World's Toughest Trucker
 

I just watched the first part of this (on Channel 5 last night at 8pm).

This takes 8 truckers and pits them on the "World's Toughest Roads". The winner is going to take home £100,000. The series runs for 8 weeks. The truckers are in pairs for the events, though next week sees the two slowest eliminated from the competition. There are truckers from the UK, Australia, Canada, USA and (?!) Sri Lanka.

Last nights episode saw the truckers contending with 300 miles of Australian Outback roads in 600 HP Kenworth Conventionals, hauling a double deck trailer with 50 head of cattle. The journey is over 3 days. Results are based on overall time.

One the first day one pair came across a Landcruiser that had rolled over and stopped to help (the time they were there was of course subtracted from their total run time). There were a couple of teams that managed to rkae a miss turns which of course did them no favours. The biggest problem was the lead team getting stuck on some sand. All the trucks caught them up (they start at 15 minutes intervals) and all timings stopped until they could be dragged up (it took a 40 ton Volvo Excavator).

Next week is still in Australia, hauling oversize loads across the Outback.

I meant to watch that but didn't get home in time. I'll watch it on Demand 5.

No sign of it here yet, but it sounds like my kind of show. I'll be watching it. can't wait.

Sure beats cooking shows!!:eek::eek::eek:

Bassman, thanks for pre warning me.

If you can, get yourself a U.K. IP address and watch it on Demand 5, but I don't think it's loaded yet: http://www.channel5.com/demand5

Thankyou for that, G-CPTN, I'll watch it tomorrow morning.:)

I've just watched the first episode and I don't care who wins it just as long as it's not that Shane bloke! What a t*sser! I feel sorry for his partner from Sri Lanka.

You've not missed any out Bassman, you've said the UK, but they have two one English the other chap is Scottish. :);)

"I'm just a good ole HillyBilly, whose never left the U.S.of A." or words to that effect. Doesn't it show?:mad:


Can someone post a reminder for me to watch all the rest of these? Please.

PS. Can we have some input from our Aussie experts, about taking 3 days/2 nights to do 300 miles, over that terrain? Only 100 miles a day (average) when they were doing 100kph/62mph at times, does seem strange.

As soon as he opened his mouth and said all that I hated him!!:D

I thought that was strange too. 300 miles can be covered in a day easily, unless it was something to do with the cargo they were carrying.

I began to wonder if the "60" quoted was 60 Kph. Even at under 40 mph that is still less than 3 hours driving. Maybe they slowed down for the bumpy bits!

62 mph on those Outback roads would kill a truck wouldn't it?

The speed limits in Aus are in KPH.

There were a couple of mentions of traveling at the 100k limit. There was also a complaint, after one truck had passed another, on the tar seal section, that he'd exceeded 100k to pas but had dropped back to 60mph, once he was in front.:confused::confused::confused:

Then was passed by the wagon he'd passed!:rolleyes:

WHERE IS Lisa when we need her??:D:D

But the crafty Brit still set the fastest journey time!
(He'd set off 15 minutes behind the Ozzie, so following him in to the final stop meant that he was still ahead on time.)

There was another episode tonight I believe. I'll watch it when I get home.

I watched the second episode last night, am sorry that the Zimbabwe bloke went but I'm not really sorry that that Yank went.

I watched it last night. I presume you mean the Sri Lankan guy.

Unimpressed with the scriptwriter's knowledge. The trailer had "six" axles. Admittedly some trucks do have a short axle on either side of a trailer with a pair of wheels, but this appeared to be a fairly standard three axle trailer.

You could tell the state of the roads from the damage done tosome of those trailers.

So, the speed was in kph. The 60 kph (or 40 kph the UK trucker was restricted too) did make for a long journey time. The fact that at one time one truck was doing around 20 kph would explain the short journeys (by UK standards).

Sorry, yes, I did mean the Sri Lankan bloke.:)

When Vauxhall were developing the FE Victor, they installed a 'washboard' surface at the test track to reflect the Australian 'road' surface conditions. They also added a 'spoon drain' (a channel across the road) which wrote off one of the prototypes.

I missed Friday's episode so I'll watch it again tomorrow night, thankyou.

Any missed episode can be seen Tuesday night 10PM on *5. Not one of them drivers can claim to be worlds toughest drivers. They whinge like my mother, argue like Lisa and me, the winner will be lucky not tough. And watching them change gear!! I could teach a child to change better without a clutch. And why did the squeeky voiced one let the water out of the rad after the fan belt snapped? Idiot.

So far, it seems that the best ones are the Canadian and the English bloke. As for that white Yank...............!!

Re: World's Toughest Trucker
 

Robert, in answer to your question: some of the roads these fellas travelled are, in a word, crap! Therefore, to be able to traverse them, they need to reduce speed otherwise they're looking for trouble.... corrugations, potholes and bulldust (which can have a massive hole underneath) are problems they need to be able to readily identify and adjust to. If they don't, they could break springs (these trucks have 6 rod suspension, which has benefits over airbag suspension on these sorts of roads), do tyres and wheels in on both truck and trailer, lose a entire wheel assembly or, worse, have an accident which can result in a fatality or delay in medical treatment. I reckon truckers out there should carry a 406MHz Emergency Position Indicating Rescue Beacon (EPIRB) in case of an accident.

The trucks were stock Kenworth T658's with identical stock trailers each loaded with 50 head of cattle.... the cattle up there are wild and possibly have never been transported by truck so there's another little problem that the drivers need to adjust to!

A 406 epirb is a good idea, I'm surprised they don't carry them already.

Final episode:- http://www.channel5.com/shows/worlds.../episode-8-257

Now we know the answer.

I thought the winner was a fair result, but the third place was tough for the guy as I thought he stood a chance of winning.

Agreed!:D,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I'm surprised that the other gobby White Yank was in it at the end, I'd have thought that the Coloured Yank should have been in the final.

Good result though.

The Englishman contrived to keep the gobby white yank in the competition to keep the Australian out of the final.

A-HA! I hadn't thought of it that way!

I wanted either the Canadian, Coloured Yank, Scotsman or the English bloke to win, wasn't fussed which one of those 4.:)