Overdrive Radio

Overdrive

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

  1. 20% boost in fuel economy: Perfect timing for Trucker of the Month's new-truck investment

    19H AGO

    20% boost in fuel economy: Perfect timing for Trucker of the Month's new-truck investment

    Year 2025 was a rollercoaster downhill for Overdrive March Trucker of the Month Greg Labosky., headquartered in Connecticut. Coming off gains made during a relatively steady 2024 in the 2017 Freightliner purchased used several years prior, and with a semi-finalist nod in the Trucker of the Year competition, mechanical breakdowns yielded tens of thousands' worth in repairs. Copious downtime, too, of course. As he neared the end of payments on his nonetheless manageable note on the unit, he started afresh for 2026 with a brand-new truck you’ll hear about in this episode of Overdrive Radio for April 27, 2026. Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole told parts of the tale of Labosky’s fortuitous investment last month in this feature: https://overdriveonline.com/15820954 You’ll hear Cole throughout the podcast in conversation with the owner just a couple weeks into the huge fuel spike that followed immediately on the heels of U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran. Owner-operator Labosky hauls with authority exclusively in the Amazon Relay system, often moving under short-term contracts that adjust fuel surcharges regularly as well as offer toll reimbursements on expected routes in the system between pickup and delivery. With close scrutiny on the underlying linehaul rate, too, he's able to capitalize on opportunity to pocket extra revenues with fuel efficiency, smart purchasing and alternate routing, as the owner details. Freight in the system's kept him moving, he said when he and Cole spoke, but fuel prices where Labosky buys, away from the big truck stop chains, had already added $1.50/gal. to cross $5 . That was a far sight better than what he was seeing at bigger fuel stops in the region, some advertising north of $7/gal., even. Just why do we call his purchase of a new International LT tractor to replace the ailing Freightliner fortuitous? Labosky’s improved his fuel mileage considerably, by well more than mile per gallon already, not even past break-in. "Using the Moive system, which I use habitually to keep track of my fuel purchases, I've been averaging 7.9-8.8 miles per gallon," he said, between 16% to near 20% better than the Cascadia. Gains couldn't come at a better time. Dive into Cole’s full conversation here with an owner who’s truly on top of his trucking game -- minding Ps and Qs, learning the intricacies of mechanics, of contracting in the Amazon system -- with close attention to all the nitty gritty details of what makes a one-truck business truly hum. It ends with something between pep talk and warning for both himself and other owners, particularly younger owners early in their career and overwhelmed by the day-to-day grind, which he knows all too well. He referenced a conversation with his significant other, who as significant others are prone to do hammers home the need to keep building retirement savings. Labosky, 55, knows he's not getting any younger. Sticking to regular retirement savings as a truck owner-operator is hard for a myriad reasons, not least that "everyone's so used to working and grinding all the time," Labosky said. But "we all have to face the realization that we can't just work continuously. We have to start looking at the long-term end game. ... putting money aside for that." Social Security alone won't "make anyone a good living," he well knows. Start building that retirement nest egg now. Odds are you're going to need it. If you know your costs backwards and forwards like owner-operator Labosky, know that Overdrive’s Load Profit Analyzer tool https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer -- can be quick way to assess a rate offer’s potential profit level, not only per-mile or lump sum but per unit of time, too. Get your own business -- or nominate another owner to compete -- in the Trucker of the Year competition for 2026: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

    31 min
  2. What's your cash set-aside for truck/trailer maintenance? Now's the time to boost it

    APR 20

    What's your cash set-aside for truck/trailer maintenance? Now's the time to boost it

