- bility of bringing the truck over, having contacts in the industry there. "The more someone tells me I'll never do something, the more I want to do it. In 1988, I went over to a German truck show – again, they said I should bring it over." Over the following years on overseas trips, his contacts in the Eu- ropean trucking world continued to grow. When he made his first run to Europe with Cat Scale, his reputation in some ways preceded him. At least one truck stop owner "had told all his customers that this was the most famous truck in America," Good says. Find more pictures from Good's European adven- tures and from his delivery of the original Hilton to the Iowa 80 truck stop in Wal- cott by searching his name at OverdriveOnline.com. And if you're headed down 80 past Walcott in the near future, stop in and give the rig some company. That's not Holly Knoll Services inde- pendent dump own- er-operator Dave Palmer's company hat that he's wear - ing. Rather, it's from a receiver where he often delivers in Columbia, S.C. When we visited Palmer in May, he made a point of wear - ing the hat for the photo shoot for our "Buyer's market" truck-purchasing coverage. B&T Sand deserved recogni - tion, he says, for its focus on getting drivers in, out and down the road in an efficient manner. Highway Hank Good at Walcott in more ways than one Dave Palmer is based in Greer, S.C. A difference on detention: Give credit where it's due Hank Good donated his first "Highway Hilton" last year to the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum.