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BIG MIKE’S FREIGHT REPORT

$6+ DIESEL CHANGES THE GAME — IT DOESN’T END THE GAME

Owner-operators, welcome to another week in trucking — where apparently diesel decided that being expensive wasn't enough. Now it wants to become a fucking business partner.

Every time that fuel nozzle goes into the tank, it feels like somebody should at least buy us dinner first.

And I'm not going to bullshit anybody about it.

High diesel hurts.

When diesel gets into $6 territory, fuel can easily approach a dollar per mile depending on your truck's MPG and what you're actually paying after discounts. Run 3,000 miles and you're talking about thousands of dollars going through the fuel tanks before we even discuss truck payments, insurance, maintenance, tires, trailers, taxes, or whatever mechanical surprise your truck has planned for Tuesday morning.

That's real money.

That's a real problem.

But here's the part everybody seems to forget:

LOOK AT THE FUCKING FREIGHT.

I went through our actual Voyager freight from the week ending September 19.

Not DAT fantasies. Not somebody's Facebook screenshot. Not some guy sitting at a truck stop telling everybody what he supposedly made in 2018.

Freight we actually moved.

Macon, GA → Cleveland, TN: 209 miles, $1,300 — $6.22/mile.

Hanover, PA → Jersey City, NJ: 201 miles, $1,200 — $5.97/mile.

Greenville, MS → Shreveport, LA: 222 miles, $1,300 — $5.86/mile.

Clinton, IA → Winona, MN: 217 miles, $1,250 — $5.76/mile.

Paducah, KY → Dallas, GA: 365 miles, $2,000 — $5.48/mile.

And it wasn't just a couple of unicorn loads.

College Park, GA → Lakeland, FL paid $2,200 for 450 miles — $4.89/mile.

Juliette, GA → Tampa, FL paid $1,900 for 395 miles — $4.81/mile.

Greenville, OH → Fredericksburg, VA paid $2,550 for 542 miles — $4.70/mile.

Longer freight produced money too. Huntley, IL → Breinigsville, PA paid $3,400 on 782 miles — $4.35/mile. Langhorne, PA → Lakeland and Cherry Hill, NJ → Lakeland each paid $4,500 on 1,059 miles — $4.25/mile.

So yes, diesel is kicking us directly in the balls.

But the freight market is not dead.

THE SWEET SPOT — NOT THE SHORTEST LOAD

I want to make something very clear here.

When I talk about shorter freight being productive, I'm not telling owner-operators to become local drivers.

For the average owner-operator, a 100-mile load can look absolutely beautiful on paper.

$600 for 100 miles?

Holy shit! Six dollars a mile!

Then reality shows up.

You drive to the shipper. Wait two hours. Get loaded. Drive 100 miles. Wait another two hours. Get unloaded. Start looking for another load. Maybe the pickup appointments don't line up. Maybe there's nothing worth taking until tomorrow.

Congratulations.

You made $6 a mile and $600 for the fucking day.

That's why you cannot build your entire business around RPM.

Rate per mile matters. Revenue matters. Time matters. Utilization matters.

For the kind of operation we run, the sweet spot is often around 400–600 miles.

That's enough distance to generate meaningful revenue while still being short enough that a properly planned truck can deliver, reload and keep producing instead of disappearing underneath one 1,500-mile load for the next three days.

And our actual freight shows exactly why.

Greenville, OH → Fredericksburg was 542 miles for $2,550 — $4.70/mile.

Wapak, OH → Statesville, NC was 481 miles for $2,050 — $4.26/mile.

Port Wentworth, GA → Milton, FL was 472 miles for $1,900 — $4.03/mile.

That's the freight we're hunting.

Not necessarily the shortest load.

Not necessarily the longest load.

The most productive load.

A 100-mile load paying $6 per mile isn't automatically better than a 500-mile load paying $4 per mile.

One grosses $600.

The other grosses $2,000.

I'll take productive revenue over a sexy RPM screenshot any day.

HIGH DIESEL CHANGES THE MATH

At $3 diesel, you can survive some mistakes.

At $6 diesel, mistakes become expensive very fucking quickly.

