Twice is Nice
For the second time in three years, a truck belonging to Vlad Bilik has taken top honors at Shell’s Rotella SuperRigs truck beauty contest.
People’s Choice
The California trucker brought his black, orange and chrome 2001 Peterbilt 379 to a Lodi, Ohio, TravelCenters of America truck stop for the 21st annual show.
Bilik, one of more than 90 entries, was named Best of Show and won the People’s Choice Award, voted on by other entrants. Bilik said he’s only added a few exterior details to his truck since he won the contest in 2001.
Winning Touches
“I’ve put the suicide doors and the hood on remote control,” he said.
He’s also added a retractable license plate, a stainless belly plate in between his trailer axles that matches one that covers his drive shaft on the tractor frame and a chromed kickstand to go with his hotrod theme.
Colorful Showing
Rusty Wyrick finished second in Best of Show with his Mardi Gras themed Western Star tractor.
The truck features two impressive murals of street scenes in New Orleans, a demented jester on the hood and details like tiny masks etched into the stainless steel trim.
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“I wanted a bright, powerful and colorful truck,” Wyrick said.
The truck is a past winner of truck shows under a different theme and name. “This used to be ‘Gone with the Wind,’” he said. “It took one and a half to two years to do all the work.”
Fine Art
Wyrick says the truck has a lot of mystique attached to it – two brothers did the mural on ‘Gone with the Wind’ and Wyrick employed two more brothers, Alberta, Canada artists Dave and Al Thomas, to do his new murals.
Wyrick, who hauls furniture out of Mansfield, Ohio, says he got the idea for the street scenes from magazines and photos because he doesn’t visit New Orleans regularly and has never been to a Mardi Gras.
Taking It Home
Winners of the competition split thousands of dollars in cash and prizes. At least 13 participants were photographed for the Rotella SuperRigs 2004 Calendar, due out in December.
Arthur Boisclair, a trucker from Fall River, Mass., won the lights competition with his 2001 Kenworth W900.
The above article was written by Sean Kelley on www.eTrucker.com. It can be found at http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=39647.
