The New Mexico Truck Driving Championships were held at the Isleta Resort for the third year.
There were 103 contestants this year, 31 of them were Teamsters from 4 Companies including ABF, TeamOne, UPS Freight, and YRC who sent their best drivers. Teamsters Local 492 would like to thank and congratulate these great Professional Drivers for competing.
Below is a list of the Teamster Companies that competed (in alphabetical order). ABF is the only Company that submitted information, so we apologize if we missed anyone.
ABF had 14 drivers compete, 6 placed:
1st Place Twins - Steven Kelly Russell
2nd Place 4 axle - Joseph Carrillo
2nd Place Sleeper - Ricky Lucas
3rd Place Straight - Kirk Weis
3rd Place Tank - Gerald Benavidez
3rd Place Flatbed - Michael Contreras
Gerald Martinez recently hit 3 million accident free miles and was selected as Driver of the 4th Quarter of 2016 and Driver of the Year. ABF won the Fleet Safety Award for the City Operations in the “100,000 to 500,000 NM miles” category for the 4th year in a row. ABF also won the Fleet Safety Award for the Line Haul Operation in the “Over 5 million NM miles” category for the 6th year in a row. Also competing for ABF; Craig Arellano, Robert Delgado, Fernando Gonzalez, Carl Marquez, Joey Padilla, Chad Sullins, Jesus Vidaca, and Don Wood.
TeamOne (UPS Truckload) won the 500k to 1M Fleet Safety Award again this year and had 2 drivers competing this year; Brian Thais 4-Axle (this is his 9th year competing) & Cam Misner 4-Axle (this is his 5th year competing)
UPS Freight had 5 drivers compete this year:
2nd Place Twins - Keith Brewer
3rd Place 4 Axle – Rick Voeks, who also won Rookie of the Year.
Also competing for UPS Freight; Armondo Hernandez, Joe A Rael, Joe Seijas
YRC had 10 drivers compete this year:
1st Place Sleeper - Michael McAfee
2nd Place 5 Axle - Stanley Aragon II
Wes Johnson was selected as 2016 Driver of the Year and also Competing for YRC was Javier Cruz, Richard Cruz, David Garduño, Martin Griego, Manny Gomez, Samuel Soto, Steven Taylor.
Go down memory lane below: