Reading Between the Lines

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.

– from “Mark Twain’s Notebook” by Samuel Langhorne Clemens

All of us here at FleetOwner are rather pumped having just learned the editors and designers on staff will soon receive no less than six “Azbee” awards for editorial excellence from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASPBE). Founded in 1964, ASBPE is a professional association for editors and writers employed in the business, trade and specialty press (or in what we unromantically call today “the media.”)

Four are national awards: Feature Article (”Fuel: Diesel & Beyond,” Aug. ‘07); Special Supplement (our special annual “13th” issue Can You Survive? , ” Nov. ‘07); Annual Buyers Guide (”Annual Specs & Buyers Guide,” Oct. ‘07), and Front Cover Design (”Annual Specs & Buyers Guide,” Oct. ‘07).

The other two awards are for the Northeast Region, which includes all publications based in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. FleetOwner is being recognized for the categories of Editorial/Editor’s Letter (”Editor’s Page,” July and Aug. 2007), and Front Cover Design (”New Models,” July 2007).

In any line of work it’s always nice to receive the equivalent of a standing ovation for your efforts but it is ever more satisfying when the applause comes from your professional peers.

We daresay this recognition should also please our readers. The multiple national Azbees in particular reflect the impact the combined efforts of the entire editorial and design team delivers not just now and then, but issue after issue, month after month in print, and day after day online.

Yes, OK, we like to win awards as much as the next guy.

But above all, we take pride in knowing what we do is all about you.

People around my age– let’s be kind and call them late-stage baby boomers– and definitely those who are older may recall a phenomenon from their misspent youth or further back in their carefree childhood: The Gas War.

Back when “service stations” (how quaint a description is that?) gave away embossed drinking glasses and other consumer detritus to lure customers in to tank up, proprietors sometimes sought to drum up sales a tad more dramatically by engaging in a little friendly price war with neighboring stations. Suddenly, gas wasn’t 30 cents a gallon, it was 29, then 28 and oh my gosh, weren’t those the good old days for anyone with wheels to take them places?

Signs from a long-ago gas war in Lincoln, ME

I know it’s not nearly the same thing but now in this summer of our discontent made ugly winter by this fuel crisis, I say we can take heart in a wonder of the wonderful worldwide web: a feature on the MSN Autos site that pulls up retail gas prices by zip code!

Yes, this will be of little use to centrally fueled fleets but it may come in handy for anyone managing a fleet, especially of gas jobs, who does not have a fuel card or other such program in place to secure discount pricing. Regardless, it should be of great service to anyone out there seeking to gas up a personal vehicle for as little as possible without wasting gas by riding around looking for the lowest price.

Before I forget, a tip of the editorial eyeshade to my pal Alicia Hinds, who alerted me to this site via an email she sent out this morning to a group of friends.

OK, on to the details: Once you get to the MSN page hosting the Local Gas Prices feature, you scroll down just a bit and plug in any zip code.

And presto, up pops a map and a nice long list of stations with their addresses and the retail price posted for each grade of gasoline as well as diesel that they sell. It could not be any easier and judging by the couple of stations I passed on the way into work today and the prices reported for my home zip code, it is accurate.

According to the site, every night MSN Autos receives pricing data compiled by the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) from over 90,000 gas stations. One thing I found interesting was, at least in the case of my home zip, was that the results– 29 of them– were fantastic but they actually spilled into several neighboring zip codes although all stations were a short drive from each other.

So, party like it’s 1968 (click below for how) and find yourself if not cheap gas, at least the cheapest gas!

As someone with no dog in this fight except for journalistic endeavor, what fascinates me the most about the big Caterpillar-Navistar deal, word of which broke this morning, is that among other weightier things, it means the death of one Cat come 2010– the heavy-duty on-highway Caterpillar truck engine in North America– and the birth of another– the Caterpillar severe-service truck.

That’s right! A Cat truck–how cool is that? Well, pretty cool to yours truly anyhow, who entered this business shortly after the Brockway Husky was put to sleep and shortly before the fabled, hand-built Marmon of Garland, TX, fame went to the great truckstop in the sky. And I am sure among my elders still scribbling about trucks there are a few who can rattle off many more names of other dearly departed truck marques.

Yes, it is good to hear that another truck nameplate will be soon be around for us to track in FleetOwner’s annual July New Models issue. .. coming soon to mailboxes everywhere and here online!

I will pause here to salute Cat for all it has done for American truckers as a purveyor of on-highway truck engines.

It has indeed been a good long run for the truck engine guys in Peoria and they have every reason to be proud of their accomplishments as they helped move the state of the art in diesel trucking forward.

I’ll close by recalling one of the first big events I covered as a trucking journalist– the trend-settting “Cat Economy Challenge” of 1981.

That nationwide MPG competition lasted for months and engaged both fleets and owner-operators in a huge contest for prizes and bragging rights. I’m sure it helped sell tons of truck engines.

Click below to enjoy a tribute to one of Cat’s legendary driver-trainers– Phil Hook- whom I first met at the Challenge:

But the Challenge also helped sell an entire industry on how much fuel, and thus money, can be saved just by learning how to drive a truck in a manner that made finely engineered engines perform to their maximum ability.

So here’s to you, Cat: a tip of my very oldest, circa 1981 “gimme cap,” which kinda looks like this one.