Drumroll, please … Meet your Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists

We’re at a dead sprint toward two of the biggest recognitions Overdrive makes annually, judges’ naming of two Small Fleet Champs in the 3-10 and 11-30-truck divisions of the annual competition. 

Here, meet the semi-finalists, fleets that will be narrowed to four to make the trip to Nashville, Tennessee, for the final round at the tail end of October at the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies, sponsoring the championship for the sixth year running.  

Competing carriers range from a specialized car carrier to several varieties of open-deck haulers (serving power utilities with specialized trailers, some moving oversize with RGNs, and more general-freight needs) and van carriers who’ve weathered the prolonged rates slump of prior years intact, thriving.

The Small Fleet Championship‘s long-running sponsor is the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. Find more about the myriad benefits of association membership via the NASTC website.Over the course of the next weeks, expect stories about all the semi-finalists ahead of announcement of the final four. Keep tuned for those features beginning this coming Monday and detailing success, challenges overcome, and plenty innovation in approach to time-honored practice in the business of trucking.

Without further ado, here are your Overdrive‘s Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists. 

TruckWise, Tremonton, Utah

Owner Kevin Haderlie started out as a self-described “trucking gypsy,” working load boards for the first six months or so in business with authority after first leasing to another flatbed fleet with his first turn as an owner-operator. A customer’s oversize equipment moves led him to invest in the right trailers for the job, and growth has followed for TruckWise to 10 trucks, with a couple more on the way before the year’s out.

Otto Transfer, Delano, Minnesota

The Minnesota Trucking Association’s executive leader calls Otto Transfer’s Kevin and Liz Otto the “dynamic duo” as current co-owners of a trucking business that’s celebrating 80 years since Kevin’s father Charlie hauled livestock starting in the 1940s in Delano. The fleet’s at 16 trucks today, about half sleeper tractors and half daycabs with loaders atop the cab as a prime tool for operators — and significant value-add for one among its most important customers, a manufacturer of power pole for utilities.   

McKinney & Sons Transfer, Lexington, Alabama

Owner David McKinney bought his first truck at 22 years old after having moved with his family from California to Alabama. He had cousins who drove trucks, but otherwise no real connection to the industry. “I bought my house on a Friday and a Peterbilt on a Saturday,” he said, leasing to a larger outfit at first and growing to four trucks. A 2001 bankruptcy forced him to rethink trucking in significant ways, bringing his wife full-time into back-office management, growing to between 15 and 20 trucks, where the fleet of show-quality Petes has ranged consistently for years. “We’ve come a long way from being just a poor, dumb truck driver,” he joked. “And now we try to run the equipment to show that.”

Leighton Transport, Jerome, Idaho

Leighton Transport has built a reputation across the Pacific Northwest as a dependable flatbed carrier that punches above its weight class. Running with 53-foot Maxi flatbed trailers to haul steel, lumber, and recyclable commodities, the fleet has scaled to 28 trucks (15 company drivers, 13 owner-ops) intentionally while maintaining financial independence and a driver-first culture. Originally operated under a three-partner structure, the carrier evolved after co-founder Randy Leighton retired. Today, Leighton Transport operates under 50-50 ownership between Andy Lott and Michelle Miller. Lott oversees capital equipment acquisitions and high-level strategy, while Payson Lott manages day-to-day operations.

KST Logistics, Manteca, California

Shannon Sanders, owner of Manteca, California-based KST Logistics, has been on a journey of stabilization for the last couple years. In 2024, KST’s founding owner-operator and Shannon’s husband, Ken Sanders, died during a tragic accident on a load site, hit by falling pipe, throwing the business the Sanders’ had built into turmoil. Since, she’s laid ground work for growth after slight contraction since, with six total drivers operating earlier this year, in efforts to build the team around her. “Ken used to say, ‘Let’s rock and roll,'” she said, and she lets his example guide her drive toward measured growth with open-deck, often-oversize freight. “We’re going to keep rocking and rolling.”

Get Cargo, Elk Grove Village, Illinois

The Chicago-area mostly owner-operator fleet Get Cargo‘s going on 20 years in business now, with a 10%-of-gross fee for leased owners, access to the company discount fuel network, likewise a network of shop vendors built up by owner Stevey Nikolov over years. He cut his teeth in Chicago trucking after coming to the U.S. first as a student (English major), then got immigrant status like so many Eastern Europeans at the time, working by 2005 for a trucking company in Elgin, where he had two trucks leased himself. By 2009, he was responsible for more than 100 drivers as a dispatcher and knew there had to be a better way, founding Get Cargo that same year in pursuit of measured growth since to 18 total trucks at year-end 2025. Originally from Bulgaria, Nikolov’s invested in support in additional staff, with two dispatch employees (one part-time) in Bulgaria, likewise a bookkeeper there and an office manager at Illinois headquarters.

Car Couriers, Cremona, Alberta, Canada

Car Couriers‘ 12 mostly stinger-steer car-haul units run a mix of new and used vehicles within Canada and cross-border from the port in Aberdeen, Washington, to points north, among a variety of other moves owner Gerry Neilon (pictured, left) and team keep their heads on a swivel for, rolling with market punches with dexterity. Company safety man and longtime trainer Ron Spring, a former owner-operator, put Car Couriers forward as a contender for Overdrive‘s Small Fleet Champ award this year. Spring described Neilon as modest perhaps to a fault for what he really is, the consummate businessman. A day out looking at equipment together, Spring recalled, “I’m looking at [a truck] — ‘What’s the original cost, other options, will this really work or not?’ As soon as I finish talking, Gerry’s got the net-net figured out.” The company also operates a service shop doing fleet and outside maintenance work in Calgary, nearby headquarters in Cremona.

[Related: Latest $9K parking-lot-trap truck tow: Turn state-local rules to your favor]