20 10-4 Magazine / January 2026 Most truck shows are relaxing events that include a lot of sitting around and talking with fellow drivers, business associates, and friends – not a bad thing at all, and something we enjoy doing immensely as we travel the country each year attending, participating, and being on display as vendors at trucking events. But the “10-4 Trucker Rodeo & Show” is a different kind of event, featuring fun (and sometimes silly) trucker skills competitions throughout the weekend, keeping the participants and attendees both busy and entertained. Now in its second year, the 2025 event, held again at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway in Bakersfield, CA on November 7-9, 2025, grew exponentially this year. After a successful first-ever event in 2024, we learned a lot and made a few adjustments and improvements for the 2025 event, which included introducing new competition classes and modifying some of the existing classes, expanding the size of the show lot to accommodate more vendors and trucks, and adding a few new fun events, including Trucker Karaoke on Saturday night, which was a lot of fun and a huge hit. Last year the show brought in about 150 trucks, but this year we saw that number increase to around 275. And since about 95% of those trucks were full combinations, you can imagine the space it took to accommodate them all. We basically ran out of space at the perfect time and did not have to turn anyone away. Friday, November 7, was the “load in” day for vendors to get set up and trucks to begin getting parked – and it was a busy day, as our amazing team of helpers and volunteers parked 175 trucks that day. Not expecting Saturday to be very busy at the truck gate, we were blown away when another 100 trucks rolled in to get parked! We also offered golf carts for rent this year, and that turned out to be a very popular thing (the carts sold out for the weekend pretty quickly). The official show shirts and hoodies went fast, too. After getting delivered to us a little late on Saturday morning, even though we ordered more than last year, they were all sold out by early Sunday morning, as well. Kern Raceway is a great facility, sitting on 125 acres, with a high-banked half-mile oval race track and grandstand seating (and luxury suites) for thousands of fans. There is even a tunnel going to the track’s infield, which is where all the trucker skills competitions are held. And with 12 events including four classes of backing, a transfer dump competition, equipment loading, tire changing, loudest stereo, cow loading, hay loading and unloading with a squeeze and a boom, and a burnout contest, we were very busy both days – but especially Saturday. Competitions began at around 11:00 AM Saturday morning and didn’t finish until about 7:00 PM that night. For most of the backing contests, to make it harder, we decreased the width Truck Show Report: By Daniel J. Linss of the “chute” by six inches and made it ten feet longer, which proved to be much more difficult. Last year, drivers were backing hammer-down through the chutes without hitting any of the cones, but this year they were knocking down and running over tons of them – so many, in fact, we almost ran out of “straight” cones to use. I think next year we will increase the chutes back to their original width and decrease the length, making them 10 feet wide x 30 feet long. We also might modify the rules to allow the cones to be “touched” as long as they are not knocked over. Stay tuned. One of our new classes this year was Heavy Equipment Loading, which turned out to be a great success, and a lot of fun. Obviously, we want trucker skills to be highlighted in these contests, but we also don’t want to take it too seriously, because this is all just for fun (well, there are amazing custom belt buckles at stake, too)! So, in this case, our “heavy equipment” were little John Deere pedal tractors with trailers attached. Drivers were required to back up around a curve and then through two cones spaced 10 feet RODEO ROUNDUP
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