MATS 2026 - Mid America Truck Show 2026

0:00Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, walking down the truck podcast, Jerry Curle, bringing you this show with my dear friend Jason Old and Jason, our super trucker. He's there with us. He's alive today for us. But most importantly, reason Jason's with us today, not only is the dear friend of mine, he is also the director, one of the directors from Matt's Mid-America truck show. And I'll be honest with you, but a dear friend of mine, we had the opportunity of pleasure getting to work together and we've also been talking about this show. And I got a thing, Jason, because of him, I was able to be able to speak there. So, you know, I'm, I'm tickled to come and bring beyond the truck to all of these professionals in the industry that keep America moving. And I really look at improving physical health, mental health in this industry well beyond the truck, beyond the cab, beyond, beyond the truck, is why I call it that,

1:02you know, so with all that, you guys get to hear from me all the time. I'm going to flip it over to my buddy Jason and Jason's going to tell us a little bit who he is, a little bit about Mid-America truck show this year. What are the dates when it is and go from there? So, Jason, walking to the podcast, love you, I appreciate it. Thanks for your time today. Hey, and thanks for, thanks for moving America because you know, they say trucks move America. I say professional drivers move America. So, thanks for your due brother. Well, well, good afternoon and I appreciate it. So, yeah, I've been officially fully in charge of the outdoor PKY show in Elf. This is my fifth or sixth year, I believe. I have actually worked there since, before 2000, and the gentleman retired and I took over for what he was dipping and so, yeah, and I've been showing, I showed there for probably approximately 10 years before becoming onto the staff.

2:02So, I used to skip school and high school so that I could go to the truck show. And so, I've been, I haven't missed very many of them. That's good, you know, it is funny. Something just popped in my head, I, when I was looking for Jason's number, I could not, I could not believe I didn't have it on my phone. And here, he happened to call me one day and it comes up, Ron Baird's son. And I'm like, Ron Baird's son's commented, here's on the other end is Jason. I'm like, what, what are you calling for? I thought if you're Ron Baird's son, I had no idea his phone is like, well, if I could be anybody's son of Ben Ross, I guess. So, we have a great guy in common, don't we? I, I left my dad and he was very good to me, but I've known Ron, he's known me my whole life. And I've been remembering from when I was real little, you know, Ron had cool stuff back in the day, you know, all of his fittings, his pump and stuff was all painted up on his truck. And, you know, he went the extra mile, he kind of took me under his wing.

3:05And when we first started show and, and Ron, Ron has set the, set the standards in several fields, not only trucking in his professionalism, but in showing. And he always put the other guy first, I just, his wife to a concert. And he finished getting my truck ready, little did I know that I was out ready to show. And, and he, he finished my truck and, you know, Ron and I've been good friends for all my, for as far back as I can remember. You know, that's, that's what I always say about this industry. It's, it's an industry that just continues to foreign the people and love one another. And it's great. It's great what happens in this industry. The people you meet in this industry is remarkable. And, you know, that's what brings us together. Tell us when is, when is the truck show this year? It's coming up. I know that. So tell everybody when it is. So it actually officially starts next Thursday, the 26th and goes through the 28th.

4:06I'm actually leaving this Saturday for the show. And I'll take my truck and trailer down and start getting things set up for registration. Or check in on Monday morning. And we can start parking Monday morning. It, it seems crazy that it goes on a whole week. But at the same time, you've got 195 trucks registered. And the, if 195 trucks round the deck up and registered and parked and signed in. It's like curtain cat. So, yeah, it's, there's a lot going on in the week. But at the end of the day, it's, it's a great, it's a great feeling to get them all in there. I was going to ask you how many trucks were there and you asked for my questions. So, 195. So if you're listening to this, people, you're never going to find at one location, 195 of the nicest trucks on the road that you're ever going to see. And that isn't going to count how many other trucks just show up to park there to go see that 195.

