Clint’s Creations: By Clint Moore Later, he got a job with The Container Store in Dallas, running a big hood Peterbilt (they owned the 3rd Unibilt Peterbilt ever built), equipped with an American Class interior and an Alpine radio. Duane said, “I cranked some Led Zeppelin on the radio, and I was done. This was my way to be a Cowboy.” His coworkers didn’t always know how to take him – he was just a punk kid with pressed pants and shirts, out delivering containers. In 1994, they decided to close their trucking operations, and Duane was forced to find another opportunity. On one of his multiple trips north, Duane came across a bright red 4-axle truck that had the biggest pipes he had seen – 8” stacks – so he followed that guy until he got off the highway for fuel to look at the truck. Asking the driver where he got the stacks, he said, “At Classic Chrome, from a guy named Kenneth Dooley.” Ken would later go on to open his own chrome shop, KD Chrome in Euless, TX, and became a longtime advertiser and distributor for 10-4 Magazine, until just recently, when he sold the business. Duane asked the driver of that truck who he drove for, and it was Rodman Excavation (the company was partially owned by basketball great Dennis Rodman), and this ended up being his next place of employment. So, now Duane was “faking it” in the world of heavy hauling, because when he started, he didn’t even know how to break the neck of his trailer, but he picked it up pretty quickly. After three years, Duane really found his niche – for him, heavy hauling was it. No more faking it. After Rodman, he went to work for a local utility company for five years driving a nice long hood lowboy truck. Duane is passionate about heavy hauling and loves every facet of the job, which led him to his next opportunity working for Elmer Lindamood of Lindamood Transportation. As a frequent visitor on the Murray Trailers forum page, Duane had a fascination with the trunnion type trailers. A trunnion axle trailer is a lowboy that uses a trunnion style suspension and a shorter axle assembly to achieve a 16-tire wheel area. The 2-axle trailer has 8 wheels per axle for a total of 16 tires. Trunnion trailers are a popular solution to adhere to Western axle laws or to haul anywhere you need high capacity on a shorter, versatile trailer. And, come to find out, Texas did a study in 2005 and determined that the trunnion style trailers would work in Texas, as well. Elmer and Duane went to California in 2009 and bought one of the first types of these trailers and then brought it back to Texas. This month’s truck was ordered for Frisco Construction Services (FCS) of Frisco, Texas. FCS was founded by Clay Thomas, Brett Brantley, and Ryan Griffin in 2004. They, along with a team of industry veterans with a broad range of backgrounds, have grown FCS into a full-service excavation and development firm, serving North Texas and its surrounding states, specializing in large-scale excavation projects. One of FCS team members is also my friend that gets to run this new lowboy truck, and I would like to share his story of “faking it” for years with you. Duane Eperjesi (52) grew up in the Lake Dallas area, where his dad Larry and mom Donna had a paint and body shop and were involved in drag racing (they are both still around). Growing up, Duane really wanted to be a cowboy, and he considered his Uncle Dave to be a cowboy. Uncle Dave had a CDL and hauled bulls when he wasn’t being a fireman. Duane got accepted to play college football but decided to work instead. His first real job was with Uncle Dave, building pipe fences and barns. During these days, Dave told Duane about his old bull-hauling days, and that got Duane really excited about trucking. Getting a job at 18 years old on a freight dock in the evenings as a side job when he wasn’t working with Uncle Dave, he did this for about a year. He then convinced the freight company that he could drive a truck and got to run the yard jockey and hook up doubles. He basically BS’ed his way into trucking. You know what they say – “Fake it til you make it!” As soon as he could, Duane went and rented a truck and took the CDL test, which he passed. At age 20 he got a driving job at a cattle company, where he got to drive a Freightliner cattle truck. Running the state of Texas until his 21st birthday, the night of his birthday, he went on a trip to New Mexico, and he’s been “faking it” ever since. 28 10-4 Magazine / February 2026 NO MORE FAKING IT
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