10-4 Magazine May 2022

Truck Show Report: By Daniel J. Linss on a bit on Wednesday, but other than that, it was dry – and there was no snow! There was, however, a lot of wind and cold temperatures throughout the entire event. Some days, the temperature never got higher than the 40s, and if you figured in the wind chill factor, the “feels like” temperature was more like in the 30s. The wind wracked havoc on banners and brag boards out on the truck show lot, especially on Wednesday and Thursday. And speaking of the truck show lot and the PKY Truck Beauty Championships, this was the first year that Jason Alt was put in charge of running that par t of the event. After longtime show producer Bud Farquhar retired, Jason was After a two-year hiatus due to Covid, the 50th anniversary of the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) finally happened – and it was wor th the wait! Held at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, KY on March 24-26, 2022, this was the first show held since the 2019 event. And, according to the numbers, it didn’t break any records, but that didn’t matter, because it was an awesome show. With 58,000 attendees from all 50 states and 55 countries, 860 exhibitors, and one million square feet of space occupying the expo center, the place was packed. The PKY Truck Beauty Championships, held outside in the parking lot, saw a record amount of amazing iron, as well. Arriving on Tuesday, two days before the show star ted, getting to Louisville proved to be a challenge in itself. The night before we were set to fly out, our flight was canceled. After being told there were no available seats on any flights going to Louisville until Friday, we got online and star ted searching. Little did we know, many of our friends from Valley Chrome and Roll On Customs were also scheduled to be on that canceled flight, so we weren’t the only ones scrambling to make alternate plans. Thankfully, after a few hours of searching and making phone calls, we were able to find two available seats on a flight going out of Los Angeles the next morning, headed to Philadelphia of all places before turning back to Louisville, so we jumped in the car and drove five hours through the middle of the night to catch that flight in the morning. What a fiasco! But we made it to Louisville on Tuesday night, just a few hours later than our original plan. Flying these days really is a crap shoot! Wednesday was spent setting up our booth in the Nor th Wing and visiting with many of our truck show friends we had not seen in a while. It was nice to catch up with folks like Bryan Mar tin of 4 State Trucks, Nicky and JR at Lifetime Nut Covers, and Kent, Gary, and Ray over at Valley Chrome. Our man John Testa was out and about doing live remotes from the show star ting on Wednesday and continuing through the event. Wednesday night we found ourselves out on the truck show lot until 10:00 PM taking pictures of the trucks as their lights were being judged. The weather is typically an “issue” at MATS, but this year it was not that bad. It rained pretty hard on Tuesday night and then sprinkled off and 20 10-4 Magazine / May 2022 WORTH THE WAIT!