5:08And, you know, the, the amount of work that goes in these trucks and, you know, the money, the work to care, the love, the compassion. You can see this is a part of people's lives. It's living, breathing alive inside them. And, you know, it truly is. How many years has Maz been going on now? So I think Maz has been going on, I think 50 some years. Don't hold me to do that, give or take. And then the PK Y has been going on like 30 years. If I'm, if I'm not sharp on my history, but it's been going on quite a while. Yeah, I'm not trying to bring you this problem. I thought I thought it was 50 plus years for Maz. So when the reason I go there is, when you do things for 50 plus years, you know, it's a big wind. You know, you know, you don't do some for 50 years and it not be successful. So that, thank you for what you do because these are things I want people to understand. They do this out of passion for the industry, the trucks, the love, the joy for people.

6:09Like I said, when you're working on other people's trucks, you're doing that because of what these people and these things mean to you. It's a thankless job on both sides of the point. Whether it be a competitor or our side putting the show on. I do enjoy it, you know, I did skip school to go to it because I enjoyed it. I grew up in trucking and, you know, Ron was was doing trick stuff to his truck, you know, before any of that stuff was cool. And like I said, he took me under his wing and he's just, he's an awesome guy. And you know, I worked with him up there with you guys. And he's, Ron broke mold and I mean that old heartedly and being called as son would be a great honor because Ron is just, you know, he set the standards for a lot of us. A lot of us look up to him. Yeah, he's a legend and he's, he's the one that paved the way. And I think, you know, I don't even wrong.

7:09I'm no, I'm no history buff on it. But I can tell you, Ron sure is a legend that paved a lot of the way of that. And, you know, this show is really involved into a huge, huge thing. And how many, do you even know how many vendors are there? I mean, you know, they'll fill the whole Louisville convention center there. Yes, yes, I do not, last I heard it was around eight or 900, but don't hold me to do that. Yeah, I'm sure it's more by now. I, I walk a fine line on the inside like what I did for you and some other folks that's not really the area. But I do have a little say, but I try to stay out of the inside. Yeah, sure. It's possible. Yeah, it's, that's a big, big deal. If you want to know anything and everything about trucking, it's there under one roof there. So, you know, I appreciate you're even giving your time today to even go at this, because I want people to understand trucking, you know,

8:12American truck associations, trucks move America. In my world, professional drivers move America. And we've got to start taking care of these drivers. I say, you know, we spend millions of dollars trying to figure out how we get people in the industry. I want to spend that money keeping people in this dream, keeping them healthy. The people that laid the foundation put the bricks in this, in this industry, I want to increase their livelihood. And I want them to live and understand that they have life well beyond the cab, beyond the truck. And, you know, trucking is a thankless job. We wake up in the morning, the milks and the refrigerator, the gases in our tank, the clothes on our back and all that other stuff. They just don't miraculously show up overnight. You know, we don't have the little super L's showing up. It's the professional drivers that show up and get this done. When we're, when we go to the COVID, we're at war. We're at anything. We're always calling out professional drivers to move America and provide for us. They never stop. You know, I tell everybody, go ahead.

9:13Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to say, and a lot of that stuff gets done in the darkness of nights. You know, there's several, several of us out here that do that stuff. When nobody sees it, you know, some of the stuff I do, most of the time, it's during regular business hours. But, you know, a lot of these guys, they run overnight mail. They run, you know, just in time for a, every kind of commodity, you know, you take it for granted. You know, you're home in a warm bed and they're out there on a snowy road all night, fighting it so that you can be fed in the morning and not think that somebody else put their life for danger of getting it there. Yeah, you know, I say a lot, you know, in our industry, I watch these guys drive four or 500 miles in a blizzard to get a load delivered. They get there in the plants closed because the guy four blocks away couldn't walk to work or get to work because this weather's too bad. You know, and they put their life on the line for us.

10:14And that means a lot to me, you know, I'm a second generation driver, obviously, and I had a great mentor and my father and makes me emotionally even talking about it. But, you know, you see how hard they were. It's really like dairy farming. You melt cows morning and night. You know, it's a job that never ends. You show me a day holiday or any time of any time of the calendar year. The trucks are not on that road. It just doesn't happen. It just does not happen. In today's world, you know, of course, cows and pigs, they don't know. They can't read a calendar. But, you know, so many bits or, you know, used to, you'd never in places weren't open on Sunday. And then they were, and then 24 hours, these big supermarkets and stuff. You know, and you can't, it's like a combine. You can't keep the corner weight from these big machines anymore. Because they're walking over so much land at a time, shelling corn at record pace.