    "I think we're really there, where we've finally got tailwinds instead of headwinds." --ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted, speaking in this edition of Overdrive Radio about market fundamentals owner-operators face in 2026, despite the ongoing fuel shock. In this week's podcast, we’re tracking back through the full audio from our Partners in Business coproducer ATBS’s twice-annual updates charting trends in costs, in revenues and bedrock income for owner-operators: https://overdriveonline.com/15820459 Regular Overdrive readers will know this year’s update reconfigured slightly how the owner-operator tax and business services firm calculates the numbers, and you’ll hear detailed explanation of the changes today from ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted. Note that the Youtube version of this week’s podcast includes a way to walk through the entire presentation with all of Mike Hosted’s detailed slides charting market and owner-operator trend data, and that if you’re listening to our standard audio-only podcast on other platforms, you can download the full slides to follow along via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/15820610 Find the Youtube version via our website: https://overdriveonline.com/15822598 For more, too, from our time spent with Hosted at the Mid-America Trucking show late last month, look for a Youtube special report by Overdrive video editor Lawson Rudisill with Hosted story of the truly difficult situation in trucking of the last nearly four years and how, as you’ll also hear in this podcast, rates forecasts for 2026 may well hold true to the positive for all of us this year, for the first time in a very, very long time -- since at least 2021. "Why trucking rates are finally heating up in 2026": https://overdriveonline.com/15822613 There’s certainly a lot of hope amongst owner-operators on that score, even with soaring fuel costs, about which Hosted devotes plenty time in the presentation. There's a lot of positivity coming out of the operational trend data, all based directly on operational trends among ATBS owner-operator clients. But a few red flags pop out as well. Among the biggest: Real maintenance spend for the average owner-operator just keeps going up, and up, and up. As the truck ages, it’s going to happen. Yet it’s a sure bet, as Hosted notes, that if you’re not setting aside enough to cover that cost, disaster awaits. Big mechanical breakdowns and associated costs, including the downtime of course, are the No. 1 failure cause for owner-operated businesses in trucking. How bad has maintenance cost gotten? According to Hosted, in 2025 owner-operators spent upward of $14,000 on maintenance. Well more than a grand a month, $250-plus/week. For the average ATBS client, maintenance costs have topped 15 cents for every single mile run -- with an average client running roughly 94,000 miles in 2025. What are you putting aside for maintenance and/or for building that emergency reserve savings? If you haven’t boosted those set-asides in a while, there's no time like the present. A few resources to help: **Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer, a calcultor for comparing load offers and gaming out rates scenarios based on your costs: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer **Routine preventive maintenance pays owner-op dividends: https://overdriveonline.com/15736532 **Save money, and stay out of inspectors' crosshairs, with smart maintenance: https://overdriveonline.com/15736720

    1h 2m
  3. Smallest fault-code scanner in the world? Diesel Laptops founder honored in Howes Hall of Fame

    APR 13

    Smallest fault-code scanner in the world? Diesel Laptops founder honored in Howes Hall of Fame

    “Owner-operators want tools, small fleets want tools, to be able to do these things. And it’s not that they’re necessarily trying to save money, usually, but they want to save time.” –Tyler Robertson, founder of Diesel Laptops, on the success of his business providing software/hardware to truckers for self-help in the diagnosis-and-repair process Irmo, South Carolina-headquartered Tyler Robertson, head of the Diesel Laptops diagnostic hardware and software provider has striven for an all-makes focus since its early days, in use by untold numbers of owners as well as maintenance pros around the nation since he founded the company in 2015. In this week's podcast, walk through Robertson’s history and just what Diesel Laptops offers to truckers and shops to analyze fault codes, providing a diagnostic assist, even getting you to potential parts you might need to fix the problem. As Robertson suggests in the quote off the top -- tools to help service shops help you, as it were, with timely repairs. Robertson and Diesel Laptops make what might be the smallest fault-code scanner in the world, pairing via Bluetooth to a smartphone app that fills out information around diagnostic clues when the dash lights up. That Diesel Laptops "Diesel Decoder" has been around for a couple of years, but recent updates allow for new functionality Roberston details in this episode, including the ability to force regens if needed, likewise to one-tap from a fault code all the way to a part number. At the Mid-America Trucking Show last month, Diesel Laptops was lauded as the latest inductees in the Howes Hall of Fame, where the Howes Products company pays tribute to individuals and organizations truly making a difference in the trucking and farming businesses it serves, the wider industries , too. Even before official founding, Robertson was on something of a mission to democratize truck and equipment diagnosis and repair. It started as a side hustle the engineer built himself, selling tools online and elsewhere. As so many boostrapped companies’ stories do, Robertson's starts in the trunk of his car. "I used to go to truck stops and sling tools out of the back of my car," he said. "You've got to go where the customers are." Hear much more about Howes' reasons for honoring Diesel Laptops, and more of Robertson's story, in the episode. More about Diesel Laptops and past Howes Hall of Fame inductees: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15820626 The Howes Hall of Fame official site, where you can browse the virtual gallery of past honorees and suggest a future member yourself: https://howesproducts.com/hof More Overdrive Radio delivered directly to your email inbox: https://bit.ly/overdrivesubscribe

