Got to meet the Hitchcocks a few months back; a family trucking business out of Webberville, MI. The dad, Matthew Brian Hitchcock is the owner of MBH Trucking (Just in case you missed it ... 'MBH' are his initials) and he runs about 11 trucks hauling just about everything -- he even has a hazmat division, too.
Matthew is a show trucker, by the way -- spends a lot of time and money spicing up his rolling stock for national competitions and, appropriately enough, is the past-president of the National Association of Show Trucks (NAST). The neat thing is that trucking isn't just Matt's obsession -- his whole family is involved. One of his sons, Rick Hitchcock, showed up at Mid-America with a 2005 Peterbilt -- dubbed the 'Slammed Pete' -- that looked more like a low-riding gangster machine than a freight-hauling rig.
But that's what's cool about Rick's ride -- it's an honest working truck, with hydraulic cylinders installed on the chassis to give it more ground clearance where needed, even one to swing up the front bumper so it doesn't get dinged when making deliveries.
Rick came to the show newly married, too -- he and his bride Jennifer had only been hitched about eight months, yet both put in long hours shining up his rig and making the wood-floor interior sparkle like new. (He also had classic AC/DC music videos cranked on the two LCD TVs installed over the sleeper-- rock it!) Though he didn't take home a trophy, he got a lot of 'thumbs up' from the people attending the show that more than approved of his creation.
The Hitchcocks are an expample -- to me, anyway -- that family pride is still alive and very well in trucking. That's going to be very important, I think, in the years ahead as the younger generation decides whether to stay in this business or not. And why not take a little pride in choosing trucking as a career? The eye-catching low-riding design of Rick's Pete may not be to everyone's liking, but it tells everyone he likes what he does for a living. And you can't ask for more than that.
