Owner/Driver #339

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“I know he’s capable and he can do lots of things but it would’ve been good to help him. Besides, I miss driving. A lot.” Pictured: The Cummins NH220 engine runs as sweet as it looks while the finish on the inside of the ’55 White is brilliant, right down to the rosewood fascia in the centre of the dash much work remaining but it’s a modest Quinten Mathie who casually mentions there was no shortage of work for two of his tanker combinations during the fires, hauling water almost non-stop over several months to fire tankers and large water pods used for reloading helicopter buckets. For driver and close mate Shannon Doherty, the fires came a tad too close for comfort as night and blinding smoke settled in on one particularly nasty day, punching a B-double load of fuel ahead of a fast moving fire front as Police were closing the road behind him. “The smoke was really bad and I never knew whether I would run into fire around the next bend,” he now calmly recalls. “There was no mobile phone service and the UHF was useless over distance. I just had to push on as hard as I could. “It’s something I’m in no hurry to do again, that’s for sure.” As Quinten adds though, these were difficult days and difficult things had to be done. The diesel bowser at the Mathie depot, for example, became one of very few refuelling points in the entire district for emergency services vehicles. Yet, no sooner were the fires out, then COVID-19 hit and, this time, with almost no traffic moving anywhere along the coast for months, the normally busy fuel haulage operation went into an unwelcome hiatus. “Like I said, the dynamics are entirely different and they can change very quickly,” Quinten remarks with a shrewd grin and a maturity that seems to have softened the abrupt and occasionally antagonistic mannerisms of earlier years. Still, it’s a familial trait that he does not suffer fools easily, setting high standards for himself and consequently, others. As his wife, Tennealle, attests from the Mathie office: “No one is harder on Quinten, than Quinten.” Likewise, a formidable work ethic either in the cab of a truck or swinging spanners in the workshop is a characteristic moulded in early childhood. “I have my own standards,” Quinten continues, “and I suppose that can make me hard to work for at times, so I have to remind myself that not everyone has had the same background or experience I’ve had. “The fuse definitely isn’t as short as it used to be, so I guess I’ve learned something about tolerance,” he says with a wry grin. Sitting quietly a few metres behind his son, Phillip listens and suddenly, the same grin appears. The similarities run deep and from somewhere in the cranial cavern, the thought hits me: ‘I never knew Bruce Mathie but I reckon he’d be proud. Very proud.’ 70 APRIL 2021 ownerdriver.com.au
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Owner/Driver #339

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