    18 min
  4. High time carriers vet the brokers: More from opening MATS panel on fraud fight, AI, more

    APR 6

    High time carriers vet the brokers: More from opening MATS panel on fraud fight, AI, more

    "Carriers have been vetted to death. ... For 20 years, carriers have been vetted, vetted, vetted. And brokers have not. There's no entry-level audit, no checking in every year like the carrier has to do. The carrier has a responsibility and an ability to start asking questions." --Dale Prax of Freightvalidate Asking questions, that is, to fully "vet the brokers," noted Prax, freight fraud watcher, FMCSA's onetime "worst critic," and proprietor of FreightValidate , a vetting tool offered to both carriers and brokers and unique in that regard. H spoke to the one-sided nature of vetting that’s gone on for decades now. In this Overdrive Radio edition, track back through the opening panel discussion at the Mid-America Trucking Show where Prax delivered those words. As was the case last year during the opening, the fraud in freight markets was a big part of the discussion. Our own Alex Lockie detailed the fraud focus in a report last week you can find at this link -- https://overdriveonline.com/15821288 -- featuring Prax and his work alongside so many around trucking to light a fire underneath regulators (and truckers and brokers themselves) on combating the bad actors. It wasn’t the only big theme coming out of this year's MATS. Panel moderator Brent Hutto, now working with Truck Parking Club, teed up another topic up at the very start -- the notion of AI, and what quick advancement in various forms could mean for freight relationships for owner-operators and trucking more broadly. Panelists included other voices regular readers will be familiar with, including past Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan of Silver Creek Transportation on his own growing adoption of automation for parts of his back-office processes. Yet Cowan also underscored the importance of really working personal relationships for any owner-operator looking to grow. "I would go to people and say, 'Hey I want to haul your freight,'" he said of his early efforts to ink shipper contracts. The answer, too often, was a question barked back to him, "Well how many trucks do you have?" In those early days, shippers were looking for fleets larger than his three trucks, yet he never lost an opportunity to offer to be the pressure-release valve for any who would listen. "Hey listen," he might say, "here's my card. When somebody drops the ball, give me a call." Thus was a meager start to long-term business relationships with a myriad customers. Silver Creek's up to around 75 trucks today after a recent acquisition, proof positive the approach at least can work to get you started, if you deliver. More about that acquisition: https://overdriveonline.com/15773179 There's more where that came from, likewise from the other panelists featured in an opening MATS session sponsored by Progressive Insurance and DAT Freight & Analytics: **Lee Klaskow, Senior Analyst, Bloomberg Intelligence **Jamie Hagen, Owner & President, Hell Bent Xpress: https://overdriveonline.com/15819686 **Bill Driegert, Executive Vice President, DAT Carrier Products + Convoy Platform **Sanjay Vyas, General Manager for Commercial Lines Product & Pricing, Progressive **Adam Wingfield, Founder & Managing Director, Innovative Logistics Group Also in the podcast, OOIDA Executive VP on the outlook for the broker transparency rulemaking (still hearing May from the FMCSA) and delay on drafting the next big highway bill in Congress. Partisan arguments over war, over immigration and so much more increase the likelihood Congress might kick the can down the road on the front, Pugh said. But time will tell. More ongoing coverage of news, custom trucks, analysis and more from MATS at this collection: https://overdriveonline.com/tag/mats

    1h 11m
  5. FMCSA fully engaged with owner-ops at MATS: OOIDA | DACA-recipient CDL holders have hope?

