Fairbanks Daily News Minor

Fairbanks FedEx driver revving for truck championship

Instead, the Fairbanks-based FedEx driver will be spending his five-day vacation doing something a lot like the work he does back home. He'll get behind the wheel of a van and drive.

The stakes in Orlando, however, will be a little higher than meeting an overnight delivery deadline. For the second straight year, Hartshorn, 48, is among the drivers representing Alaska at the 2011 National Truck Driving Championships.

Hartshorn will face off against the best drivers in the country at the event, which will attract roughly 400 competitors from Aug. 9-13. But after spending the past eight years driving in frequently treacherous Interior Alaska conditions, he's confident he has the skills to compete against anyone.

"I think I have a chance at it," he said. "I've spent my time doing it."

Susan Chandler, the executive director for the event, said the championships are much more than a casual gathering for most of the participants.

"There's certainly camaraderie, there's mutual respect, but it's competitive," Chandler said. "If they win, you'll see grown men cry."

It's Hartshorn's second crack at the event. After winning the Alaska step-van category last year, he went on to the national competition in Columbus, Ohio.

The path to the national championships is considerably smoother for someone from Alaska, where drivers face a smaller number of competitors to reach the national stage. Hartshorn said he needed to beat about eight other drivers to win the step van competition in May at the Alaska Championships in Anchorage, which qualified him for nationals.

But that doesn't mean Alaskans get outclassed at nationals. Scott Watts, an Anchorage-based FedEx driver, won the straight van category in 2010. As a rookie last year, Hartshorn took a respectable 25th place in his division.

The competition is a three-part challenge. Drivers must complete a written test and pass a vehicle inspection that includes minor problems like a damaged windshield wiper or loose lug nut. They also need to complete six driving maneuvers -- the moves are being kept secret -- to cap off the competition.

The driving portion isn't flashy, but it does take plenty of skill. Hartshorn said the goal is to drive with "accuracy and precision" through courses and drills.

Hastings OpEd in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Expedite oil ...

“Utilizing our vast resources in Alaska and across the U.S. is an essential part of House Republicans’ effort to address rising gasoline prices, increase our national security, create jobs and strengthen our economy. We can significantly reduce our foreign energy dependence if we simply explore, develop and produce the resources in our own back yard.” By Rep. Doc Hastings

Last month, I had the opportunity to travel to Alaska to tour energy development projects with Gov. Sean Parnell and Rep. Don Young. We traveled to ConocoPhillips’ Alpine field, where we viewed the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, Kaktovik on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, where I attended a community meeting with local citizens, and Prudhoe Bay, where we viewed the trans­Alaska oil pipeline.

There is no question that Alaska is blessed with scenic landscapes and a vibrant ecosystem; however, it is also home to some of the most abundant energy resources in this country.

These resources, if responsibly harnessed, hold the potential to significantly strengthen American energy independence, create thousands of American jobs and generate billions of dollars in new revenue.

The NPR-A is one of the first places where I believe Congress should focus its effort. This 23-million-acre tract of land in northern Alaska was set aside, and remains specifically designated, for the purpose of providing oil and natural gas resources to the people of the United States. According to low estimates, the NPR-A contains 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 114 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and there is broad, bipartisan support for developing its resources. Even President Obama has acknowledged NPRA’s potential and has called for annual lease sales in the area.

What many people outside of Alaska don’t understand is that simply issuing lease sales — as the President has proposed — is not enough. At the heart of the problem is bureaucratic red tape that is blocking the construction of roads, pipelines and bridges needed to transport the energy out of the NPR-A. Companies are ready to produce oil and natural gas in the NPR-A but simply have no way of getting it out of there and delivered to the American people.

Recent efforts by ConocoPhillips to build a critical bridge in the NPR-A paint a grim picture of the regulatory hurdles delaying production in the area. This project has been tangled in red tape since 2008 and the Obama administration is delaying the issuance of a permit to allow the project to move forward.

Memorandum of decision and order, League of Women Voters of Alaska, Anchorage Daily News, and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, on Behalf of the People of Alaska, plaintiffs, v. Albert P. Adams, ... defendants, and State of Alaska, Defendant- Intervenor

Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, A Secret History of the Far North

Last great wilderness, the campaign to establish the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

49 at Last, The Fight for Alaska Statehood

The Fifth Avenue Center lease