Cheap freight combined with expensive fuel is poison.

You can't control the price displayed on the truck-stop sign.

But you can control a hell of a lot around it.

Which freight you run. How much deadhead you accept. Where you fuel. How much you pay for fuel. How efficiently you run your truck. How long you sit. And how much revenue you generate with the hours available to you.

That's why a good fuel program becomes incredibly important when diesel gets expensive.

If your carrier's fuel card saves you 25 cents per gallon and you buy 400 gallons, that's $100 staying in your pocket.

Save 50 cents?

That's $200.

Do that every week and we're not talking about coffee money anymore.

We're talking about thousands of dollars a year.

Use your fuel program.

Plan your stops.

Don't buy 150 gallons at whatever truck stop happens to appear when your fuel light scares the shit out of you.

You're running a business.

Act like you're buying inventory, because essentially you are.

AND HERE'S THE OTHER SIDE OF OUR RATE SHEET

Voyager isn't going to cherry-pick five great loads and pretend every load in America pays $5 per mile.

Because that's bullshit too.

Our own report shows freight at the bottom of the market.

Lakeland → Carrollton, TX: $1.88/mile.

Lakeland → Mobile, AL: $1.84/mile.

Miami → DeFuniak Springs: $1.82/mile.

Orlando → Statesville: $1.76/mile.

Ocala → Mebane: $1.75/mile.

Lakeland → Elkton, MD: $1.71/mile.

That's trucking.

Some markets suck.

Some lanes suck.

Some days suck.

The trick isn't finding a magical world where every load pays $4.

The trick is putting the entire week together.

Sometimes a cheaper load positions your truck into a market where the next load pays extremely well.

Sometimes it doesn't, and you leave the cheap shit sitting on the board.

Sometimes the best business decision you make all day is saying:

NO.

That's why you need experienced people around you who understand markets instead of somebody blindly clicking the highest RPM number on the screen.

STOP JUDGING YOUR BUSINESS BY ONE LOAD

This is where owner-operators get themselves into trouble.

Monday sucks.

Diesel is $6.

Broker pisses you off.

Dispatcher sends you something you don't like.

You get a repair bill.

And suddenly by Tuesday afternoon:

"FUCK TRUCKING. I'M SELLING THE TRUCK."

Slow down.

I've been doing this long enough to watch trucking die about 37 fucking times.

And somehow Monday morning comes and we're still here.

Markets move.

Fuel moves.

Capacity leaves.

Rates change.

Customers change.

Seasons change.

Nothing stays the same forever.

The owner-operator who survives isn't necessarily the guy with the newest Peterbilt, the biggest engine or the loudest mouth at the truck stop.

Usually it's the one who can take a punch without making a permanent decision based on a temporary problem.

THIS WEEK, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Protect your rate.

Use your fuel discounts.

Watch your deadhead.

Watch your hours.

Keep the truck moving.

Look hard at that 400–600 mile sweet spot where you can generate strong revenue and still reload efficiently.

Don't chase miles simply because somebody offered you 1,500 of them.

And don't become a local delivery truck chasing $6-per-mile 100-mile loads while grossing $600 a day.

We're looking for productive miles.

We're looking for revenue.

We're looking for a truck that finishes Friday having produced enough money that after fuel, expenses and everything else trucking throws at us...

there's still money left for the owner.

Because ultimately that's the only scoreboard that matters.

Diesel can go up.

Freight can go down.

Brokers can play games.

The market can scare the hell out of everybody.

But as long as the truck is producing profit, you're still in business.

And remember something else:

No suffering lasts forever.

Fear will tell you to stop.

Fear will tell you everybody else knows something you don't.

Fear will tell you to abandon the business you've spent years building because this particular month looks scary.

Don't let fear make your business decisions.

Do the math.

Adjust.

Survive.

Keep moving forward.

Because nobody is coming to save your business.

YOU ARE THE SAVIOR OF YOUR OWN FUTURE.

$6 diesel changes the game.

It doesn't end the game.

See you next week.

— Big Mike
Voyager Nation

2 days ago | [YT] | 4