The First Florida Trucking Show
The first Florida Trucking show made some serious noise for their first time around the block. It was held at the Broward Convention Center, just minutes from the shore in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A well known event center for locals, that sits right off of the even more popular, 17th street causeway, known for it’s great selection of bars, restaurants, and inter-coastal views. An area where you can glance over your shoulder to see an endless row of multi-million yachts, while walking into the entrance of the building.
The show was well organized; featuring ascending rows of booths matching the show colors, with the halls lined in numerical order, open wide for a clear and completely uncluttered view of the entire floor. The organizers made way for a multitude of locally owned and operated businesses from Miami-Dade, Broward, and West Palm to share the limelight; including everything from custom truck interior designers, chrome experts, discount truck tire shops, dispatching services, and trucking attorneys. Leaving room for a handful of out of state businesses traveling on a short flight from Texas, to as far as Australia. We even saw a few familiar faces in expediting; such as Fedex Custom Critical, Panther, Landstar, Tenstreet, and Wreaths Across America.
We spent a lot of time at the Adrenalin Events Booth; where we met Mike Hart, the owner and creator of Adrenalin. A virtual driving simulation that gave the handler a full scope of the intricacies of driving a tractor trailer. We spoke of our shared passion to increase safety, and how valuable it was to get people familiar with the equipment and maneuvers before getting behind the wheel on public roadways. He’s spent the last few years perfecting this equipment and selling the software to trucking schools and trucking companies, in multiple countries around the world, and was starting to branch into the U.S., having just flown in from Australia the night before the show. Of course we had to test it out ourselves, and we can say that the realism and accuracy is uncanny. Mike’s creation gives you the full ability of VR; from adjusting your views from within the cab as if you were turning your head, turning on your windshield wipers to keep your windshield clear of the rain, look both ways before crossing the intersection, setting your four way flashers, dropping your trailer, and setting your parking brakes.
Then we had to make a pit stop for the hilariously named, “Super Trucker” challenge, where the winner with the longest time holding onto the pullup bar won a 65’ smart tv. The winner had the record for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
At the back of the hall, they featured a truck show first, an RC trucking booth! The area was roughly 20x20 and was lined with a counter height track so you could watch the trucks go up the ramps and laugh manically as they passed by you on the bridge. We got to watch the expert, and very entertaining, RC handlers at work. We watched as one connected a cab-over to a set of Fedex doubles, and then proceed to pull them out of a very narrow spot between some other parked bobtails and trailers. Beside him with another handler working an excavator on a pile of rubber mulch, and meticulously lining the forks to empty over a small dump truck. That dump truck would later carry the mulch to a different area on the RC’s city landscape; that featured full fuel lanes at a Pilot truck stop, a Blue Beacon Truck Wash, a big bunk tractor on the CAT Scale, and suspension bridges similiar to the infamous Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa, Florida. This booth was hosted by BamBam RC Trucking, and this crew knew how to keep the show going, with people lining up shoulder to shoulder, to gleefully watch the spectacle.
Last but not least, you can’t have a truck show without some killer custom rigs.
We decided to feature the show stopper of the line up.
Before ending the show, we met with Jesus; the organizer, who also happens to be the mastermind behind the Texas Trucking Show, and the California Trucking Show. When we asked him what brought him to Fort Lauderdale, he said he’d been doing this for quite some time, and thought it was time to host a show in South Florida, and we’re so glad he did!
See you at the show next year, because you can bet that we’ll be there!