The New Frontier After two years in the T409, the power and performance of the 13-litre PACCAR MX engine earns strong recognition as Supercars Australia and Rosebrook Sand and Gravel describe how the 510hp behaves in transport and truck and dog applications. Like many close to the action at the Supercars racetrack, Jason Routley has a history of mechanical and driving experience. Growing up in Hawks Bay, New Zealand, he’s raced go-karts since the age of ten, and after his high school days he took on a mechanics apprenticeship in a workshop that specialised in motorsport. To broaden his credentials and earn a few spare dollars, he also kept busy behind the wheel after-hours, driving heavy haulage trucks. Jason’s decision to ‘cross the ditch’ from New Zealand to Australia at the age of 22 paid off. Over the past eleven years, he drove full time for Toll Express, before being given the nod to drive the mobile media centre transporter for Supercars Australia, where today he holds the position of Transport and Logistics Manager.
“Dad had a family transport business so I’ve always been into trucks and I followed the Supercars since I was a young fella. I’m passionate about the industry and that knowledge certainly helped me over the line with this job” Jason enthuses. In July 2014, Jason was given the chance to drive their old T409 down to Melbourne from Queensland, pick up a brand new T409, powered by a PACCAR MX-13 engine that produces 510hp and 2,500Nm of torque, and steer it straight back home to the Supercars Australia depot on the Gold Coast. According to Jason, the entire combination travels the country at 35 tonne gross, which the MX handles with ease. “The biggest thing that jumped out initially was the low-end torque,” Jason recalls. “It would just hold on at a low rpm on a climb. The performance is great in our work. It’s a good engine with good performance.” The mobile media centre transporter transits the country during the Supercars season and is a constant eye-popper at every place it visits. The Atrailer is decked out as an eight-seater boardroom to host meetings, while the B-trailer, with satellite broadcasting capacity, houses a kitchenette and LCD TV screens, comfortably seating 24 selected media personnel to keep up with every touring car race. “Our trailers aren’t fully maxed out but fuel consumption is really good. We fuel up at the same points every trip so I noticed the savings straight away.” As the official safety car driver, Jason drives what’s known as both the fastest and slowest vehicle on the Supercars racecourse, the Lexus eightspeed RC F 5.0-litre V8 coupe. He routinely has to fly out onto on the circuit after a caution occurrence, pick-up the leader, then cruise around the track between 60-120kmph, waiting for the incident to clear. He articulates the intensity of on-track activity…
“It’s a rush of adrenalin through the system, you know. You’re on alert, all your senses perk up and you’re sitting there waiting for a call from race control to hear where the accident is, how fast to go, and what car to pick up. But knowing that you’re in control of the race and having all those cars behind you trying to keep their tyres warm and revving their engines, it’s a really good feeling and it’s not something I’d ever change for the world.” Along with the privileged role of driving the safety car, Jason also drives the K200 which carries the support vehicles around Australia to each meet. Meanwhile, transport operator Steve Harry now takes responsibility as the primary driver of the T409. Steve started his driving career in another truck brand, and then moved into a Kenworth T909, where for six years he was pulling B-doubles, B-triples and roadtrains. He’s a man who loves driving a T909, and considers the T409 to be its ‘little brother.’ “It’s very compact and comfortable inside. It’s easy to get to the fuel tank, it’s simple to pop the bonnet, and you can reach in and get access to the air lines effortlessly. Everything about it is fundamentally practical,” Steve says. Steve also notes the power train of the PACCAR MX-13 engine reflects the energy of the Kenworth brand. “It’s the number one brand on the road as far as I’m concerned,” he states. “When you get to the face of a hill, it just digs deep, gets in, starts pulling, and doesn’t miss a beat.”
This system has influenced companies like Rosebrook Sand and Gravel, who predominately cart bulk materials from their own quarry sites to customers all over New South Wales. Company director Colin Jackson has had experience buying Kenworth trucks since 1997. “A major reason we’ve stayed with the Kenworth brand is we’ve got a local dealership (Gilbert and Roach, Newcastle) that we’ve had a relationship with for nearly 20 years. And when they provide a good quality product at a reasonable price, backed up with service and reliability, I think you build up a rapport,” Colin explains. Rosebrook currently owns three quarry operations in the Denman area of New South Wales, including two river quarries and a hard rock quarry. Part of their 15-strong Kenworth fleet includes six T409s fitted with PACCAR MX-13 engines, which are integral to pulling their 3-axle truck and dog combinations. Three of those rigs first hit the road in February 2015 and a second batch of three was injected into the fleet in March 2016. In total, the six units have clocked up just over a million kilometres with an average fuel burn of 2.2km per litre. “A couple of our drivers were hesitant to hop out of their 15lt rigs and get behind the PACCAR MX-13 but three months down the track those particular guys are saying to me ‘you’re not getting the truck back.’ It’s exceeded all their expectations. The PACCAR MX-13 does have a great torque range,” Colin says, “so they can run at reasonably low revs and we can still get good horsepower out of them.” The only horsepower around in the early 1900s was the four-legged kind. This was the era when the Jackson family’s road transport company first began, inspired by Colin’s great-grandfather who carted billiard tables on horse and cart from Sydney to Parramatta for a company called Erin and Smith. Two decades later, the Second World War was a turning point for Australia. After the threat of invasion, the nation went from being wool and wheat providers to large-scale industrialisation, and at this time, Colin’s grandfather began transporting building supplies. Later in the 1970s, Colin’s father cultivated the company by focusing on intensive work for Readymix concrete. In 1981, Colin’s father purchased Rosebrook Sand and Gravel, located in the Hunter Valley. Colin left school that year and went straight into the family business, where he’s been ever since.
“One of the key factors in running a business is the ability to resell your second-hand gear. The re-sale value and re-saleability of Kenworth has been very good for us and another key reason why we buy the brand.” In Rosebrook’s multi-million dollar operations in the foothills of the Hunter Valley, the recently purchased T409s take the burden of 48 ½ tonne gross loads, carting 450,000 tonne of quarry product each year. The business’s future is focused on replicating reliable service, which is what they have given to customers for more than 100 years. And it’s no coincidence Rosebrook appreciates the same loyalty in return. Colin explains…
“We’ve had customers in this business for 30 years who have been buying product off us and continue to do so. Likewise we do the same with our suppliers. The Kenworth/PACCAR package is profitable and productive; that’s why we’ve been buying Kenworth and dealing with the nationwide PACCAR network for so long.” All over Australia, the combination of the PACCAR MX-13 engine under the bonnet of the T4 series is earning an enviable reputation for both performance and reliability.