    MAR 30

    FMCSA fully engaged with owner-ops at MATS: OOIDA | DACA-recipient CDL holders have hope?

    "If you're really concerned about safety numbers, we want zero fatalities, we want all these things to happen ... we have to train people, we have to pay people, and we have to give them a safe place to rest. That's the first three things we should be doing, and until we do that, we're never going to fix highway safety. It's never going to get better." --Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh The good news is that, according to Pugh, FMCSA and the Department of Transportation more broadly are finally listening to truckers and other small-business interests in their push toward safety improvement, leaving behind old notions of a driver shortage. Pugh contends the notion has for decades influenced the credentialing and training system such that drivers are in effect rushed into the business, with too often terrible outcomes. Nowhere was new federal attitudes toward small business truckers in evidence more than at this year’s Mid-America Trucking Show, where regulators spent a great deal of time and effort communicating with owner-ops in attendance: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15820771 Also in the podcast, find more emphasis on OOIDA priorities with respect to the administration, and a rundown with Pugh in light of the broader freight markets, particularly after the dramatic escalation of fuel prices of late with the Iran conflict. We all found a measure guarded optimism among owner-operators in attendance, yet plenty of hope the conflict draws down quickly. Plus: We check in with Jorge Rivera Lujan, featured on Overdrive Radio earlier in the year regarding his and other plaintiffs' legal challenge to FMCSA's rule effectively eliminating most non-domiciled CDL issuance for non-citizens. Lewie Pugh got the opportunity to meet the independent owner-operator at MATS, and well knows that if the rule remains intact Rivera Lujan will lose his CDL and the current status of his business late in the year when the CDL expires: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15816105 Rivera Lujan was brought the U.S. as a child, and with another Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient was able to communicate his quandary at MATS to officials as high as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. In some ways, there could be hope for folks like him, owner-operators adversely impacted by the non-domiciled CDL rule change in effect since March 16. Plaintiffs in the case against the non-domiciled CDL rule have filed for expedited review by the court as of about a week ago, and time will tell on that front. Meantime, owners like Rivera Lujan and others impacted explore other avenues for their futures, his experience at MATS being an eye-opening one in regard to opportunities all around trucking. Pugh stands by the non-domiciled rule change as written, generally, yet also hoped "this is unfortunately the reality we live in in our country. ... Whatever we do it seems like it goes too far one way or the other, and innocent people who are trying to do the right thing get caught up in it," Pugh said. "People smarter than me write these rules and regs, and they probably have reasons we don't understand. "It's almost impossible to write a catch-all law. It's a shame for [Rivera Lujan]. Hopefully they get something in there to change that or that could help." As for the show itself, Lewie Pugh saw a measure of hopeful positivity among owner-operators there quite in spite of dramatic fuel run-ups, with a glimmer of hope on offer in market conditions after the long drought of the last three and more years. Much more from MATS in this collection: https://overdriveonline.com/tag/mats Sign up for Overdrive's newsletter *https://bit.ly/overdrivesubscribe* for more reporting from all around small-business trucking.

    39 min
  6. Heavy/oversize permitting, 'unplugged': Will there ever be a national system?

    MAR 23

    Heavy/oversize permitting, 'unplugged': Will there ever be a national system?

