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A Whack on the Knee Makes for Good Economy
By Jim Booth
It was a dark and cloudy night as the semi wound its way up U.S. 54 in far southwestern Kansas. Just ahead were the lights of another bothersome burg that impeded headway on this byway. The driver reluctantly touched the brake pedal. From the other side of the dim cab stretched a hand clutching what looked like a club. Whack! went the club on the driver's right knee.
"Hey!" he protested. But he hadn't been attacked. The club was a roll of newspaper and the hand belonged to Jim Booth, a driver-trainer for Caterpillar's Engine Division, who had just administered a lesson in economical driving. "Don't touch the brakes," Booth told me. "Let the truck's weight carry us right through town."
With the transmission in an upper gear, the engine was revving slowly and offered no resistance, and the radial tires let the rig drift up the main drag at 40, 35, then 30 mph. I was making the few traffic lights and instinctively nudged the accelerator to keep up momentum. Whack! went the club. "What?!" I whined.
"Don't touch the foot feed, either," Booth said, chuckling. "You don't need any power. It'll just keep rolling." It did. We rolled through this town and all the others, with him showing me how to drive with an imaginary raw egg under my right foot.
You don't want a mess down there, so go easy on the pedals, Booth counseled. You won't need 'em so much if you look way ahead to anticipate traffic and road conditions. Let the rig's momentum work for you even on upgrades by getting off the gas and upshifting just before the crest; then let gravity, not the engine, pull the truck downhill. Those little tricks save a bit of fuel here and there. It all adds up.
On that trip 20 years ago we cruised at the Double Nickel to prove two drivers could make a demanding schedule — Bakersfield, Calif., to Davenport, Iowa — without pushing hard and without a high-power engine. We did it in 46 hours — nine less than driver teams claimed they needed — by staying on the road and out of rest areas and truckstops. When we really had to stop, we shut off the engine. These techniques are also easy on equipment, which doesn't get beat, and drivers, who don't get stressed.
We didn't have to wait to refuel to see how we did in economy. On the dash was a fuel-flow meter that gave us readouts for instant and average MPG. With a heavy load of produce pulled by a 10-liter, 250-hp 3306, we were getting better than 7 mpg, as I recall.
Seeing how an easy foot ups the numbers, I adopted these new, good habits, and they have stayed with me. On trips that we've since made, still with heavy loads but modern diesels of up to 550 hp, we've averaged 6.75 in mountains and 7.5 to 8 mpg in flat country.
Maybe you've had the good fortune to have met Jim Booth and his colleague, Phil Hook, in Cat's displays at truck shows, or at a training session arranged by your company. Booth looks and talks like a trucker because he is — running eight rigs of his own, and trying to get his drivers to save fuel so everyone can make more money.
As you can imagine, running a trucking company while holding down a full-time job burns a lot of hours. So Booth, 62, is about to take a big dose of his own advice and retire. He'll still do some occasional special projects for Cat, but he'll spend more time truckin' and at home in Galesburg, Ill. "It's been fun," he said of his Cat duties. "I've enjoyed this and I've met a lot of nice people. But it's time to slow down."
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