East of England Showground

 

The Truckfest season kicked off again with another huge show at the East of England Showground Peterborough with some 3,000+ trucks in attendance. Working trucks from all around the Country were joined by American show trucks, vintage trucks, recovery trucks and American classic cars. As ever there were also celebrity guests to meet their fans. With Truckfest favourite Ice Road Trucker Todd Dewey taking on the role of hosting the main arena this year saw the Outback Truckers make their first appearance. Attending the show both days were Glen ‘Yogi’ Kendall and Steve Grahame. They were available to meet fans and tell stories while also making appearances in the main arena. Playing live during the weekend was truckers favourite Marty Mone who had travelled over from Ireland. A trucker himself Marty had driven his own Scania over and proved very popular over the course of the show. Children were also kept entertained by some of their favourite tv characters around the show including Paw Patrol, Belle & Cinderella, Elsa & Arna while characters from Star Wars also put in an appearance.

Manufacturers

                            

This year the show saw six main manufacturers attend with stands with just MAN missing. Mercedes-Benz were showing their new Fuso eCanter, the World’s first series-produced fully electric light duty truck, alongside the latest Arocs, Actros, Econic and Unimog vehicles. Also on their stand were ten customer vehicles hand-picked to be there known as the Roadstars. Families were also invited to use the picnic area and enjoy stunt bike displays during the day. DAF were taking the opportunity to celebrate their 90th anniversary at the show. Their stand not only showcased the latest CF and XF ranges, recently voted International truck of the year 2018, but also showed some classic DAF trucks from over the years. The Volvo stand showcased vehicles across their range including the latest FH16 along with some of their used trucks and one of the McLaren F1 team trucks. They were also celebrating 25 years of the Volvo FH range and had examples of the earlier models on display. Iveco showed their full range that are able to cater for loads from 2.8 to 44 tons. Next to them Scania were another to use selected customer vehicles to show their latest offerings including the S series. Over on the Renault stand their truck were all liveried to show areas of the uk while they also hosted performances from the Red Hot Chilli Pipers over both days.

Showcase

A number of companies were showcased at Truckfest all covering a wide variety of work carried out in the road haulage industry. These included waste movement specialists Alwin Ltd and Hoban Ltd, specialist movers Carter Haulage from Kings Lynn, bulk and tipper operators Fermac and B.P.Mitchell, Hi-ab operators Bennetts, vehicle movement specialists M.D.Key, distributers ICS and containers movers Stanian who were again showing some of their themed liveried Volvo’s. The recovery industry was represented in this section by CMG who bought a variety of their equipment along with their Volvo White race truck and Neil Yates Recovery. General haulage was represented by W’s Transport, SG Haulage Ltd, Robinsons, Knights of Old, Welch Group and from Ireland BM Transport. From North of the border and again attending in great numbers were The Malcolm Group who bought some of their historic collection alongside their current trucks which included one in a unique Malcom / Stobart livery. Joining them were Stuart Nicol Transport with a selection of their immaculate red trucks, they were also join sponsors of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers making their Truckfest debut.

Main Arena

The main arena was again the focus of attention for some entertaining action on both days, this year hosted by Ice Road Truckers favourite Todd Dewey and popular DJ Mikey Faulkner. Performing motorcycle stunts on both days was James Dylan who was joined on Monday by Truckfest favourite Matt Kanga the Kangaroo Kid. Making their Truckfest Peterborough debut following successful appearance at Truckfest Scotland were the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. Proving very popular they appeared both days in the main arena courtesy of Renault Trucks UK and Stuart Nicol Transport and also performed on the Renault Trucks stand. Both days saw a competition between Todd Dewy and the Outback Truckers pair Steve and Yogi. Their task was to operate truck mounted cranes using them to fill buckets of water and transfer this into a larger bucket. While the competition started out serious it wasn’t long before the fun started as the Outback pair done their best to hamper Todd’s efforts. Having been declared winners on Monday Todd thought it only right that the Outback pair should receive a prize, presenting Yogi with an Ice Road Truckers T-Shirt! Another Truckfest debutant was Oklahoma Willy, a jet powered VW Camper. Both days it created a spectacular display of noise, flames and smoke using its Rolls Royce Viper engine. By far the crowd favourite was the largest, the monster trucks. This year saw two trucks appearing to give car crushing demonstrations twice a day. Current British monster truck Champion Swamp Thing, a Ford F350 based truck driven by Tony Dixon was joined by local favourite Slingshot, driven by Newark’s Alan Vaughan, currently the youngest monster truck driver in the UK. Show visitors also had the chance to experience monster trucks for themselves with a ride in the Mac Tools Cruiser, the UK’s oldest monster truck.

Awards

A special lifetime achievement award was presented to Knowles Transport Ltd from Wimblington in Cambridgeshire. They had three of their classic restored trucks on display in the indoor arena. The majority of the trucks on display were all judged over the two days for awards in different categories, the winners were announced and presented on Monday afternoon.

Taking away three trophies the Marty Mone Best kept single operator, Truckfest Best kept custom truck and Ice Road Truckers best kept paintwork was John Templeton. His Scania, JT15OMG, is well known on the circuit and easily recognised in its bright orange livery with superheroes and villains airbrushed all over, fair to say it’s a bit of a ‘Marmite’ in that you either love it or hate it. Another company that are no strangers to the presentations at Truckfest are F.G.Bond & Sons with their immaculate fleet of rigid tippers. They took a good haul by winning Truckfest Best kept fleet, second in M.R.Ratcliffe Best kept company owned truck and taking first and second in Truckfest Best kept tipper or rigid class. There was also some local success as Rowells Transport from Chatteris took second in Truckfest Best kept fleet. The Outback Truckers Best vintage and heritage truck was an all Scottish affair with Iain Craig Haulage taking first with their 1987 DAF 2800 and third with their Glenfiddich liveried Scania 110. Second in the class went to Alex Anderson with their Volvo F86. There was further Scottish success as the Malcolm Group took away two trophies. Their Scania R580 Longline ‘Braveheart’ won Truckfest Best kept senior truck while Ice Road Truckers Best kept show truck (Non-working) was won by Scania T500 T10WHM. The M.R.Ratcliffe Best kept new truck went to Derek Heeps Volvo FH16 Ailsa Edition A30DHL while another familiar face, John Copeland, won Outback Truckers Best kept super truck with his Peterbilt ‘Dilligaff Express’ NUT773R. There was an award for best kept light commercial sponsored by M&V Commercial which was won by Stoddarts Fuels Ford Transit. A new award for this year was the Stanian Transport Best kept newcomer and this went to Coleman International with their Scania R580, FH66UOG. The most prestigious award was saved to last, the Snap Account Best in show. This was won by Volvo FH Y100JGS from J.Godfrey & Sons, the truck having also earlier won M.R.Ratcliffe Best company owned.

With a record number of trucks, huge attendance on both days and the Outback Truckers along with Todd Dewey proving popular with visitors the event was another success for Live Promotions & Events. Having recently signed a new contract the event looks set to return in 2019.

 

Gary Malkin

Photo galleries;

Saturday – https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?ref=page_internal

Sunday –  https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2119656208301860

Monday – https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2120522464881901