The Ride & Drive event at the Green Fleet Conference in Phoenix Oct. 1 gave attendees a chance to drive everything from Segways and an electric Smart Car to bi-fuel heavy-duty pickups and a medium-duty electric hybrid. Here's a sampling of the cargo vans and commercial trucks on display.

The natural gas version of the Freightliner Cascadia 113 is every bit as capable as its diesel sisters. Check out Equipment Editor Jim Park's photos.

Taking the Cummins Westport ISX12 G for a ride in the Kenworth T800.

The Technology & Maintenance Council of ATA said 128 technicians from around the U.S. won their way to Pittsburgh for the 2013 SuperTech competition by topping hundreds more competitors in state-level contests. SuperTech, now in its ninth year, is the highest level in the nationwide competition that encourages talented young people to become truck technicians and honors them for their prowess. Photos by Marsh Galloway, courtesy of the Technology & Maintenance Council, http://tmc.trucking.org.

HDT Editor Tom Berg recently took a Test Drive of the Terex FDB6000. Check out the slide show of this front-discharge mixer.

Kenworth hosted several medium-duty truck editors and journalists at an event in the Seattle, Wash., area, including a drive on their technical track in Bellevue, Wash.

There's a new winning lineup of Best of Show winners and runners-up in this year's Shell Rotella SuperRigs Contest, because the previously announced winner was found to not meet all the eligibility requirements for a working truck and trailer.

World-class brakes don't happen by accident. Meritor has invested millions of dollars in its air disc brake research and development program at its Cwmbran Wales manufacturing facility. Engineers gather data from 14 testing clusters to reveal areas for potential improvement. The in-lab testing is validated by field testing. The result is an air brake that deployed around the globe is dozens of different applications. Here's a glimpse of some of the testing Meritor employs.
- Photos by Equipment Editor Jim Park

In the March issue of Heavy Duty Trucking, Equipment Editor Jim Park took readers for a ride with Meritor's 6x2 SmarTandem single-drive-axle tandem configuration in Michigan's upper pennisula in February. As he puts it: What better place to traction-test the system?
CLICK HERE to read the full story about Jim Park's test drive of the system.

Inland Truck Parts is an independent parts and service operation, but it says the quality of its technicians rival that of OE dealers. Its latest commitment to that is a new 15,000-square-foot training facility in Olathe, Kan., a Kansas City suburb.

Equipment Editor Jim Park takes us on a tour of Volvo Trucks North America's New River Valley truck assembly plant in Dublin, Va. Shown are a few key steps in the assembly process, from welding the cab together to the finished product driving off the assembly line under its own power.
