Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/818577
Diversions 42 | Overdrive | May 2017 150 days. That's how long we have to lose a ton. Not "we" as you and I, but "we" as in the trucking community. I prob- ably can contribute 20 pounds, but we're going to count on the rest of you for the remaining 1,980 pounds. The MATS2GATS fitness chal- lenge was born in 2016, an idea from James "Tex" Crowley of Texomatic Pictures. Crowley challenged drivers to take the months between the March Mid-America Trucking Show and the Great American Trucking Show in August to improve their health. He set up a Facebook page (facebook.com/mats2gats) for support and information. The challenge has been renewed this year. Friends at Tough Tested, which makes gear and accessories for the mobile lifestyle, have taken up the cause, along with Tom Kyrk, whose RoadTestedLiving.com supports better health and overall lifestyle on the road. Kyrk will work with Tough Tested to support and educate drivers through the Facebook page and hold a contest for drivers who join the challenge. Check that page for rules and prize lists, as well as recipes, exercise tips, trails to walk and healthy food locations on the road. Even if you don't need to lose weight, the page is a great place for information about a better lifestyle. Participants will be invited to a tailgate celebration at GATS in Dallas, Aug. 24-26, sponsored by Tough Test- ed. All participants will get a T-shirt, and other prizes also will be given. By the time you read this, many of those 150 days already are behind us, so let's get to work! – Wendy Parker, author of Overdrive's George and Wendy Show blog Australian photographer/author Alice "Al" Mabin's story is one of near-tragedy turned to a new appreci- ation for the importance of trucking. The most recent of her two books is "The Driver — Australia and New Zealand on the Back of a Truck." It's a series of photo-essays detailing trucking entities, including many owner-operators, in Australia and New Zealand. Mabin's first book, "The Drover," chronicled the Brinkworth Drove, a 2 job that moved 18,000 head of cattle over 2,000 kilometers a few years ago. It took about nine months to pull off "the world's biggest cattle drive," she says. Afterward, she independently published the book and sold a whop- ping 30,000-plus copies. Not long after the book's comple- tion, Mabin was slightly injured when she collided with a tractor-trailer. Shortly after, she "got home and got to thinking about it all," realizing her life "revolves around trucks," she says. "Trucks deliver all of this stuff, and we all take it for granted." And in Australia, as in the United States, she says, "the only time you ever hear about trucks is in the media when something goes wrong. You never hear a good news story about trucks." Mabin decided to do something about it. "I ended up doing 18 months of hitchhiking around Austra- lia and New Zealand. There are 102 different truck companies in the book, ranging all sizes." The content "all relates back to what it means to us in the general public – someone from Australia or someone from anywhere in the world," she says. "Trucking is universal." – Todd Dills Book spotlights trucking Down Under Alice "Al" Mabin Among 102 Australian trucking companies and "owner-drivers" featured in Alice "Al" Mabin's "The Driver" are more than one from the "Outback Truckers" TV series about trucking in remote areas. Mabin's book is available via Amazon.com. Chipping away at a ton – for health and fun