11:15And you can't keep the corner weight from a combine if you have to go very far. And everything's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And, you know, it is a, it is a thankless job. Yeah, no, I told a guy the other day that I was really excited seeing on social media some of these younger kids are talking about the truck show, are talking about truck and, and, you know, we're all getting to the age, you know, I talk like a bronze age, but, you know, we're getting to the age where we need some younger kids to be thinking that this is okay to make a living. Yeah. And, you know, get some point, you know, who's going to, who's going to fill their shoes? So, God, I like it. It's a thankless job. Yeah. We need, we need, we need, you know, I'm good. I want to, I want to see them guys like me, man. I, I was that guy chewing on the tire, couldn't wait to go with it, you know what I mean? And it's an industry that provided for my family growing up.

12:16And even my, my, my current family that I'm raising now, it's been a huge part of my life. And I want to do what I can. And I, that's why I started the, beyond the truck. I want something to live well past me when I leave this earth. I want to be on the truck to be here for drivers that can live healthy. You know, I mean, I want to bring them so sort of tools so they understand that, you know, the emotions on the road, you know, it's okay, you know, it's life. We were isolated in these calves. It's tough. We deal with all the family problems, the issues, whatever they deal with them in the, in the, in the pleasures of their home. We do it traveling down the road, kind of the same for other drivers, or drivers actions all the time, you know? And, you know, I, I want to make sure that they know that somebody's there, a farmer, somebody's going to bad form. So, I say thank you for the opportunity. And hopefully we, I will bring the right message. I can promise you that. I'll bring the right message. So, you know, it's not a pity party. You show, you chose to do this. But, you know, there, there's thankless hours. You're away from your kids' ball games.

13:16You know, was I ever mistreated or lived without in my life? No, I, I pretty much had the best of everything. And my father saw to it. Was he at every game? No, but, you know, he instilled morals and work values. And, you know, if you want something, you got to work for it. And, it, it's provided me a good life. Would I suggest it to someone? I don't know. Not everybody's cut out for it. Not everybody understands it. And, you know, it, it's a dying breed. I mean, you know, who is going to come in and do it? And, you know, a lot of the guys now, they don't even, you know, between giddy up and fetch, you know? So, yeah. It's, it's just a dying breed and it's sad. That is, you know, I'm with you. My dad didn't make all my ball games, man. But, you know, what I always knew I had? Ice clothes, roof over my head, food in the fridge, heat in the house. So, yeah.

14:16That is good. I never resented my father for what he did. You know, I don't have kids. My wife, when I do have to be gone, she understands. And it makes it, that makes, that's half the battle. You know, working long hours, you deal with it, but, you know, if you don't have a happy home to leave and to come home to, it makes it twice as hard to, you know, runs wife. I saw her in a funeral last summer. Of course, we visited and she said, you know, I said, how are you getting along? And she goes, the wife of a trucker, she goes, you know, how it is. And she laughed. And, you know, she gets it and she embraces it. And, you know, you know, hats off to them. I found a picture of them on one of his trucks. And, you know, he had bell-bottom jeans on and cool shades. And, you know, look at those kids, you know, I mean, he's something back in the day. And still is today. I mean, when people mention his name, you know, he kind of like E.F. Hutton, you'd listen.

