GREEN FOR GO
Like his dad, 32-year-old Kane grew up in Bethlehem in the Bay of Plenty (See Pathway and passage further on). He went to Bethlehem Primary, Tauranga Intermediate and then Tauranga Boys College. And like his dad, Russell, he too started an apprenticeship in an attempt by his parents to demonstrate opportunities beyond the truck cab. This time it was plumbing. But like his dad and uncles, the desire beneath the surface was to get behind the wheel. When the GFC started to bite, his employer couldn’t keep him on and the apprenticeship ended, releasing Kane to the industry he really wanted to be in.
“You’d be on the plumbing job and hear a Jacobs brake or engine and you’d look up. It was always going to be trucks,” Kane says.
His parents wanted him to get some work and life experience in other firms, so his first job was with Bay of Plenty Asphalts on four- and six-wheelers.
“Like all young fellas, I wanted to get on the big gear, but you end up a better driver starting on the smaller stuff.”
Once he had his trailer licence in hand, he started looking beyond truck-only work, eventually taking a position at Taylor Brothers Ltd in Katikati driving a Mitsubishi Shogun chip liner truck and trailer. It was all precious experience.
Then a first big break. Then operations manager at Linfox Bulk, Pin Te Huia, offered
Kane a berth on a Freightliner Argosy Bi-fold.
“That was great experience, and the fittest I’ve ever been,” he laughs. “Covering was a daily part of the job. I was pretty lucky to be in a truck like that at 22 years old. They kept the work up to you and I made real good money for my age.”
Following the log-deck came a tractor and flat-deck quad. After three years at Linfox, it was time to move on and he took a position with Ray Lincoln in Tokoroa.
With a couple of years under his belt there driving a Western Star truck and trailer, the plan was for he and partner Simone to do an OE in Europe for three years. That became four months when Ray offered a new Kenworth T409 truck and trailer on chip and bulk tip work.
But then came the call from home. Russell needed surgery on a shoulder that wasn’t co-operating, and so Kane jumped on the Western Star, Matariki.
“That was supposed to be temporary until Dad got better. We had intentions to go to
Aussie for a while after that, but the shoulder was so buggered the surgery wasn’t going to work.
“I started driving for
Dad in 2016 and we began discussions about succession soon after that.”
In 2017, Kane took over Matariki, transitioning at that time from Challenge Carrying Company, which his parents had been part of, to AZTEC Forestry Transport Developments.
“The Challenge work had a lot of short leads and I was looking for more.”
A friend who was contracted to AZTEC pointed Kane in their direction.
“There seemed to be better opportunities and my mates there [AZTEC] spoke very highly of the place.”
He discussed it with his parents, and applied for a position.
“Man, it was the right decision to make. I mean Challenge is gone now, and AZTEC have been everything I was told. It’s got a great culture, very energised and keen people, keen to work.
“Plenty of variation too, we go to lots of different places. I can’t fault them, and the growth in the place over the time I’ve been there is testament. Peter [Phillips], Ken [Angus], and Steve [Segeten] have all been and done it, you know? That makes a difference.”
It’s the old story over again. Hard work and energy yields results. Kane and partner Simone have a brand new asset in Tumai that will serve them well, and Simone herself is completing a law degree; suffice to say, two-year-old Isla will not be short on work ethic.
I wonder if they’ll make her do an apprenticeship before she starts driving? product so well. He said,
‘we’ll build you the truck I’d build for myself doing this work’, and I can’t fault it.”
Obviously, the power to weight ratio is great in this set-up. With 448kW (600hp) on tap, that’s 10kW/tonne (13.3hp/tonne), it’s in the same league as the Talley’s Scania in the Dec 20/Jan 21 issue.
Torque comes in at 2779Nm (2050lb/ft) between 1200rpm and 1600rpm.
On road, all that means great progress, handy when the Kaimais are a regular call on Kane’s weekly – if not daily – work schedule. The tightest pinch on the western climb was rounded up in 5th high, at 1800rpm and 35kph. Kane’s style is akin to Craig Kelly on the Uhlenberg T610 we went for a strop in back in April 2019, suffice to say when it’s game on, Tumai is kept spinning north of 1600rpm.
