Goin Trucking (Gear jamin; part 1)

Today was the first day of class, to my surprise I wasn't all that nervous. I guess being in class and learning how to drive something with 10 plus gears is not as stressful as being in charge of a barn and trying to keep several people going and keeping track of the happenings of the Critter Barn.

  There are three other guys in class. Tim a middle aged gentlemen who did factory and construction work and wants to hit the road, probably to North Dakota first. Doug another middle aged gentleman who is a tall and a little on the heavy side. He is a former welder and team leader at a local factory. He has been out of work so long he could no longer collect unemployment. Doug is very motivated and really raises the bar for the rest of us. He has  job with Warner Transportation lined up. Then there is Mon, he is probably in his twenties and is from a small country near China. I am sure he will tell more of his story once he gets more comfortable with us Yankees.

Firsts of all I am glad I decided to go to school instead of learning how to drive a tractor trailer on my own. The manual transmissions in these trucks are nothing like the manually transmissions in our passenger cars and pickup trucks. The RPMs and MPH have to be just right otherwise you won't be able to get into gear. Unlike our passenger cars and pickup trucks. Where you basically push the clutch in and put it into gear and let out the clutch. Also when you start out in a car; you push the gas and let off the clutch at the same time. In a big rig you don't use the gas at all. You let out the clutch; until you feel it start to grab, then ease off the clutch as the rig starts to roll forward.

We probably spent half of the day driving today. First around the parking lot, then around the industrial park then out on the public road. It was jerky with us rookies learning how to shift and from what our instructor Dave said was not having a trailer behind you the truck is very jumpy and shifts better with weight behind it.

The classroom work was a introduction to the truck and it's workings. Which I understood pretty good, probably because I have been around this type of stuff for a while now.

All and all I feel good about my first day of class.