You know how every once in a while you see a truck and you immediately stop what you are doing or saying to swing around for another look? Well that’s what I did when Vik Shankar pulled his truck onto the grounds at the Alberta Big Rig Weekend last year. Vik took home some well deserved trophies from the show and he is our February 2010 Rig of the Month driver. This is his story:

I was born in the Fiji Islands in the south Pacific and my family came to Canada when I was three years old. I remember asking my Dad one time why he decided to come to Canada and I got the same answer that I’m sure many parents from all nationalities have given their children over the years. He said it was so the family would have the opportunity for a better life.

I still visit Fiji where I spend a lot of time with my grandmother, my uncle and three aunts. The life back there is much simpler; it is very laid back and there is a lot more emphasis put on family time. The hot and humid climate is obviously very different from Alberta and I have to wonder what that first Edmonton winter must have been like for my mother and father.

My dad has always been a truck driver. He started out driving gravel truck and then he went on the highway working for Cascade Carriers. He has been with them for almost 25 years now. It wasn’t until he started work with Cascade that he began to bring his truck home. That was when I got my first close look at a big rig and my introduction into washing them. During summer holidays, starting when I was about twelve years old, I would go on trips with my Dad all over Alberta.

I always watched him as he worked and wondered what it would be like to drive something that big. Finally, when I was about seventeen, he pulled over just outside of Lloydminster, Alberta and said, “Here, have at it.” It was all flat country and I didn’t drive very far but I still remember jumping in the seat and as I started shifting I thought to myself, “Wow, this is pretty cool.”

Even though it was quite a thrill, I didn’t really want to be a truck driver back then because I saw all the time that my Dad was forced to spend away from home. He would be back home every second or third day, which was a lot better that most highway drivers, but it wasn’t something I was prepared to do at the time.

I started working at Costco part time when I was in school and I was quite content to stay there for a while after I graduated. On the other hand, my younger brother Vinnie, started driving body jobs around town as soon as he got out of school.

One day my dad decided to start his own trucking company with the thought of moving the family to Vancouver. My brother and my dad went out to the coast and hauled containers for about 3 months but they found that the competition was too great, which drove the rates down, so they came back to Edmonton. While they were gone I went and got my license thinking I would eventually join them. When he got back my brother went to work driving body job for Crown Express and I started working with him part time.

In 1994, Sanjita and I were married. We have a son Vishay, who was born in July 1996 and a daughter Sereena who was born in January of 2000. It was just after my son Vishay was born that that I realized that I would not be able to continue to pay the bills if I remained at Costco so when a 1988 Ford Cabover came up for sale, complete with a job at Crown Express, I went trucking full time. Dad helped me with the down payment and I went to work doing general freight deliveries around Edmonton.

Back in those years Dad always tried to convince us to drive tractor trailer but Vinnie and I just wanted to drive smaller stuff and stay close to home.

I drove the Ford Cabover for about 6 months and then both the motor and tranny went. Once again my Dad was there for me and he helped to get it repaired. While it was being repaired I bought 1990 International body job. It was during that time that I was asked to do the Fox Creek run which is about an hour north of Whitecourt, Alberta. It is a night run and, although I was asked to fill in for just a while, here it is fourteen years later and I’m still doing it.

A year after I bought the International I traded it in on another 2000 International body job. Then a year later, on payday, the owner of Crown Express, instead of giving us our pay checks, gave us a letter stating he was closing the doors. It would have been a lot easier to deal with if someone had the decency to give us some warning but as usual it was the truck drivers who got stuck. The last rumour I heard was that the owner of Crown Express had moved to BC and was doing quite well in a new business.   

The day Crown closed its doors we also got some good news. We found out that half of us were going to Rosenau Transport and the other half to Dynamex. I was in the group that went to Rosenau and I have been there about seven years now.

I say it was good news because Rosenau is a very solid company that is very community minded and much more organized than Crown ever was. It has been family owned and operated since 1957 and they are well known for looking after their employees. That became very evident when we first started and Carl Rosenau gave us all advances on our wages because we had been without a pay check for the last three months.

My brother also came over and worked at Rosenau with me for about a year until a tractor with a job came up at Cascade and he left to work there with my Dad.

I had bought a flat deck to pull behind my International body job but when we moved to Rosenau Transport the Fox Creek run really started to take off. I managed to get by with that combination for about a year and then dispatch told me that I really needed to get a tractor so I bought a new 2004 Peterbilt. I had been looking at them for a while but since it was my first truck I didn’t really know what to order. Luckily, when the smoke cleared, it turned out to be a good truck for the job.

The Fox Creek run has me hauling oil field supplies like pipe, pipe fittings and miscellaneous steel with a 53 foot trailer and a 28 foot flat deck. When it gets real busy I pull a Rocky Mountain Turnpike which is two 53 footers. Now, when I’m with my brother and we see a body job, we reminisce about starting out there and how glad we are now to be driving tractors.

