ROADBOSS Magazine

ROADBOSS Magazine Cracking yarns about the people who form the backbone of Australia's trucking industry.
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Charlie Schwerkolt grew up in the stands watching Brock and Moffat and never really left. These days he owns the team.Te...
04/09/2026

Charlie Schwerkolt grew up in the stands watching Brock and Moffat and never really left. These days he owns the team.

Team 18 is the V8 Supercars racing division of Waverley Forklifts, its cars hauled to events around the country in a stunningly liveried B-double behind a Kenworth T909. During Grand Prix week it gets even better, with Waverley machinery unloading F1 cars from planes and moving them to the circuit.

Can you make money running a Supercars team? Charlie doesn't flinch.

"You're doing well if you break even. We'll leave it at that."

Read the full story on ROADBOSS: https://roadboss.com.au/mister-motion/

—
Story: Steve Brooks
Photos: Thomas Wielecki & Mark Walker

Every year, before a single F1 car turns a wheel at Albert Park, Charlie Schwerkolt is already busy. Over 200 pieces of ...
02/09/2026

Every year, before a single F1 car turns a wheel at Albert Park, Charlie Schwerkolt is already busy. Over 200 pieces of Waverley Forklifts equipment building the circuit from the ground up. Concrete barriers, grandstands, pit lane infrastructure. And when it's all done, the whole thing in reverse.

He walked in with a proposal in 1996 when Melbourne first got the Grand Prix. They've been doing it ever since.

But for Charlie, the race week is just the headline. Behind it is a 50-year forklift hire business with 7,000 machines out on hire across the country, a fleet of Hinos and Kenworths keeping it all moving, and a Supercars team sitting directly behind the workshop in Mt Waverley.

"Apart from family, Waverley Forklifts comes first. It's what drives everything else."
Read the full story on ROADBOSS.

—
Story: Steve Brooks
Photos: Thomas Wielecki & Mark Walker

31/08/2026

Two hundred kilometres from the northern tip of Australia. The only way in for a 26-metre medical truck is a four-day barge trip around Cape York through the Coral Sea.

Dr Rolf Gomes didn't flinch. He's been taking world-class cardiac and respiratory care to the most remote corners of Queensland since 2014. Over 17,000 patients across 70 sites. And now, the world's first battery-powered mobile CT scanner parked in the middle of a bauxite mine in Weipa.

Because if the patient can't get to the clinic, you bring the clinic to them.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS:
https://roadboss.com.au/from-the-heart/

28/08/2026

Carl Tito's job was done the moment he rolled HEART 5 onto the barge in Cairns. From there, the 26-metre medical clinic would make the four-day journey across the Coral Sea and around Cape York to Weipa without him.

"I did start fretting as to whether it had sunk or fallen off," he says with a relieved smile.

Once it docked, Carl flew in, reconnected with his truck, and got back to work. Navigating one of the most remote mining towns in Australia, screening over 600 workers for lung disease.

Not your average truck driving job.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS.

26/08/2026

A 2019 DAF XF 530hp prime mover. A high-tech B-double trailer built by Brisbane-based Varley. Fifty-eight tonnes in total. The same width as a standard B-double on the highway, but open it up and it expands to 6.6 metres wide.

Inside, the world's first battery-powered CT scanner. Two generators. Solar panels on the roof. A fully equipped medical clinic that can park in a mine site or a cane field and have a miner walking up the stairs for a lung screening within minutes.

HEART 5 isn't just a truck. It's the most advanced mobile respiratory screening clinic in the world.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS.

24/08/2026

Most people working 200 kilometres from the northern tip of Australia can't just pop into a clinic for a CT scan. Getting to the nearest major centre means a 600-kilometre drive. So Dr Rolf Gomes brought the clinic to them.

Heart of Australia's HEART 5 is a 26-metre, 58-tonne mobile medical clinic carrying the world's first battery-powered CT scanner. Four days by barge from Cairns around Cape York to Weipa. Over 600 Rio Tinto workers screened. Lives changed, and some likely saved.

For driver Carl Tito, it's more than a truck driving job. "I know we've saved people's lives just in the results we are getting," he says. "It makes a big difference when we can take the CT to the patient."

That's what a truck can do.
Brown and Hurley Bridgestone Australia DAF Trucks Australia

Read the full story on ROADBOSS:
https://roadboss.com.au/from-the-heart/

Negative 10 degrees and windy. A town frozen in time with old pickups and timber storefronts. A warehouse that smells li...
21/08/2026

Negative 10 degrees and windy. A town frozen in time with old pickups and timber storefronts. A warehouse that smells like the ocean before you even see what's inside. And 22.5 tonnes of live Nova Scotian lobster sitting in tanks beneath the floor.

Thomas Wielecki's lens on the Bay of Fundy.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS.

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. Waters so dark they barely return a reflection. And somewhere in th...
19/08/2026

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. Waters so dark they barely return a reflection. And somewhere in the truckers' lounge of a 124-metre ferry crossing it, half a dozen burly Nova Scotians who haul the finest lobster on earth back and forth across the bay.

Harry Hunkin drove cross-country through snowstorms and border searches to find them. A 78-year-old still behind the wheel since 1976. A man headed to Florida with $2 million worth of lobster tails. And Ron, who pulled a nine-pound lobster from a tank beneath the floor and said it was probably going to China by morning.

Worth every kilometre.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS:
ttps://roadboss.com.au/lobster-luggers/

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Story: Harry Hunkin
Photos: Thomas Wielecki

17/08/2026

After a midnight run, a blown tyre, and a bridge that tested every inch of clearance, the Rizzo family home arrived at its final resting place in Blakebrook just after 1:30am.

High ground. Safe from the river. Safe from the memory of it.

Come sunrise, the two halves were brought back together, the gap slowly closing until the light between the floorboards disappeared and the house became whole again. Rob had already laid the foundations. The view over the dam was waiting.

"It's safe here, mate."

Read the full story on ROADBOSS:
https://roadboss.com.au/higher-ground-2/

A Volvo sprayer unleashing boiling black tar at 200 degrees. A Caterpillar roller flattening it all down. A crew working...
14/08/2026

A Volvo sprayer unleashing boiling black tar at 200 degrees. A Caterpillar roller flattening it all down. A crew working a stretch of highway so remote most Australians couldn't find it on a map.

This is what it looks like to keep the Northern Territory connected after one of the worst wet seasons on record.

Read the full story on ROADBOSS:
https://roadboss.com.au/critical-connection/

~
Story: Cobey Bartels
Photos: Thomas Wielecki

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