Last week’s umpteenth annual Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville drew plenty of crowds despite an early Kentucky spring trying to bust out– and shedding a thunderhead or two in the process– at the good old Fair Grounds & Expo Center. But in terms of real, sink-your-pen-into news, there sure wasn’t much to write home about.

Not that FleetOwner’s merry band of editors covering the show didn’t make the rounds of at least a couple dozen official news conferences as well as who-knows-how-many booth visits and on-the-fly interviews.

You can still check out many of the stories we filed straight from Louisville at our Fleetowner.com home page under “Trucking Headlines.” Just keep scrolling till you see what you’re after.

Editorially speaking, the show came out about like this: One major OEM (Freightliner Group) and one major supplier (the Eaton-Dana Roadranger partnership) cancelled news conferences at the 11th hour. Some smaller concerns did not even show up for their scheduled time slots. To be fair, still other OEMs and major component players had not scheduled events in the first place. And more than one of those that went ahead with a gathering of the media, had nothing new or very little new to say, having made major announcements earlier this year at other venues.

The two most noticeable things about the show: 1) More “booth babes” were on duty than in recent years, perhaps indicative of a slow economy and thus the perceived need to grab more eyes, male ones anyway and– somewhat related– 2) many many many pronouncements by supplier executives that while this year may be quite the downer, 2008 and 2009 will be real certifiable barn-burners. We can only hope!

Welcome to “Reading Between the Lines,” or to be brief, “Between the Lines” or, briefer still, “BTL” works for me. What you’ll find here are my observations on how actions taken by trucking’s supplier base, government agencies and the myriad of industry stakeholders impact truck fleet owners. I get to shoot off my mouth first, tis true, but I welcome your comments on each and every entry henceforth. Really, fire away

“Who’s this guy?” you might well ask first. I’m executive editor of FleetOwner Magazine and fleetowner.com, which together comprise an independent, erstwhile and respected information source for truck fleet managers. I’ve been with FO for over 18 years and thanks to my early years with another trucking magazine, I’ve rolled up over 25 consecutive years covering trucking so far. But let me add I’ll never lay claim to being an expert on trucking– trucking’s too broad and fast-paced for anyone to claim that. I’ll admit to being a writer and hope to be regarded a journalist.

Enough said.. till next time.

Amid all the insanity surrounding this year’s early switch-over to Daylight Savings Time, we heard about the direct impact of another sort of time shifting.

Offering an explanation as to why there was a “robust” 3.9% gain in freight shipments this past December, Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, theorized this was the “result of more shipments later in the fall freight season than what we typically saw in the not-too-distant past. As retailers sell more merchandise in January due to the proliferation of gift card giving, this trend is likely to continue in the years ahead.”

Who could have imagined all those little credit-cardish gift cards hanging in racks by the cash registers of most (if not all) major retailers could so influence what gets hauled when in the nation’s truck fleet?

Yet another example of how our economy is changing– and how every ripple that gets stirred up washes up against trucking in some way.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, International Truck and Engine Corp. has been doing quite a bit of product re-branding lately. Back when they decided (or had to) jettison the “Harvester” from their name, they tried renaming the company (but not the trucks and engines themselves) Navistar International.

That did not fly too well in trucking circles although few can argue “Navistar” is not a good name for a truck company whereas, let’s face it, “International” is pretty darn generic.

So they moved onto calling the truck- and engine-making operation International. The truck and engine models got that name as well while Navistar was reserved for the holding company.

The latest move on the branding chessboard is to keep that all in place but to start ditching the aged numeric series designations in favor of such snappy and descriptive monikers as ProStar, TranStar, CityStar, DuraStar, PayStar and WorkStar.

I say keep it up! I could never keep the numbers straight (whether International’s, Peterbilt’s, Kenworth’s or whoever else’s) that tell you which truck model series is meant to do what. Plus what’s wrong with trucks, work tools that they may be, coming with a bit of built-in (badged-on?) personality right off the factory floor?

By the way, it’s only been recently I’ve stopped hearing fleet owners call the trucks “Harvesters” and that may be due more to a changing of the generational guard than any hotshot marketing.

Now if only someone could bring back the Brockway Husky…now that was a truck name!

Baseball has its World Series and the basketball powerhouses have their March Madness but trucking’s big show is four days on the cusp of Spring at the sprawling Fair & Exposition Center that’s but a short hop from the downtown of one of America’s greatest river cities, Louisville, Kentucky.

Indeed it is time to again head gladly South and indulge in porkchop sandwiches and other local delicacies as we in the industry press corps ( yes, that’s what we who aim to keep you informed on all things trucking generally call ourselves– you most certainly won’t catch any of us referring to ourselves as the “media”) endeavor to get to every booth we can and attend every scheduled and unscheduled press event possible during the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS).

This year, MATS– open to the public from March 22-24– is expected to be a tad subdued given how trucking’ s suppliers keep telling us we’re in a rough year. That’s thanks to the robust pre-buying so many fleets did last year to avoid ‘07 engines and the not-so-robust economy the whole country is enduring this year. Of course, everyone reminds us in the same breath that ‘08 and ‘09 will be real barn-burners as the pre-buy ahead of EPA 2010 will be one for the record books. We can’t wait

Nevertheless, truck OEMs slating news (not “press”) conferences include most of the usual suspects: sister firms Kenworth and Peterbilt, International, and Volvo– but not its corporate sibling Mack. But conspicuous by its absence from the scheduled events will be the Freightliner Group (Freightliner, Sterling and Western Star), which opted not to hold its almost-as-traditional-as-Thanksgiving news conference held every Thursday morning for as long as I can recall. Freightliner had a big presence at other recent shows, including NTEA’s Work Truck Show earlier this month. I can only guess the North American arm of DaimlerChyrsler’s global truck operations has nothing it feels compelled to formally share with the ink-hungry this time out.

Whatever news breaks at MATS, you can be sure to find it first on fleetowner.com, which will be updated daily with reports from the squad of FleetOwner editors, including yours truly, who will be covering the show.

See you in Louisville– or see you on the web!

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky…” Excuse me but all the hybrid engine talk– not to mention the actual trucks powered by hybrid engines that were on hand– floating around the NTEA’s Work Truck Show in Indy earlier this month, brought Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” straight back to my brain.

The good news for trucking– and the environment– is hybrid trucks are here and more are coming. Many more. The bad news for truck fleet owners and managers is now you have to start walking, talking and dreaming hybrid. That is if you want to save fuel and be an environmental hero.

But first things first. Just in case you somehow thought a hybrid engine just replaces a gas or diesel one the way an automatic or automated transmission drops right in place of a manual, let me disavow you of that notion but fast.

Hybrids work. But they are not simple and, above all, one size does not fit all. There will be a steep learning curve for truck buyers to be sure. To get a taste of how far hybrids have come– and an inkling of how much you have to learn– check out this report that was part of our direct-from-the-show NTEA coverage: http://fleetowner.com/management/news/hybrids_steep_learning_curve/index.html