Inside champ: Proprietor-op John McCormick on prime with ‚Bandit‘ W9

Common Overdrive readers is perhaps accustomed to Oakley Trucking-leased pneumatic tank puller John McCormick’s „Bandit“ 2021 Kenworth W900L, two years in the past the winner within the Working Bobtail class of Overdrive’s Delight & Polish. In 2023, then, Bandit added to the owner-operator’s trophy case with a second place end for the inside on the Mid-America Trucking Present that yr, amongst different honors. 

For the 2024 Delight & Polish contest, McCormick’s Cummins X15-powered 2021 W900L took dwelling one more inside trophy, Overdrive readers lauding the custom-painted Rockwood flooring and different mods all through. For the reason that rig’s huge 2022 Working Bobtail win, McCormick’s added the ground and extra, together with watermelon lights all through the inside to enhance loads of brilliant work across the gauges and elsewhere alongside the sprint and doorways.

The ground itself pays homage to the rig’s total inspiration — it is painted after the Snowman character’s KW from the traditional „Smokey & the Bandit“ movie — that includes a lyric from the Jerry Reed traditional „Eastbound and Down“ track featured within the flick. 

„A protracted approach to go“ proven right here on the driving force aspect flooring.

On the passenger aspect, then … 

„…And a short while to get there!“

Once we caught up with McCormick just a few weeks in the past, after he discovered of the large win, he was prepping for the standard sluggish interval for his principally served buyer within the space round his Robards, Kentucky, dwelling. „They’re fixing to shut down right here in a couple of week“ for the Christmas vacation, he stated. „They need all their silos empty earlier than they shut down,“ so he was hustling to maneuver product out of the Henderson, Kentucky, facility right down to Calvert Metropolis, his common run.

He wasn’t going to be down himself, although, prepping as he was to take over his father’s personal devoted run whereas the elder McCormick, additionally leased to Oakley however serving a special buyer between Calvert Metropolis and Louisville, took a trip of his personal. 

„You are going to get bored with writing about my truck,“ he stated with a chuckle when supplied congrats for the large Delight & Polish inside win. But it is well-deserved. And „it is a fairly cool honor“ to be chosen first by friends, he added. 

View of the sprint and steering wheel contained in the truck, likewise the skull-topped shifter — christened „Leroy“ after McCormick’s moniker for a fictional codriver he instructed tall tales of in his chicken-hauling days way back.

McCormick instructed the story behind the truck attendant to his Working Bobtail win in 2022 — he purchased it late in 2020 with the fundamentals of the outside paint job already on it. Working with the Kenworth vendor in Springfield, Missouri, who had the rig transferred up from Dallas, he took supply of the truck late that yr and started working becoming it to his liking. 

The „Bandit“ title did not come instantly, although operating the rig it wasn’t lengthy earlier than different drivers took discover of the paint scheme and referred to as out to him on the CB, „Hey, it is the Snowman,“ and „There goes the Bandit!“ 

Bandit holds one other which means for McCormick, although, because it was the title of a Yorkie pup with coloring round his eyes like a black masks you would possibly see on a raccoon. Bandit the canine would change into „my little buddy via the years,“ McCormick stated, rising up in a previous truck. As instructed within the 2022 story in regards to the owner-operator’s W900L, John and his spouse, Marilyn, pulled reefer trailers again then as an organization driver group. (Marilyn’s since come off the street herself, a few years in the past now.)

Bandit „marked every part from Boston to L.A.,“ McCormick stated, over the 17 years of his life. The 2021 KW now serves as rolling memorial to his reminiscence, likewise that of two different Yorkies, Sassy and Molly. 

The pups‘ names with this graphic are proven on the driver-side sleeper window.

Amongst mods McCormick’s made for the reason that 2022 characteristic embody the aforementioned watermelon lights all through the cab and sleeper, plus a stainless flush-mount deck extending from the again of the sleeper and past the fifth wheel to the tail of the rig. 

Right here, two of these watermelons illuminate the area above the sprint.

Along with a number of spaced evenly overhead alongside the divider between cab and sleeper, this set of 4 serves the sleeper inside.

McCormick’s received „every kind of plans for the truck,“ he says, once more with a chuckle. „I really want to remain off TikTok.“ But all might be on maintain till it is totally paid off a couple of yr from now. Whereas yr 2024 wasn’t dangerous from an earnings perspective, the owner-operator is not precisely in a monetary place „to be spending a bunch of cash“ on purely aesthetic upgrades, he added.

Talking two weeks shy of the top of the final yr, he famous he’d moved extra hundreds in 2024 than in all of 2023, but he nonetheless appears to be like to pre-2020 occasions for his economic-activity benchmark — a high-water mark in 2019 for his devoted runs. That yr, he moved within the neighborhood of 1,500 hundreds for the shopper. This yr and final, the entire was nearer to 1,000.

As are different owner-operators, he is longing for freight choosing up within the new yr. 

[Related: 4 million miles toward optimism for a new year: Ring in 2025 with Overdrive Radio] 

Directly, he did make one different comparatively small funding within the truck’s award-winning inside in current occasions. The custom-painted Rockwood flooring — paint work carried out by an airbrush artist named „Chop“ close by to McCormick’s Robards, Kentucky, dwelling base — is newly shielded from harm by a {custom} flooring mat. 

Between the seats, simply again from the shifter’s base, the rig’s moniker, „Bandit,“ as painted by Chop.

McCormick commissioned Lightnin Jack Customs to construct the ground mat to guard the unique flooring. „They usually do cigar boats and stuff,“ he stated, however „they received into truck flooring mats. … The one a part of the ground they do not cowl is behind the seats.“

Take a look at the outcomes for your self:

Between the seats, mimicking the painted flooring beneath …

The total flooring mat earlier than set up.

Catch John McCormick telling the story of the truck as of 2022 within the Overdrive Radio podcast version embedded under, likewise with scenes from our 2022 run within the Bandit within the video that follows it.