Veteran Jeff Watson has come to embrace the TDC experience, wins LB3's in-house event over the weekend

By Al Muskewitz
 
WEDOWEE, Ala. – Jeff Watson is a self-described old-school trucker. A solitary soul, content to stay out on the road for weeks on end, coming home for a couple days when all the loads were delivered or the laundry or calendar ran out.

So, when LB3 CEO Brian Lindley suggested – again – the Dadeville, Ala., driver take a run at the Alabama Truck Driving Championships last year he was understandably reluctant. Competitions and tooting his own air horn just weren’t his thing. He was all about the work.
 
Apparently, you can teach an old trucker new tricks. Watson went through the state TDC a 62-year-old rookie and, to his surprise, discovered it to be quite an enlightening experience.
 
Fast forward to this first Saturday in June. The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the entire nationwide TDC schedule this summer, but with an eye towards giving his drivers a fun day for a job well done and a little taste of what they’d face when entering the competition next year Lindley conducted LB3’s inaugural TDC – and guess who won?
 
Jeff Watson. The 45-year driving veteran scored 420 of 480 possible points under the same conditions as the state program and posted the field’s top score on three of the six obstacles on a challenging road course.
 
“I’m just old school and I thought this ain’t for me; I just like (driving a truck),” he said. “Back in the day trucking was kind of like a last-of-the-cowboy thing. I truly enjoyed (the TDC) after I got there, but if he hadn’t had rodeoed me into it I wouldn’t have went, but he asked me to go.
 
“I really enjoyed it, I really did, but I really dreaded it (at first) because I thought OK he’d asked me several times, I feel obligated. After I got there it was educational. I really enjoyed it.”
 
The things Watson learned that day in Pelham helped him in the company competition, like what to look for on the pre-trip inspection and the obstacle course. Years of driving experience gave him confidence that he’d hold his own, but he never expected to win, partly because he was still getting used to the view from a sloped-nose Freightliner after a lifetime of driving an extended-hood Peterbilt.
 
He earned his driving chops back in the day doing intrastate runs, but he’s been running interstate the past 42 years and estimates he has 7 million miles under his tires. He’s been hauling chicken for LB3 from Ashland, Ala., to Savannah, Ga., and Batesburg, S.C., and back the last three and a half years.
 
“It’s an honor for us to having someone with 40-plus years of experience and no accidents a part of our team,” Lindley said. “He resisted the competition, he kind of resisted anything to do with accolades or competitions, so to see him fully endorse it – like he just said, he loved it – that’s a big statement for somebody like him. He’s all in now.”

Tim Frazier, the Alabama Trucking Association’s vice president of safety and compliance, set up the road course and drove it twice in advance of the competition. He said it was “comparable” to what the drivers would see at the state event and had “some difficulty” to it.
 
Watson scored the best among the day’s 11 competitors in the serpentine start and on each of the last two stations – a rear tire scales stop and a rear stop, which the drivers agreed was the most difficult obstacle on the course. In between, they navigated a front stop on a bull’s eye, a left steer tire maneuver to a rubber duck and a right turn.

"I killed the duck," Watson said.
 
“It was a pretty tough little course,” Frazier said.
 
Arvin Kelting, a 20-year driving veteran in his first year with LB3, placed second. 
 
“I probably didn’t do as good on the written exam, but as far as the obstacle course I think I did really well,” he said.

The day also gave the carrier a chance to celebrate a big year in safety.
 
Frazier formally presented Lindley the ATA Fleet Safety President’s Award, emblematic of the safest in-state fleet in the state. All the Fleet Safety Award winners were announced in a Facebook presentation in April.
 
LB3 had zero reportable accidents over 477,586 miles in Alabama, zero loss claims and improved in every safety category from the previous year.  
 
“I salute you as drivers for the state of Alabama,” Frazier told them before formally presenting the award.
 
Al Muskewitz is Editor at Wright Media. He can be reached at musky@wrightmediacorp.com
 
Main photo: LB3 CEO Brian Lindley (R) presents driver Jeff Watson with the trophy for winning the company's in-house Truck Driving Championship.