The Manitoba Trucking Association (MTA) hosted its annual driver awards banquet, celebrating outstanding achievements within the trucking community and recognizing drivers for their dedication and safe driving records.
Top honors went to Jasvinder Brar of Bison Transport, who was crowned the MTA-MPI Grand Champion, and Mario Bulacso of Hylife, the MTA-Volvo Trucks Canada Driver of the Year for Manitoba.
Professional Truck Driving Championship
Brar took home top honors from the day’s Professional Truck Driving Championship (PTDC) with a score of 97 points above average in the tandem-tandem category. His colleagues from Bison also took first and second place in the team award category. Meanwhile, Bison’s Sergeii Linkevych took top honors in the tandem-day cab category and was the Hal Bjornson Memorial Award recipient, with a top score overall.
Other PTDC winners included Gurinder Singh (XPO Logistics) as the top rookie and Dave Mikkola (By’s Transport) in the super-B category.
Second-place recipients:
- Tandem-tandem: Prabhjot Randhawa (Bison Transport)
- Tandem-day cab: Gord Unger (Searcy Trucking)
- Super-B: Bruce McKechnie (Bison Transport)
- Team: Bison 2
Third-place recipients:
- Tandem-tandem: Brian Chandler (XPO Logistics)
- Tandem-day cab: Gurinder Singh (XPO Logistics)
- Super-B: Murray Manuliak (Bison Transport)
- Team: Thunder (XPO Logistics)
MTA-Inland Group Industry Excellence Awards
Among other notable awards, the MTA-Inland Group Industry Excellence Awards were given to 10 veteran drivers, who, all combined, boast over three hundred years of driving experience and over 37 million miles.
The winners
- Herb Martin (Arnold Bros. Transport)
- Don Taylor (Big Freight Systems)
- Donald Simonson (Payne Transportation)
- John Cooper (Searcy Trucking)
- Leonard Swedick (Penner International)
- Mario Bulacso (Hylife)
- Marshall Timmer (Arnold Bros Transport)
- Randy Bielik (Gardewine)
- Tatiana Kulish (Penner International)
- Timothy Loughrin (Penner International)