When Faye Lougher first spoke to Mark Wakefield at the truck stop in Levin, he was driving a 2007 Kenworth T404S carting a load of logs bound for Wellington on a CLS Feilding truck. He asked if she could wait until the following week to take his photo as he was getting a new truck. It‘s taken a few months to catch up with Mark again, this time at a forest on the edge of Levin, but now he‘s driving a 2017 Cummins powered Kenworth T409 with an Eaton Fuller 18-speed and McCarthy-built Highway Hound trailer. He‘s enjoying the new truck, saying it ‘s a bit better than the old one, has more power and is more comfortable. “I always liked trucks as a boy and I‘ve been driving trucks since I left school. Big rigs about 10 years, and 15 years all up.”

Mark says he loves the excitement of driving and the fact what he sees changes every day. “And the guys there are a good bunch to work with.” Mark couldn‘t really identify any problems in the industry – “not from a driver anyway”.

He chose vexing question number 77, would he rather go forarunoraswim?

“I‘m not really a runner, so I‘ll take a swim.”

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