Extraordinary

Yesterday was day one of my trucking trip throughout the US. Everything went perfectly fine.

After leaving Detroit, heading south on the I75, Ohio welcomes you with a brand new interstate road surface. Coming from Michigan, which in my mind is the north american pothole territory (maybe on purpose for all the automotive industry who might need a cheap rough road test track nearby at no cost in today's times of a slow economy), this is pure joy to the spine.

On the other hand, Ohio also welcomes you with a sign. It says "55" on it in large script. And a sentence explaining that I have to stick to this number. My good friend and trucker budy, Henry Albert always talks about him cruising through "Slowhio" when hauling freight between Michigan and North Carolina. Now I know why.

This slow speed drew my attention to the gauges, the road speed and rpm gauge to be more precise. At 55 mph, the engine spins nicely at about 1175 rpm. It is comforting to know that the DD15's driveable torque range goes all the way down to 1000 rpm. This gives me enough room to slow down for even slower traffic in front of me without needing to shift. The truck is geared for 1375 rpm at 65 mph. I must say, whoever spec'd the gearing of this truck, did an excellent job ! It makes you drive in and near the sweetspot pretty much all the time.

On the I 75 I kept seeing trucks from "DaimlerChrysler". Not only did seeing that company name today kind of surprised me, the slogan on the side of the trucks really caught my attention : "Expect the extraordinary". It made me think what was so extraordinary about this merger of equals. And then it dawned on me. I am sitting in and on top of it : the DD15 and the Cascadia. From a drivers perspective, these are two truly amazing products. Combined together it only gets better. And the foundation for this awesome package was laid in the era of DaimlerChrysler.

Being a good citizen sticking to speed limits, I was overtaken by other trucks quite frequently. One of them drew my attention. It was a Freightliner Coronado. You need to know this is my favourite truck. They just keep exciting me. Arriving at my destination, the Freightliner dealership "Kentucky Truck Sales" in Jeffersonville, IN, it only got better. They had a brand new Coronada on display. Check out the pictures.

Now it's time to hit the road again heading west. More from me to come out of the mid west.

Miguel
(also known as "Belgian Bandit" by Henry and Brian)