C1 Indianapolis Feedback

Saturday-Week One:
Being suggested to practice our pre-trip during the weekend, most of our class did as such. Some of us spent 2 or 3 hours while others spent the majority of the day there … man does that pre-trip have a lot of information. If by any chance some of you who read this do not know what a pre-trip inspection is, it is this; a rehearsed narrative that you must memorize indicating the important parts to the tractor trailer and their possible defects. They want you to be specific. I counted approximately 85 to 90 MAJOR parts/categories such as for example the Alternator, Water Pump, Steering Linkage, Lights, Exhaust System, Fuel Tank, Coupling System, Landing Gear etc etc. These are major categories/parts once again to each and every one of these parts they want you to say certain things such as; Mounted securely, no missing nuts or bolts, not cracked, not bent, not dent, not leaking, not damaged etc etc. This can be very tedious, cause if you say a 'not bent' where a 'not dent' is meant to be then you get that category wrong and one point off. More about pre-trip later though …

Sunday-Week-Two:
So again we followed our suggested orders and went to the school where we could practice our pre-trip on the trucks. WARNING; by this date my suggestion to all is to know you're pre-trip pretty darn good if not completely, but no less than 80-85%, cause the rest of the week will bring you unforeseen challenges …

 

Monday-Week-Two:
Day One of driving the big rig. Our class was divided in groups of three, distributing the workload for the six instructors. Three instructors took some class members out to drive on the street and the other three stayed on the range where they taught us how to back up the tractor trailer, off side park it and my nemesis the delicate process of parallel parking. When you first get behind the wheel it is intimidating in itself. Without a doubt the tractor trailer is the biggest vehicle on the road, and this is why it deserves the upmost respect when you saddle up and attempt to tame this mechanical bull. I was shaking when I got behind the wheel. I got stuck with the honors of going first cause I was siting in the front seat and whoever sits in the front whenever the instructor performs his demo gets to be as he put it 'the sacrificial lamb'. Sure I was listening to what he said … but did I understand it all: heck no!! I was lost. I was still trying to figure out how to work this thing. When I was backing the first time and I looked at the mirrors and I saw it drift to the right my instincts told me TURN LEFT; which I did. Needless to say the first time it didn't turn out too good for me, because at my very first time at bat I encroached (this is when you run over the painted lines or hit a cone) … see for those of you who've never backed up a tractor trailer this might sound confusing. You must be asking yourself: How can a vehicle's backside keep heading right if you turn to the left? Well, you see true believers, your tractor's end is doing that which you are used to but the front of your trailer is not. It's about pivot points as Brad put it. So I invented a formula that helped me understand trailer control a little; when going backwards think backwards. I didn't conquer trailer control until days later but this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between me and going in reverse in a 18 wheeler. After I finished humiliating myself, the guy that went after me made a fool out of me almost perfecting the art. I asked him how he did it when he finished. He told me he learned by my mistakes. This single advice helped me a ton. In the beginning of this day I remembered Brad saying that this was an accelerated course. It sure was. We all did a couple of repetitions of each exercise once that day. Brad dissected the science of what we were doing in each exercise. But by the time the day was over my mind was overloaded … too much information was crowded into my head; especially with all of the pre-trip stuff. Now I had to learn the steps to backing up this vehicle properly, parking it in parallel and backing it into an off side. My head was about to explode …

 

Tuesday-Week Two:
To our unfortunate luck, the school was trying something new this week. See, in previous classes once you started with one instructor you stayed with him until the end. Not this class though. The plan was being improvised on the spot. Even the instructors didn't know what tomorrow would bring. Tuesday we all switched. Whoever was in the street went to the range. And whoever went to the range was now going to the street. And the instructor who was on the range stayed on the range; the instructor who was on the street stayed on the street. So today I worked with Terry … luckily I wasn't the first one up this time. So I got to learn while I saw someone else mess up. And although not perfect I can honestly say my driving the tractor trailer in the forward position was a lot better than going in reverse. I still needed some polish though. It also felt awesome driving an 18 wheeler down the road with all the other puny 4 wheelers. It made you feel as if your 'private part' was bigger than everybody else's as Terry put it. Yes it did. But, on a serious note, in the words of Peter Parker 'with great power comes great responsibility'. We had an obligation of driving this thing in a safe manner and this is what the instructors at C1 strived for us to do. That's why they always screamed at us whenever we did something that wasn't the correct procedure in operating our new craft. These were the rules; watching your tachometer, no coasting (running out of gear), no shifting on train tracks, looking at your intersections before, during and after entering your intersections, covering your brake before entering your intersection up to the 'point of no return', how to make a proper turn and look at our mirrors when turning, using your smith system and last but not least the art of double clutching. A lot of information. Future students of C1 this is why by week two you should have your pre-trip down. Again at the end of a day of learning how to drive a big rig responsibly, my head felt like exploding …

 

Wednesday-Week Two:
By Wednesday morning we had lost two more of our beloved classmates bringing our total down to 15. The experiment with our class continued. On this day we would spend one half of the day on the range and the other half on the street. This day saw me almost tear up a drive shaft; because I was applying the brakes before I applied the clutch in the reverse position causing a friction between the backward and stoping motion and a strain to these low torque mechanical monsters. Brad chewed my ###; asking me if I had $3000 to fix a drive shaft. The message got to me loud and clear. No sir, I did not have $3000 to fix anything. Needless to say, after this it was always clutch and then brake for me in the reverse position. What was confusing to me later that day was that when I went to the street, Terry was chewing my ### cause I was applying the clutch then the brake to stop the vehicle in the forward position. 'The clutch doesn't stop the vehicle'. Talk about learning how to drive all over again. Another thing that screwed with me was all that double clutching 4 to 5 inches. In my car, I've always had to push in the clutch all the way to get the gear in and now I only have to push it in a couple of inches to make it work. Whenever you push in the clutch all the way you activate the 'clutch brake'. Oh and by the way, when driving normally, truckers start in third gear. First and second are idling gears and for heavy loads. See the other days I was performing the tasks with 100% instruction, now I had to do them with minimal instruction. The fellas at C1 have evaluation sheets on your daily performance. This is used to follow your progress. If you do not show progress after a prolonged time you get axed (our theory is five weeks max, seeing a couple of five weekers just get sent home after failing to accomplish certain goals). I was evaluating myself as well. Was I on schedule? Was I making the grade? Could I even do this? I was already passed half way on my three week schedule; but I felt miles away from my goal …