15:18So, yeah, they sent me a letter last time. I'll let everybody know. I'm nominated Iran for Stevie S.A. Driver Excellence of the Year Award. And, I got with the family. They got pictures of all his plaques and awards and road letters. I'm reading this this morning at four o'clock in the morning or five o'clock in the morning in my island. I'm reading this. I'm in tears reading it. I'm like, I love this guy. I'm like, his hand's down, man. We're going for the trophy. And, he's one of them guys where you could call him. And if he's anywhere close, he would be there to help you. And, you know, they just being called his son, that's more of a disgrace to him than it is to me, because he's just, I hope he gets it, because he definitely deserves it. And, hopefully, somewhere, somebody can document his miles into where, you know, it's recognizable that, you know, he put those many miles safe for all the companies

16:18that he's worked for. And be acknowledged of that in the kind of person that he is. And, you know, he's put his 80 some years old now. Hey, he just turned 80. He's driven, for anybody who doesn't know, he's driven eight million miles out of ticket or accident. I did a podcast with him. And his podcast blew all my other podcast way of like, my 10, I go, she's running. He's having you on here all the time. I'll go viral. And, you know, it's just amazing, amazing individual when you when you talk about it, because it's funny. I told Ron I was nominating. He goes, is anything else I need to do? I said, yeah, get home and press your damn suit, because we won the damn thing, dude. Let's go get your speech ready and press your suit, because we're taking the time. Awesome. Awesome. He's just, he's 100% in everything he does. You know, and at 80 years old, you know, he's still out there putting miles down when, you know, he could have retired years ago. But, you know, it's something he enjoys and, you know, is, is passionate in. And, you know, he's got nice equipment with you guys.

17:21And it's, it's just awesome to see him out there still. Yeah. I'll say one more thing about Ron, because this is a whole podcast, not a rhyme. We'll get back to the show show though. No, no, no, we're good. I'm just as bad. I, we make fun of Ron, because he took off work to go to his son's retirement party. We're like, get low of this. The dad's calling off to go to the son's retirement party. Oh, that sounds just exactly like him. Yeah. And, well, I'll tell you what, the truck show is a great thing. I wanted to get Jason or Jason's a, he's a key player in putting this on. I wanted to say thank you to him as a, as a personal friend a great guy. And I haven't got a chance to talk too much, but these people come in your life, they never leave. And, you know, it's, it's the impact here in one way, a positive way. This truck show, if you ever thought about this industry, you want to know anything about the industry, you need to go see this industry, because you're going to see the love, the capacity of these people have for vehicles. If there's anything you want to know about this industry, I guarantee you it's under that roof. We've got great speakers. I've seen, we got Beth on the CSA people.

18:21We've got, I didn't even know there's that many speakers there to be honest with you. And, I can't wait to see you there. I know we're going to put a pop-up tent next to, we're taking the show chart down there now and that. And, I believe you're taking a, you got a trailer. You got a trailer. You could hold behind your cab over, don't you? So, yes, we took an old furniture trailer. And, I don't know how we did it all these, all those years, working out of tents and half the time we were chasing them down in Cincinnati and Nashville with the wind. And, when I took it over, I just really was passionate about getting a trailer so that everything that we needed stayed in that trailer. That trailer was only used for shows. And, we would have the security of rain and wind and, you know, warm in the trailer. And, so, it's got tables and chairs and the girls tell you the votes and stuff in there. So, it's kind of like our office on wheels

19:22and we came to the match. And, these kind of got fresh for time on getting it ready. And, it really needed paint on the inside. And, one of my truck show buddies goes, why don't you just decorate it with truck show stuff? And, I had a bunch of stuff already. And, guys will give me their old porch lights or their boot box signs or old lights and plates. And, so, when you walk in there, it's somewhat of a museum of old lights and plates or, you know, boot box information or porch lights. And, it's just kind of fun to go in there and, you know, check it out. And, like I said, we kind of got rushed for time, but now that we've just kind of embraced it and there's just truck and memorabilia all over the walls in there. Well, I'll tell you what, that's even great. Let me ask you this one. I hired a media guy to follow me around that day and record our session. And, I told myself, if I could find a place to do podcast, we'll get a couple of people on podcast. Let me know if we can shoot a little bit of video in there. He can shoot a little bit of video catching inside

