FALCONER, N.Y. — In what’s being called the tightest race in competition history, a trucker from Iron Bridge, Ontario was awarded first place in the 2005 Truck-Lite Trophy series.

Canadian Pierre Cinq-Mars of Muskoka Transport in Bracebridge, Ont. was crowned national champion and took home the 2005 Truck-Lite Trophy, symbolic of the National Championship of the National Association of Show Trucks (NAST).

Bo Trout, of Tecumseh, Mich. and Neil Finegan, Jr., of Litchfield, Mich. came in second and third place respectively.

A Canadian wins the Truck-Lite
truck show tour after a tight race

The competition went down to the wire, with contenders struggling for every point on judging day, The trophy was finally awarded on November 13th at the Meca — South Florida Truck Show, the final Truck-Lite Trophy event of the 2005 season.

A former mechanic and logger, Cinq-Mars now hauls wood products and industrial equipment. The truck is adorned with 313 Truck-Lite lamps, a mural of a maple leaf on the hood and a Canadian lynx on each side. “The Sentinel,” a local newspaper from Thessalon Ont. nicknamed the truck “Maple Leaf Pride.” A newspaper reporter followed Cinq-Mars and the truck throughout the NAST season.

Cinq-Mars has been showing for three years, but only at two or three shows each of his first two years. “I always wanted a show truck,” he said. “I did it a little at a time. I met (former Truck-Lite Trophy winner) Bob Brinker and he encouraged me.”

Asked what he liked best about show truck competitions, Cinq-Mars said, “As long as there are people around to look at the trucks, it’s all worthwhile. We’ve also made many new friends. Now we hang around with people we didn’t even know at the beginning of the year, people we just read about in the magazines. I guess now we’re one of those people.”

All three Truck-Lite Trophy winners for 2005 will be at the 2006 Mid America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY, either on display in front or competing in the MATS show out back.