Start school in the morning - Ridge Career Center

The Mack was easy. You just have to be more patient letting the rpms drop furthur before shifting. I tinkered with floating occassionally on the track and it seems easy enough. Floating is a big no-no at this school when an instructor is in the truck. The last 4 weeks will be just gaining more experience. We are eligable now to get hired out early. We are gonna take out a 13-speed KW today for the first time and we still have an automatic to run as well.

 

Day 31. Only 3 of the class A students were present and drove this morning. The "big fella" was absent. The lead instructor was scheduled to meet with the Peterbuilt folks to test drive a potential new truck for the school so the second instructor went out with the "kid", "magician", amd I. We took the KW Sleeper 10-speed. I drove the second leg and the notable thing new today was being instructed how to drop from a higher range gear (8th) directly to a lower turning gear (4th). I'd been wanting this lesson 'cause it really comes in handy when you're pretty close to stopping at a traffic light and then it goes green. Or if you were about to miss a turn and recognize it with "just enough time" to slow down and still make the turn. Basically it's pretty simple if you know what road speed each gear moves the truck at. To be honest, in the lower gears, I've always been focused on the tack and the sound of the motor and hadn't been correlating the speedometer into the mix. So when I got back to the school, I took the 10-speed Pete out on the track and starting watching the speedometer in the lower gears to see what there speed ranges were. Then I ran the truck up to 8th gear and then braked down to the road speed for the gears (ignoring the tack) and with a little goose at the proper road speed the shifter slipped right on into the proper gear. So now I just need to watch the speedometer when I take a truck out on the road and apply the principal. While I was tinkering on the track, the "kid" took his raod test again and PASSED. So now all 4 of us are eligable to be hired.

 

Day 32. The second night drive. All 4 class A students were present tonight and drove. Another huge challenge dropped in my lap tonight as the lead instructor chose me to be the first to take out the KW900 Sleeper 13-speed. No track time or anything on this truck. This truck has the really long nose and apparantly a monster under the hood. I got chewed on pretty good the first 10 minutes or so driving it 'cause seemed like every time I touched the accelerator the Tack needle would take off like a rocket. Only 53K on this truck. The instructor said initially we were gonna just drive it as a 9-speed but as soon as I got comfortable with the accelerator he started instructing me how to use the side button to use all the gears. It actually went pretty well. Not complicated at all. It just adds another element to the equation. Once we got off onto the dark back roads we went back to driving it as a 9-speed. After that first 15 minutes or so, I settled in and did pretty well. We left the yard at 5:45pm and that first 30 minutes was all on US Hwy 27 with heavy traffic. Combining all factors, that first 15 minutes was pretty intense. Felt like I was sitting on a rowdy horse in a starting gate raring to go.

 

I submitted an application to Windy Hill today.