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TRUCKFEST
Clive Ayling's superb 6x4 black and grey Scania 112 won Commercial Motor's Best Kept Working Truck class against the usual fierce competition. The Scania has been kept in impeccable condition and Ayling has had the A-registered truck for four years. He is an ownerdriver with 30 years of Class One HGV experience.
For the past six years, Ayling has been working for himself, but before that he worked for a variety of big companies: "I'm a lot happier now I'm working on my own," he says. Ayling is based at March, near Cambridge, and uses his award-winning Scania for container haulage work out of Ipswich.
Runner up in the working truck class was Trevor Bellamy in a green and cream Volvo FL,10 run by haulier Ken Thomas, whose fleet cropped up several times among the prize-winners. Third place went to another Volvo F10, this time run by Andersons Bulk Haulage. John Anderson stepping up to collect the prize.
The din was incredible. The shortlisted trucks arranged themselves in a semi-circle to wait for the competition results, and as each winner was announced their air horns blasted right around the East of England showground.
Bandag Tyres' Best Kept Fleet award came next and Ken Thomas's fleet took first prize. Thomas entered two teams of trucks for the award and the company's 'A team' won the day with Trevor Bellamy, Graham Bell and Paul Millard in the line-up. Thomas is based at Guyhirn near Wisbech and the firm runs 27 trucks on a straight hire and reward basis.
Asked if the winning team had spent long preparing their exceptionally well maintained trucks for Truckfest, they said "you must be joking." All of the vehicles had done a full day's work on the Friday before Truckfest and had only received a quick wash and brush up on the Saturday. Thomas runs a mixed fleet of Volvos and Mercedes.
Second in the fleet awards was the large contract hire firm
Transfleet Services, and it v the group's Birmingham dep which took the honours. It 1: highly unusual for a large contract hire fleet operator I Transfleet to take an award and the firm's mainly white liveried MANs did it proud. Third prize here went to Andersons Bulk Haulage wit John and Barry Anderson go forward to take the prize. Andersons is a small family firm based at Upwell near Wisbech with only three tru( in the fleet. Andersons won the 1985 Commercial Motor Best Kept Working Truck prize, and also won a listing 1986. In the Eminox Best Custom Truck awards, Andersons popped up again with the company's blue and white "Fenland Queen" Volv F10 as a worthy runner up but it was a surprised Steve Peckham of K Peckham Haulage who won the custon section with his magnificent Volvo F12 dubbed 'Mr Peckham'. Steve works for h father and said he was shock to take the honours himself ri he fully expected his brother David or Roy to win. Peckhams entered six trucks a variety of classes througho the weekend.
Peckham is based at Feltv near Thetford and works in I construction industry.
The People's Choice competition, sponsored by Overdrive and Trucking International, was clinched b Andersons Bulk Haulage and Barry Anderson's Volvo F10 was in the limelight. Second place went to Kim Rolfe, Iasi year's jubilant winner of the
Best Kept Working Truck award. This year she entered a D-registered Mercedes. Third slot went to Martyn Kemp's Renault 305, run by Fniitex of East Anglia.
CHALLENGE
Shell's Supertruck Challenge, designed to reward the best custom truck in Europe and bring an international flavour into Truckfest, was won by an English entry this year after a string of Scandinavian wins in recent years.
David Miller's 4x2 Scania 112 Interco°ler took the number one position and Miller's driver Oscar Fuller collected the prize. The Dregistered Scania is worth around £85,000 and is truly immaculate.
Miller's prize winner features a Kenworth-style high-rise sleeper conversion and a beautiful wood veneer all over the cab dash. Highly polished chrome is everywhere.
Second place in the Shell Supertruck challenge went to Dutchman Fred De Boer with an ageing but pristine Scania 110, proving that newness is not everything. De Boer uses the wonderfully-maintained unit for hauling parts for the giant Caterpillar organisation on the Continent.
Third spot went to yet another Scania, this time a 142H bonneted and extra-longwheelbase 6x4 run by J Werner-Nielsen of Denmark. Driver Peter Beck has put in 21 years of international driving work for the company.
First place in the vintage class went to a 1947 Conuner run by C G Holton and Sons of Milton Keynes, who keep the truck just for show. Michael Higgs, the firm's mechanic, went up to collect the award and said the company had taken on the unit "just for fun". It was acquired in 1985 from the Isle of Wight.
The Bandag Tyre Company's second annual Drive for Safety campaign, which encourages accident-free driving among operators, attracted more than 1,000 entires to the five categories this year.
Bucks of Draycott won the Retail (Multi-Drop) section; Air Products of Redear took first place in the Mixed Operation category while Lewes, Sussexbased Carswell Parcel Express took the Trunking section's top award.
W T Skyrne of Bromyard came out tops in the Construction category, while a special category for fleets with less than five full-time drivers was won by Paxford Contractors of Campden, Gloucester.