TORONTO, ON – The top five finalists for the Truck Writers of North America’s (TWNA) 2016 Technical Achievement Award include engines, a disc brake, a steel wheel, and electronic cruise control products. 

This year, the annual award will be named after Jim Winsor for the first time. Winsor wrote as a truck journalist for 50 years, and was a TWNA member active in the Technology and Maintenance Council of the American Trucking Associations. Passing away in 2015, Winsor was long known, respected and loved in the trucking industry.

The winner will be announced March 1 by TWNA during the industry awards luncheon at the Technology and Maintenance Council’s annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Since 1991, TWNA’s award committee, a panel of editors representing the industry’s dominant publications, has been ranking items selected by TWNA members, narrowing the selection down to five award finalists and then the winner.

Jim Park of Today’s Trucking and Heavy Duty Trucking magazines is the award committee chairman and named the following products as the five finalists for the 2016 TWNA Technical Achievement Award:

• Accuride EverSteel wheel with a special anti-corrosion treatment
• Cummins X15 Efficiency series diesel, whose advances to meet federal Phase 2 greenhouse gas emissions rules include an Atkinson Cycle combustion mode
• Mack and Volvo “wave” piston, part of engine upgrades to comply with new GHG regulations
• SAF-Holland P89 disc brake, a high-performance, lightweight and moderate-cost braking product
• Volvo iSee and Mack Predictive cruise control, which “learns” routes and operates a truck’s powertrain to gain maximum efficiency.

“It took a while for us to sort through the nominees and narrow the field to just five products,” Park says. “There were some spirited discussions, but we used a scoring method in our voting that put numbers to opinions, and that got us to this point. It was all done by email.”

The other award committee members and their publications are Paul Abelson, of Land Line; John Baxter, freelance technical writer; Tom Berg, Heavy Duty Trucking and Construction Equipment; Jason Cannon, Commercial Carrier Journal; David Kolman, Fleet Maintenance; James Menzies, Truck News; Jason Morgan, Fleet Equipment; Jack Roberts, Heavy Duty Trucking; and John G. Smith, Today’s Trucking.

First presented in 1991 to Grote Industries for its red LED marker lamp, the TWNA’s Technical Achievement Award has been awarded to both large and small companies for their products and services. In 2015, Eaton’ Precision medium-duty, seven-speed, dual-clutch automated transmission was the winner of the award.

TWNA was founded in 1988 and is made up of writers, editors, public relations specialists, marketing personnel and other content producers in the realm of trucking.