Today was day 8 of our 18 day training, and day 1 of shifting. We started out by heading over to Clarkston WA, which is just a couple of mile from Swifts Lewiston terminal.
Our instructor is a real nice guy. His name is Bob, he has been a driver for 15 years, with Swift for 10 years and a Trainer for about 2 years. Bob is a very calm/laid back kind of guy, but he is making sure that we know what we need to know. I can't even remember how many times he said for the test you need to do it like this, but in the real world it's a whole other story.
Anyways, he took us around what the call the Clarkston 500. It's the port of Clarkston where they have some nice wide streets, not a lot of traffic, and enough room to get the truck moving in 5th or 6th gear before you need to slow down. Spent 1.25 hours going around this course and getting accustomed to the way the truck moves when you are traveling faster than 2 miles per hour.
I was able to pick it up pretty quick. Of course I had my share of mistakes, but all in all it went very well. I felt very comfortable when Bob said it was time for my student teammate to take his turn at the wheel. My teammates name is Dave, and he is about as competent at this as I am. He was also able to get into a groove and only had a few problems shifting because he couldn't get his timing just right. Basically he kept trying to press the clutch to the floor, so he couldn't get into the next gear.
After Dave ran the same course for about 1.5 hours, Bob had him peel off and get onto a different road. This was a small two lane road that runs along the Snake River. Not a lot of traffic other than us, another Swifty, and a few motorcycles. The goal on this road was to get going a little faster, then slow down. Shifting through almost all the gears, but also getting an idea of the other obstacles while going at a slow enough speed where we could get comfortable. We took this road out 27 miles from the Lewiston terminal where we turned around and I took the wheel.
So now I am driving on a real road
with guard rails, a few 4 wheelers, another Swifty student (stuck behind us), and a small construction zone. The purpose of this road, and this day was shifting. So I would get the truck up and into about 6th or 7th and then start slowing down and downshifting to 3rd. The instructor behind us wanted to get it going faster, so they were always real close behind and trying to push me faster but Bob said screw em we are shifting not driving highway. I even came to a complete stop and started out again in the middle of the road and hes like whats wrong? I said I just wanted to shift all the way down, and back up. He said cool, I just never had anyone do it on this road unless the messed up so bad they couldn't recover.
After lunch Dave started driving and Bob had him go through downtown Lewiston. Now we have lots of 4 wheelers, lights, intersections, and something we never encountered before, road signs. I started to see pretty quick from the back seat that Dave was still focused on shifting, so much so that he was missing the signs, and hitting the curbs. This gave me a great chance to learn from his mistakes. Dave drove for a long time on some windy two lane roads, with a few minor grades. He even got out onto the highway where he got to go through the weigh station.
We swapped over and I got to experience a bunch of windy streets that were more residential with slower speeds, some small inclines, stop signs and intersections and a few different obstacles. We still had a bit more time to spend driving around so Bob directed me to Highway 95, which is a 7% grade that they call Lewiston Hill. I asked him what gear I should take the hill at and he said "your the driver", so I said okay I will try 6th. This truck has a small load of concrete blocks and it weighs about 15,000. I was able to crawl up the hill at 25 mph in 6th gear, and he said that was exactly what I should have done. Half way up he said want to see something cool, and I'm like NO. He engaged the cruise control and said to take my foot off the accelerator. I proceeded to climb the rest of the hill at 25mph, about 1500 rpm with the cruise control on.
At the top of the hill, we turn around and start to head back down the hill. He already said let the engine do all the braking, so I was good with that. He said what gear are you going to go down this grade in. Since I read the book, I said 5th because I climbed the hill in 6th. Well I quickly learned that 5th was way to slow, and I shifted up to 6th. Took the hill all the way down in 6th and let the jake brake hold me back at about 28 mph.
I have to say that I was working this up to be a bigger deal in my head. I felt like I had real good control of that truck the entire time, and could have gone a little faster. At the end of the day when we got back to the academy he looked at us and said that we had just done the trip that he would normally have us doing on day 2 of shifting. I would say that we are doing fairly well, and he will have an even bigger challenge for tomorrow.
Now, we got back earlier than the other trucks, so I did not hear how it went for other students, but I am sure we will get all the horror stories in the morning. As far as I know, we still have the same 9 students that we had when we started out day 8.
07.07.2009
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