    The answers to the question in the title here came rapid-fire, and with certainty, from reps of six different state agencies with oversize and overweight permits responsibilities, amid much laughter from the assembled at the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association's transport symposium last month. To tally the answers up: four definitive 'No's, one 'Absolutely not,' and just one 'Doubtful.' Offering one of the nos was Alex Jensen, in permits with the Iowa Department of Transportation, who expanded on his and others' reasoning. Just as no two overdimensional loads are much alike, different states have different priorities, rules and infrastructures, as Overdrive's reporting around your Highway Report Card state road-maintenance assessments have also made clear in recent months. "All of our bridges are built to different standards, different ages. We have different engineers, different pavement," Jensen said. "Even the characteristitcs ... the geography, the road conditions, bridge conditions, it's all different." Unless the federal government were to mandate some unforeseen, next-to-impossible on-size-fits-all system, he added the 50-state-by-state permitting regime is probably here to stay. "I know it sucks, but it's just the way it is, unfortunately," Jensen said. Quipped Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles' Brandi Thorpe, "Unless we can get Jeff Bezos to AmazonPrime us a new structure," truckers and state permits officials are stuck with what they've got. The six officials were in conversation with ATS's Joanna Jungels (serving as moderator) at the SC&RA symposium, with plenty in the way of audience Q&A, too, where the back-and-forth really heated up with actionable intelligence. The full panel is featured in this week's edition of Overdrive Radio, offering insights and intelligence from these four additional state reps from an alphabet soup of agencies in addition to DMVs and DOTs: **Wyoming -- Port of Entry Operations Manager Troy McAlpine with the Wyoming Highway Patrol **Louisiana -- Permit Office Manager Julie Gautreau with the state DOT **Oklahoma -- Deputy General Counsel Mitch Surrett, also with his state's DOT **Indiana -- Judy Williams with Indiana's Department of Revenue You’ll hear a lot about increasingly super-complicated moves of superloads, still requiring lots of manual route planning, yet also how technology has enabled effective auto-issue in most states today at a very high rate. Learn, too, each state's approach to punitive actions for bridge strikers or construction-zone scofflaws. An audience member asked whether the states had a three-strikes or other cut-and-dried rule that might get a carrier banned from permit-issuance in the state. Most approached such on a case-by-case basis, with cutting off auto-issue access a common first step. Yet, noted Jensen, "hit a bridge, running without permits, kill a construction worker ... we'll go through the administrative suspension procedures if we need to, but I can count on one hand the number of times it's ever gotten that serious." More often, steps precede it, including more law enforcement escorts required on otherwise non-escort-necessary loads, if you needed other incentive to avoid drastic mistakes. "They do a full Level 2 inspection before you get moving, and they might find things you don't necessarily want them to find," Jensen noted. Catch Overdrive's most-recent "Niche Hauls" series installment on the heavy-oversize niche (from 2025) via this link: https://overdriveonline.com/tag/niche-hauls

    1h 2m
  7. Extreme cost, revenue volatility: Small fleet 'gun-shy' about future trucking investment

    MAR 16

    Extreme cost, revenue volatility: Small fleet 'gun-shy' about future trucking investment

    It’s been some kind of a year and more for Hell Bent Xpress owner Jamie Hagen. The South Dakota and Michigan-headquartered fleet he’s built from one truck over many years is back to 10 all-Mack power units after some reduction in the last, difficult year. Hagen was among Overdrive’s Small Fleet Championship finalists a couple years back. Along with past Small Fleet Champ Jason Cowan of Silver Creek Transportation in Kentucky, last year Hagen was tapped for the opening panel discussion at the big Mid-America Trucking Show: https://overdriveonline.com/15741773 The pair of champs will run it back in that panel to set the stage for small-business issues at the big show again this year. It's on the MATS schedule for early the morning of March 26 to kick things off, and for this week's edition of Overdrive Radio Hagen delivers a bit of a preview of what we’re likely to hear there: https://truckingshow.com/schedule/ Safe to say you can expect discussion of fuel economy and purchasing, given the last couple weeks. It’s so bad on the fuel front there’s evidence of owners just parking their trucks to wait it out. (A friend of mine here in Nashville took a car to the airport this past week. His driver: an owner-operator in just such a situation, who noted he was going to wait it out and just do the Uber-driving thing meantime. Gasoline, at least, is still a good dollar/gal. and more below diesel, even near $2 less in some cases.) Hell Bent Jamie Hagen’s got a not-so-secret weapon in his fuel arsenal in one of the first Mack Pioneers to roll off the assembly line last year. He's got a driver in it at the moment as he himself focuses with his wife and business partner, Hillary, on office duties. "He's been getting after it," Hagen noted of the truck's operator, who's "really good at fuel economy." The Pioneer, spec'd for max efficiency pulling a van, averaged 9.8 mpg for the last month. While that's a whole lot better than 5.8, Hagen noted, the Iran war and the diesel run-up since just wasn't "on the bingo card" looking out at prospects when planning for 2026. Even with excellent efficiency, the fuel-price hike of the last two weeks virtually erased gains in brokered rates he'd seen since the Fall. It's all made him "gun-shy," to an extent, about future investments, given Hell Bent's push to ever-more-efficient equipment with five more Pioneers acquired last year to replace older units. As he put it, "you just never know when the bottom's going to fall out" with cost and revenue volatility as bad as it's been. With good direct freight and rates coming out of the Dakotas, a project this year will be to identity customers for the return trips to further cut the reliance on brokers, Hagen notes in this week's episode, where we touch on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's broker transparency and other regulatory efforts, and much more. More upcoming at MATS in this collection: https://overdriveonline.com/tag/mats

