You may envy Rob Scott of Pittsburgh. He gets to see some of the top events in racing, including every CART race on the calendar. He usually has Saturdays and most Sundays off, so he can watch the races at leisure. And, when he’s not in his Peterbilt cabover, Scott gets to stay at some pretty nice hotels.
But after the checkered flag drops and the interviews on the podium end, Scott gets back to work, loading his 53-foot, custom-built trailer up to a full 80,000 pounds. The rig, operated by North East Productions of Pittsburgh, is one of several trucks that provide television signals to ESPN, ABC and to satellite transmitters that beam the races live to as many as 136 countries.
The trailer contains three control rooms that hold as many as 30 people on race day, plus $4 million of electronic equipment. The front compartment is for tape editing and replay, the center for audio, and the rear is where graphics and statistics are generated. The trailer has four 10-ton air conditioners, enough to cool 10 average homes.
Scott’s work has only just begun when he gets to a track and parks his rig, usually by the press tower. We met him at the 4-mile-long Road America race in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
“Usually, we carry 26 cameras. For this track, I have to locate 30. Then I have to run the tri-axial cables and audio wire,” he says. “There’s about 60,000 feet of each. We get to the tracks sometime on Tuesday, and we have to be all done by Friday for qualifications. I’m the engineer for my truck, so I set everything up and make sure all the wiring works.
“After driving and being an owner-operator for 14 years, I was at the right place at the right time 10 years ago. NEP needed a driver, and a friend mentioned me to them,” Scott says. “They asked if I’d take the truck. I decided I liked it, and when they offered me a job, I sold my truck the next day. It took me four years to fully learn to patch the truck (to wire it to all the devices and to the three or four other trailers in the group).
“This is too much fun. Where else can you go to every race track in America and enjoy the race on Sunday? Then, when everything is over and everyone is gone, I collect my cameras, cable and equipment. We leave late Monday, and start all over at the next place.”
All the trucks and trailers are leased from General Truck Leasing. NEP arranges for maintenance or service to be done right at the tracks, often during the race. Gear fills each trailer to near overflowing, Scott says.
“Our newest trailers require permits. They’re 58 feet long. Each has a 4-foot nose box to house its air conditioners. We always run right at 80,000 pounds, so everything we add or carry has to be carefully weighed.
“It’s demanding. You have to be an electronics technician and an equipment manger in addition to being a trucker. But I wouldn’t trade for any other job in trucking.”
Natural Rockman
Bernie Rock of Baldwin, Wis., lives up to his name. A part-time party deejay (his day job is with Donaldson Corp.), he specializes in classic rock tunes and country. His father was a trucker, and a few years back, Rock started looking for one to customize into a kind of pickup on steroids. He found the 1985 Peterbilt 359 and built an oak bed over the tandems to hold his deejay sound system for outdoor events. The long-nosed Pete has a 300-hp Cummins and a 9-speed transmission. He added mirrors, lights, a sliding rear window and aluminum wheels. The mudflaps are original “Mr. Natural” flaps, named after the underground comics character of the ’60s and early ’70s. Rock on, dude!
Read Across America: Trucker’s Book Goes to School
It was a sight for road-sore eyes: a couple hundred sixth-graders cheering a trucker. It happened to Richard McGrew, 59, on Feb. 26, at the Athens, Ala., Intermediate School. It was a sweet moment for McGrew, who graduated in that very building in 1959, when it was the county's new high school facility.
McGrew is the photographer-author of “The America You May Never See,” which was profiled in the September/October 2000 Road King. Since then, he’s appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, in USA Today, and other trucking publications and local media outlets.
A teacher at the Intermediate School met him at a book signing near Athens. When the school set Feb. 26 for a “Read Across America” day, she invited him to participate. How appropriate – a local boy who has been most everywhere in the U.S. and has photos to prove it? The enthusiastic audience peppered him with questions about the road. Later, he photographed them for an expanded second edition of his book. He’s also working on a new photo project. You can order McGrew’s book at atlasbooks.com.