The downside of all that climbing … meaning the roller-coaster eastern flanks of the Kaimai range, was kept well in check by ‘Mr Jacob’s’ famous engine brake. Tumai glided down happily with the engine able to deliver as much ‘whoa’ as ‘go’ at a hearty 447kW (600hp). Kane’s need to intervene with service brake input was minimal.
No, it’s not in the league of the modern retarders, but then he might just be able to stop for the stranded car in the middle of the lane around the blind corner.
Fuel burn in the truck’s short 40,000km life sits at around 1.92kpl, which sets it up well for a better than 2.00kpl as things settle in. How did we get that number from a Kenworth not fitted with a data interface like that T610 or 410? Glad you asked. Tumai has a Cummins Data Display. A fantastic piece of kit developed to replace the Road Relay 5. The unit fits right in aesthetically and delivers everything from realtime engine stats, fuel burn, faults, fuel and DEF levels, trip times, engine-life operational numbers, as well as service information based on user parameters set by the owner.
The unit will also go into the 9870 International.
“It’s great,” said Kane. “I have it showing speed and RPM gauges most of the time, it’s more accurate than the main gauges.”
With the load off at the Mount, it was a quick dash out to Pine Logging Ltd who were clearing a small woodlot in the bottom of a nasty wee gully behind an orchard in Te Puke. Yes, it was a steep access road, but it wasn’t settling down either, and a few of the trucks had needed a hand getting out. Being the classic configuration with the appropriate locks engaged and the drive tyres in climb mode, Tumai had no trouble.
Open country
Such is the diversity of Kane’s work, the next day we find ourselves high on a hill above Mercer, on another farm woodlot loading out of the Kreuz Logging operation. We discuss the purchase and set up of Tumai.
“The Star was getting on. It hadn’t missed a beat and I’d had the engine opened up and looked at because I was getting paranoid that something must be going to happen. It was mint and the guys doing it said there was nothing wrong. But AZTEC also have a 10-year age limit
on the contractor trucks, and that’s fair enough. I thought long and hard. There’s a lot of cost that comes with 9-axle HPMVs and there’s still an element of work trucks like this are ideal for; woodlots on secondary roads, that sort of thing. I put a proposal together for what I thought would be productive and affordable. Ken Angus [AZTEC Forestry Transport Developments co-founder and director] was great. He supported my case, and it was approved.”
Kane’s right. In this line of work not all roads lead to HPMV nirvana and a 6x4 and 4-axle can be the gnarly woodlot king, heading up ‘Whereever Road’, leaving HPMVs to do their thing. Anyway, HPMV is open to interpretation. If you have a 9-axle truck carting out of a road that prevents it loading to capacity and another truck built to optimise payload on such a road, who’s the HPMV?
Running at 45 tonnes with a tare of 16,300kg gives Tumai a 28,700kg payload. That’s handy considering there’s nothing special needed on the paperwork front, two fewer axles, and six fewer tyres. With the right permitting, the unit could go to 51,000kg, but routes become an issue again.
Aside from one gateway, the skid wasn’t difficult to get to and another superb grapple operator had the unit loaded in no time. Kane pulled away across the farm, had a bit of jiggle at the tight gateway, and progressed toward the road.
Life is a highway...
…and we don’t doubt, given his pedigree, that Kane Bennett is going to ‘ride it’ for a long time indeed. Many of those kilometres over the next few years at least will be spent looking down the bonnet of the T909 Kenworth he’s bought and dedicated to his late uncle.
Harking back to the start of this part of the story, his Dad Russell commented on Kane’s inner side, a thinking man’s man, and while he’s built a machine that in artistic terms is an expression of his love of the industry, it’s also a truck that makes sense.
No configuration has ever proved itself in the bush to the extent a 6x4 and 4-axle trailer has. No powertrain has ever proved itself beyond Cummins, Roadranger, Meritor, and Hendrickson,
especially when it comes to bang for buck. And in terms of chassis, Kenworth has nothing to prove when it comes to negotiating a truce between longevity and torturous.
Built to cart as many logs as possible, from anywhere, with minimal fuss, and as cost-effectively as possible … yep, this man’s definitely the next generation of the Bennett legacy in every way.