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Article of the month provided by 10-4 Magazine
December , 2011

  Wayne Baker Wants To See More Pride In Trucking


By
Daniel J. Linss - Editor
Posted in: Cover Features

Taking “pride in your ride” should be more than just a catchy phrase for truck drivers. Many guys out there just don’t care much about pride anymore. One of the problems is that a lot of drivers are just doing a job, instead of living a lifestyle that they love and are proud to be a part of. Wayne Baker of Taylor Ridge, Illinois believes that more drivers need to take pride in their equipment – and themselves – to lift this industry back up to where it was in the glory days (which were not that long ago). And, judging by the equipment Wayne runs, he obviously doesn’t just talk the talk – he walks the walk.

Wayne Baker (54) was born and raised in Missouri. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Fort Bragg, a small city on the coast of Northern California. Wayne’s father “dabbled” in trucking, but he was never a full-fledged truck driver. After high school, Wayne left California and moved to Wellington, Kansas to “learn the trade” from his older brother Bill, who hauled grain.

When he was 20 years old, Wayne applied for a job with Maurice Bruenger, and much to his surprise, got hired. Obviously not reading his application correctly, they started him out hauling swinging meat from Wichita to Los Angeles twice a week. About the time they figured out he wasn’t old enough to be running out of state, he turned 21, so they kept him on. Wayne stayed there for another year or two and then moved on to Wallace Hollis Trucking out of Oklahoma City, and began hauling frozen chickens west and fresh flowers (LTL) back. A few years later, he got back together with an old girlfriend in California, moved back to Fort Bragg and got married.

Back in Fort Bragg, Wayne started hauling logs for Jerry Philbrick. He ended up working for Jerry for over 10 years, driving the same truck the entire time – a 1974 Peterbilt 359 long-hood with a “buzzin’ dozen” (a 12V92 Detroit). The truck was equipped with a quick-change unit so when he wasn’t hauling logs out of the mountains to the mills, he could hook-up to regular trailers and move logging equipment between job sites. Running logs is demanding work – 75% of the time Wayne was running off-road – which really teaches a guy how to drive a truck. But as the “tree huggers” and “Hoot Owl lovers” gained power in the region, Wayne saw the writing on the wall – logging in California was going to die!

In 1993, after his marriage ended, Wayne left California and moved to Salt Lake City, where he took a job driving for Jeff England at Pride Transport. While at Pride, he met Darlene Swift, and the two have been together ever since. After a few years, they started driving as a team for Pride. In 1997, Wayne moved out to Illinois with Darlene, and the next year they both left Pride, taking a local job hauling containers of John Deere parts between different assembly plants in the area. In 2002, Wayne was given the opportunity to take over payments on a friend’s truck and finally became an owner operator. After quitting the container gig, he started finding his own loads and hit the road.

Wayne’s first truck was a blue 1999 Pete stand-up with a 550 Cat and 280-inch wheelbase, hooked to a matching 1999 48-foot spread-axle Great Dane reefer. It was a nice setup! About this same time, Darlene got a 2000 Freightliner Classic XL and hit the road, too (this Freightliner was later one of the first trucks “tricked-out” by the Chrome Shop Mafia boyz for the TV series Trick My Truck). Both Wayne and Darlene hauled loads for Pride from time-to-time, so they had kept in contact with Jeff England. After getting into a head-on collision with a sleeping pickup truck driver in Oregon, Wayne’s truck was totaled, but the trailer was fixable. Not sure what to do next, he found himself at Pride Transport, where he made Jeff an offer to buy his personal/show truck (our cover truck from October 2003). After some negotiations, Wayne was the truck’s new owner. And this was no ordinary truck!

If you remember, Jeff’s truck was a 2002 long-hood Peterbilt with a 63-inch flat top, a 280-inch wheelbase, custom running boards and one of the first ever Cummins Signature 600 motors (it was actually a test engine in one of Jeff’s fleet trucks for several years before going into this truck). But what really set this rig apart was the twelve extra inches added to the hood! Painted in the standard grey and black colors of Pride, Wayne had his trailer painted to match and went trucking. Over the years he did a few things to the truck (stretched it to 330 inches, added some purple flames, and re-did the interior), but for the most part, he kept it the same.



10-4 articles



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