On Saturday, July 11 I spent the day at the London Flying J for the Ontario Professional Truck Driving Championships. I won’t go into too much detail here,

because I’ve already posted my reports online. You can read about the driving championships here and the MTO inspector’s championship, held alongside the driving championships, here.

Both events showcased the professionalism and passion that exists within the industry, yet is too often overlooked. If there’s a truck rollover or a wheel-off, you can bet the mainstream media will be all over it, but aside from videographer Austin Hitchcock and me, there was no media present at the championships.

Speaking of Austin, he shot some excellent video at the event and the first of those can be seen now, embedded within this piece on how to ace the pre-trip inspection component of the competition. MTO officer Chad King walks us through the inspection and this topic is a great example of a story that’s best shown rather than told, so I think the video works nicely. Check it out here and share it with your drivers.

I should point out, there’s an eight-minute time limit for the pre-trip at the driving championships; that’s not to say a proper pre-trip can be done in eight minutes, but competitors are allowed to talk through their motions to speed up the process. They are tasked with uncovering five planted defects as well as highlighting everything else that must be done as part of an actual pre-trip inspection.

They did well this year – really well. For the first time ever, three drivers aced the pre-trip with perfect scores. They were: Mike Hamilton, City of Brampton; Wayne Burnett, Home Hardware; and Rob Hunter, Waste Management. Good luck to all the winners at the Nationals in Regina this fall.