And so it begins...

Thanks G13. My son and I are gonna hit the links and then it's family time around the firepit. Smores for the kids and a few cold ones for the wife and I. It's a dry ####### out there even with the rain we had this week.

 

Back in the yard last night. They split us up in to 2 groups to go over the pretrip then had each of us up in a truck working on backing. 2 doing straightline and offsets, one doing straightline and the other learning alley dock. What a humbling experience the alley dock was. Just when I though I was getting a knack of backing, the alley dock through a monkey wrench in to that. Lol. I kept coming in to steep, but was able to correct with a pullup. My instructor seemed to get a bit frustrated with me for not riding the clutch to keep the truck going slow.

Just like with the offsets, I need to find that delicate balance of when to start bringing the truck up under the trailer to make sure my tandems are parallel with the cones and not be to steep.

I just have to keep reminding myself of how bad my straightline was the first night and now that manuever is like second nature. It will come with more practice. I just need to figure out the angles again.

On the plus side, I did teach myself how to double clutch last night, upshifting through the straightline course from 1st to 3rd. Thought I would start working on that because we hit the road next Tuesday to begin learning shifting so that should be an interesting night.

 

Thx G13

 

Thx Tom. Im pretty partial to the as well.

 

What a night. What a night. Hot ####, what a night!!!

First night out on the road. They took us out in to the country to run the 12 mile shifting route. We were split up in to two groups of two in 2 trucks taking turns shifting from 3rd up to 9th and then back down to 5th, rinse and repeat around the route.

First time up for me and I hit every gear up and down. Instructor looks at me and says "you've driven a truck before." I tell him nope and he says "bs, you've driven before, no one gets it like this on the first try." I told him first time and I couldn't hardly believe it myself.

We spent about 4 hrs out of the route changing every lap. Missed a few gears here and there but overall I'm feeling really good about myself right now. I absolutely love being up in that truck and can't wait to get back at it again. Instructor even had me drive the truck back in to town to school since he feels comfortable with my driving. Bit more nerve racking when you have traffic and and signals but overall I felt like a did a good job for the first time within city limits.

Thursday they are testing us on pretrip and then manuevers in the yard. Me and the alley dock are gonna have us a little come to jesus meeting Thursday night. Lol