I really enjoy doing the Fox Creek run. It is a small town of about 2500 people and like most small prairie towns everyone is really friendly. I’ve been hauling there for 13 or 14 years and have met a lot of the people who live and work there.

I have always taken pride in my trucks and have always tried to keep them clean. Whenever I have time during the day, like when I get to Fox Creek early, you’ll usually find me wiping my truck down. Keeping them clean was one thing but it wasn’t until after I got my 2004 Pete that I started customizing my trucks by adding wheel spinners and chrome both inside and out. 

I now drive a 2009 Peterbilt 389 with a 550 Cummins, 18 speed double over and super 40 rears. When I bought this truck I told the salesman I didn’t want a catalogue truck that other guys could just walk in and buy. That in itself was a problem because, since it is a 389, there were not very many custom parts out there for it at the time. The only way I could make it different was to have them do a lot more work like painting all the interior as well as custom painting some outside parts like the visor and light buckets. Speaking of light buckets I just ordered new custom ones.

Last year Motor Rosenau suggested I enter my truck in the Alberta Big Rig Weekend Show and Shine and I agreed to give it a try. I’m glad I did because I met a lot of guys that I only got to wave to in the past. Now I can put a face and personality to the driver. It really makes my trips more enjoyable.

My wife’s family lives in Calgary so when we came to Big Rig Weekend, while I was polishing, she was visiting. I hand waxed the truck for 2 whole days before the show. One of the best things I ever bought for my truck is a set of Alcoa durabrite wheels which I wash off everyday. It only takes minutes to keep them up but it saves me hours of polishing in the end.

When I got to the show and saw all the beautiful trucks I told my wife that I didn’t think mine was good enough to win anything. I was quite shocked but very happy when my name was called and I went up to get my trophies.

A funny thing happened to me a little while back. I was unloading in Fox Creek when a guy came up to me and asked who owned the truck. I said I did and he said congratulations on your trophies but next year those are all going to be mine. He said his interior wasn’t finished in time for last years show but this year it would be ready.

There are a lot of animals on my run especially at night. You can come over a hill and find moose, deer or elk standing right there in the middle of the road. I hit a couple deer with my first Pete but I had a moose guard on it so there wasn’t any real damage.

I don’t have a moose guard on this truck and I have already come close a couple times. One time around the Virginia Hills area I was going up a hill when I came around a corner and there was a cow and calf. The calf stopped but as I tried to slow down the cow started running right beside my truck. It seemed like it was there for a long time but it was probably only a few seconds. All the time I was afraid to honk my horn, not knowing what direction it would turn, but finally it turned away and went into the ditch. Now I take it real easy and I will often tuck in behind another truck. When I get into the bad areas I just slow down to 90kph and it only takes me about another 10 minutes for the trip.

For some reason the run down Two Creeks Hill, even to this day, scares me. It is straight down - no switch backs. I’m not sure what the grade is or how long it is but when it is snowing or icy I know it’s too darn long. A lot of other drivers go over a lot tougher hills, like the drivers who go to the coast, but I guess it is all about what you are used to. In the winter I just take my time and tell my customers that I’ll get there when I get there.

I’m quite lucky because Rosenau Transport has three trucks that come down from Grande Prairie each day and then they, and some other trucks from our Edmonton Terminal, go back north just ahead of me each night. We always talk so I usually know what the conditions are like up ahead.

One night this winter, for the first time, our safety department shut us all down and told us we couldn’t run. That was the night there was black ice all over the province. That is another great thing about Rosenau – you never have any pressure. If you don’t feel comfortable they don’t want you to do it. That is one of the reasons they have such a good safety record.

When I started the Fox Creek run the road was two lanes with lots of corners but all that has changed. It has been four lanes now for about five years and, to be totally honest; it has turned into a bit of a milk run. The sanding trucks do a good job on that stretch and the RCMP are always monitoring the road between Fox Creek and Edmonton.

It’s pretty quiet when I leave the yard between 12:30 and 1:00 am and I’m usually in Fox Creek by 4 - 4:30 in the morning. I deliver and personally unload the majority of my freight at my regular customer’s yards and then anything that is going to the bush or to local residences gets dropped off at the Rosenau depot where and they coordinate the final delivery. If all goes well I’m back on the road by about 8:30 in the morning. This puts me back home between two and three in the afternoon and I give my truck a quick rinse to end the day.

My dad, and my brother and I rent a shop where we all park together. We have almost a mini truck wash in the shop that we all use. Dad and Vinnie don’t get as involved with the chrome and polishing but for the most part they keep their rigs clean.

I’ve been doing this route for a long time and people ask me how I can do it everyday. I guess it has a lot to do with the people that I work with because I really do enjoy my job.

My wife is also very supportive which makes a big difference and although it is hard being away every night I can’t imagine doing anything else.