Generation Y-ine Truck driver Harri Evans loves his office with a view. “IT SENDS shivers down your spine when you hear a nice sounding truck,” says Harri Evans, who is surely one of the most dedicated drivers in Marlborough this harvest. The 22-year-old was fixing up vehicles well before he had his licence, had built his own race-car by the age of 17, and has a boundless and contagious enthusiasm for big shiny trucks and the chance to drive them. “You are sitting there doing what you love and get to look out the window all day,” he says with a smile. The former courier driver has spent the past three months training with Renwick Transport’s Hayden Blicks, learning to drive a road ranger gearbox while carrying a “live load”, in preparation for carting the notoriously difficult cargo of grapes. That means learning to deal with Marlborough drivers, whose hesitant approaches to roundabouts are a nightmare for truckies, says Harri. “A lot of people lack common sense, especially when they get behind the wheel, which is unfortunate because it’s generally other people that pay the price for it.” That makes it hard for vintage drivers, but they are prepared, he says. For Renwick Transport drivers, that includes a self-imposed speed limit of 40km/h in town, and driving to accommodate the blind corners leading up to several of Blenheim’s roundabouts, where grape spills are common over the harvest. Those spills can cost the driver, the trucking firm and the wine company, and Harri is determined to do everything he can to avoid one 24 / Winepress April 2017
this season. “I will be slowing down, so I am basically in the gear where I can safely stop in time or go through by the time I hit the white line. There’s no need to go any faster with a live load like grapes. You’d be amazed what that extra 10km/h would do.” He sees this year’s vintage work as a step up to a career as a truck driver, like his brother, who drives an International - the kind of truck that brings those shivers to Harri’s spine when he’s along for the ride. Harri takes his career very
“You are sitting there doing what you love.” Harri Evans seriously, preferring not to listen to the radio while he drives, so he can concentrate on the sound of the truck, and know exactly how it is running.
“At the moment my main focus is on becoming a full time professional driver, and taking in all I can at these early stages.” As well as the trucks, Harri enjoys meeting people along the way, particularly over vintage, when Marlborough fills up with international workers. “Everyone is rotating shifts, so there’ll be a whole heap of new faces every day.” And he loves the sense of community amid the trucking fraternity. “A lot of people see us, I guess, as a ratty bunch – you think of your truck driver and he has a big beer gut.” But the reality is a far cry from perception, he says. “I am covered in tattoos, but I am a nice guy. We’re a big family out here.”