    31 min
  8. Trucker of the Month documenting the owner-operator journey, and: Diesel! Diesel! Diesel!

    MAR 9

    Trucker of the Month documenting the owner-operator journey, and: Diesel! Diesel! Diesel!

    Off the top of the podcast this week, the voice of February Trucker of the Month Adam Mackey, headquartered in Mustang, Oklahoma, about his "Aftersolo" Youtube channel where's been documenting his journey through owner-operated trucking since 2022. Named after his dog, Solo, whom he'd sadly lost around that time, Aftersolo features plenty in the way of DIY care he's put into the Freightliner Columbia and Utility flatbed that carry the Mosermackey Trucking business forward. The channel is a remarkable repository for various and sundry of the owner-operator’s maintenance and modification projects on the Columbia, likewise all manner of other topics around the business. First things first, though. It's been a week, to say the least, in the world oil markets. If you’ve been paying attention to OverdriveOnline.com you’ll note an update that diesel prices passed $4/gal. early last week in Nashville where Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills is headquartered, fast on the heels of U.S. and Isreali strikes on Iran: https://overdriveonline.com/15818628 Today (Monday, March 9) Dills reports predictions of a "runaway market" in that story a week ago appear correct. "We’ve passed five dollars for a gallon of diesel here" in Nashville, Dills says, "well above six out on the West Coast of course and elsewhere." If you’re in a leased operation or working with shippers where you benefit from fuel-surcharge rate adjustments, here’s hope those are updating quickly to cover rapidly increasing costs. If you’re working with brokers, don’t be shy about educating them in your negotiations, such as they may need it, about cost-offset needs in the rate. For many independents like Adam Mackey, it's surely been a week full of that, and it's a real shame the diesel run-up has come when it has, given the gains in freight-market strength in the last several months. This all certainly throws a wrench in those gears: https://overdriveonline.com/15818852 Keep tuned to OverdriveOnline.com for more quite soon on how quickly spot markets adjusted, or not, to last week’s dramatic run-up. For the bulk of the podcast, hear independent Mosermackey Trucking business owner Adam Mackey’s story, in his own words, also chronicled in this feature attendant to his February Trucker of the Month nod a couple weeks back: https://overdriveonline.com/15817984 In business with authority since before the COVID pandemic, after years hauling as a company driver with Old Dominion Freight Line and some other outfits before that, Mackey's trucked with authority from the very start and has focused most on flatbeds loads, filling in with power-only work of various types, too. He’s set up with a go-to broker he’s built a solid relationship with for much of his oil-field-related freight today, sure to benefit at least from oil market run-ups in the short term, despite added costs for his and every other trucking business out there. Mentioned in the podcast: **Enter your own or another deserving owner-operator business to compete for the 2026 Trucker of the Year award: https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker **Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer: https://overdriveonline.com/load-analyzer

    34 min
3.8
out of 5
27 Ratings

About

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

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