20:23of the trailer. Maybe we can do a 23-minute video. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. I'm gonna see if I can get, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna reach out now to, like Rebecca Brewster or some people who maybe sit in there and have him record. And, he can capture me in that memorabilia. That's awesome, super. I'm gonna dig up my stuff. I'm gonna see what I can bring in the hang on the wall. So, that'd be awesome. Like I said, there's guys that have given old pork slides and old, you know, license plates off their truck and it's just kind of fun in there. And if you want to do a video in there, we've got like two sets of tables that you can sit at and we did, we actually got an interview last year in it. And so, it's just kind of a fun place to hang out and the girls make it home for a week, you know. Excellent, excellent. Well, I tell you, I just want to make sure everybody knows starting next week, Mid-America Trucks Show. It is on, I believe the door is open. Thursday, the 26th, I do believe, midday, noon,

21:28wanna call, some like that, 11 or noon, something like that. I think it starts, don't owe me to this because I'm always outside. But I think it opens at eight or nine. If you have a VIP badge and then like it opens at one for the general public and if anybody's needing the VIP badge, come by and I'll give you one and you can go in and kind of beat the crowd. And you know, miss the strollers and the congestion if you're, especially if you've got key places that you're really wanting to see here and you know, talk to a vendor about something, you know, that VIP kind of gives you a little bird, a little faster deal there. Perfect. I'm gonna be doing that. I'm gonna go see the OEMs and then be visiting with people. Saturday, I got the media guy. We're gonna do some, we'll be doing some podcasts. Maybe we'll just grab people and jump in and have them sit in the house here for a little bit. But we got them all day. Tyler Kirk from Legacy Media, awesome dude. He does a lot for some big name people, some high parlor, your Ben Newman's and all that.

22:29I'm telling ya, he is the bomb when it comes to videos. So, all of you there, I'm telling ya, you have to be there. Jason's hard to believe but we've been going for almost 30 minutes. So, I wanna say thank you to everybody. I'll give ya, take a cup, miss anything you want and I'm gonna say goodbye to everybody and you stay on. I wanna give you a little love and appreciation before we hang out. So, I'm just gonna give it to you for a few minutes. Just hope to see everybody there. There's everything from a bottle of nothing to new trucks, new trailers, anything that you can bolt onto a truck, anything that has to do for trucking, it's there and you kind of see it in action. There's gonna, from the pictures I've seen, there's gonna be some of the nicest trucks that you've ever seen we're doing the build off again this year. One guy has shared with me the checkbook on that and you just can't believe how much money they can wrap up in that. But that's kind of what we want is an un,

23:29no holds bar, guys, building, it's big money class. It's guys that will throw money at that and the build off trucks never, never disappoint and there's four very well qualified guys that are gonna be in that this year again and there's gonna be some other trucks that are, you're just gonna, you're just gonna drop your jaw. It'll be nice to have your guys is show truck back in the ring. You know, it hasn't been down there in Louisville for a few years. So, you know, and it's always a crowd favorite. So I'm really looking forward to this year. I am too, I am super pumped. Well, Jason, I say thank you and everybody. Please find us at BeyondTheTruck.com. You can go to Matt's, Matt's, 2026 I think. Matt's truck show, I Googled it up early so I had it here. But you Google Matt's truck show, it's gonna be number one Google search. You get on there, it's got everything on it. It's a great website. And again, get down to Louisville. I look forward to seeing you.

24:30Be watching us walk around the Black hoodies. It says BeyondTheTruck and Orange. And Jason, I'll bring one. Just give me your size where we hang up and we'll be bringing you some. And I wanna say everybody, thank you for pouring into us. I know what people think. I'm telling you, mental health, physical health in this industry, we gotta get a turn around. We've gotta start loving these people that are pouring into our country and show up for us. We gotta start showing up for them. They've got a tough job. They've got a lot of things stacked against them. It's hard to be healthy. It's hard to have a long lifestyle in that road. But we've gotta get this turned around to make it attractive for these younger generations because I'm telling you, this industry has survived every depression recession, war, winter, summer. There is nothing that has survived like trucking. And transportation in this country is vital. These people have a special license just like your lawyers, your doctors, your surgeons, your pilots, they are skilled professionals and I love them dearly. Look forward to seeing y'all there. Thanks for always tuning into our podcast and be on the truck and reach out.

25:32Try to be on the truck.com. Jason, you stay on board and give you a little love before we hang up. Everyone else, you'd be safe out there. Thanks for having us, Jerry.