10-4 Magazine October 2022

Truck Show Report: By Eric Hill For 43 years the Walcott Truckers Jamboree has been held at the Iowa 80 truck stop. This year, the event once again took place at the World’s Largest Truckstop on July 7-9, 2022, in Walcott, IA. There were many planned activities that happened over the weekend. This year’s show featured the Super Truck Beauty Contest, an antique truck display, the Iowa Pork Chop Cookout, Trucker Olympics, a BBQ cookout competition, fireworks, and concerts, which occurred on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, along with other activities that took place in the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum. This truck show has it all and proclaims to be the Best Trucker Party in the country – and I think they might be right! The weather for the duration of the show was a mixed bag of sun, clouds, light rain, and pleasant temperatures for the entire three days. Thankfully, it was not the typical hot, humid weather, with crazy rainstorms as has often been experienced at past shows. We had lots of sunshine on Friday, which was great for taking photographs and viewing the show field. Saturday was cloudy with some light rain in the morning, and then it turned into just cloudy and cool for the remainder of the day. By the time I left Walcott on Sunday morning, it had started to clear up and the sun began to peek out from the clouds. The Super Truck Beauty Contest is a judged event, and this year there were over 90 trophies awarded in 30 classes. The most anticipated and coveted award is the Truckers Choice award, voted on by fellow competitors. The winner of this award gets their truck made into the Truckers Jamboree die-cast collectible model for the following year’s event. The 2022 Truckers Jamboree winner for Trucker’s Choice was Marcel Pontbriand of Pahrump, NV with his 1989 Peterbilt 379 and 2015 Great Dane van trailer. In addition to winning this award, Marcel’s “Cowboy of the Road” truck also took home three other trophies, including Best Overall Theme, 1st place in the Working Truck/Company Truck Combo class, and 3rd place Interior in the OEM Conversion Sleeper class. Another big winner at this year’s competition was Dan Brubaker, along with Ron Brubaker, and the entire crew from One of a Kind Customs out of Sigourney, IA. Their 1996 “Lowlife” Peterbilt 379 garnered 1st place in the Show Truck class, the OEM Conversion Sleeper class, Lights at Night Bobtail, and 2nd place for Polish & Detail. Ron Brubaker was awarded 2nd place in the OEM Conversion Sleeper class and 3rd in the Working Truck/2019-2022 Bobtail Conventional class. The Brubakers took an impressive seven trophies back home with them to Sigourney. One other truck and owner who had a good showing at the Jamboree was Conrad Shada of Anamosa, IA with his “Class of the Past” 2020 Peterbilt 389, that had the look of a 379 Pete. Conrad took 1st place Polish & Detail/Bobtail, 1st place Lights at Night Bobtail, 2nd place in the Show Truck class, and 2nd place Custom Paint/Bobtail. This was an impressive showing for this truck making its first presentation in the 2022 truck show season. I met Conrad and spent time with he and his family and found them to be a wonderful, hard-working, and humble family, which is so prevalent in the trucking profession! Mike and Jackie Wallace, who are from Ashville, AL, were presented with four awards for their “Semper Fi” 2007 Freightliner Coronado and 2014 Great Dane trailer. They took 1st place in Working Truck 2007 & Older Combo, 1st place Lights at Night Combination, 2nd place Interior/Custom Sleeper, and 2nd place Custom Graphics. This nice and humble couple gave me a tour of the interior of their impressive truck and big sleeper. Mike is a retired Marine who honorably served our country. Thank you for your service, Mike. Here’s a big Semper Fi shout-out to you! Following is a list of some of the other 1st place winners (they hand out a 54 10-4 Magazine / October 2022 A TRUCKER PARTY!