Washington — PodWheels, an award-winning podcast network dedicated to spotlighting the trucking industry, has been selected by the American Trucking Associations to serve as the official podcaster of the 2025 National Truck Driving and National Step Van Driving Championships.
As part of its collaboration with ATA, PodWheels will be producing as many as 100 episodes of the production company’s NTDC 2025 Road To Minneapolis podcast series this year. PodWheels, which made its first trip to the NTDC in 2019, has continued to expand its coverage of the national championships and the state truck driving championships. Since its first NTDC release in 2019, PodWheels has produced over 150 episodes of the series.
“Our entire PodWheels Team is extremely honored to know that ATA has placed its trust in our company to have our Road To Minneapolis series serve as the official podcast of NTDC 2025,” said Greg Thompson, the Founder and Executive Producer of PodWheels. “We hold a great respect for everyone involved in the NTDC program across the country, and we value each opportunity that we have to share the stories of the nation’s top professionals behind the wheel. We also believe that it’s important for our NTDC 2025 series to provide the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the organizers, volunteers and the teams of people who are dedicated to making the trucking industry’s most inspirational and longest-running safety program happen every year.”
Hosted annually by ATA, the NTDC has a history that dates back nearly 90 years. To qualify for the national championships, professional drivers must finish first within one of the nine vehicle divisions during their respective state truck driving competitions. To be eligible to enter the state championships, each driver must remain accident-free for one year prior to the competition. Drivers who win a state championship and qualify for the nationals must also maintain an accident-free status prior to the national championships.
The overall competition—which is overseen by ATA’s Safety Management Council, the NTDC Organizing Committee and the state associations across the country—typically inspires between 4,000 to 5,000 professional drivers to enter the state championships, producing the NTDC field of competitors that averages around 435 top professionals each year. The state truck driving championships typically begin in early March. NTDC 2025 will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center August 20-23.
“Our coverage of NTDC has become a tradition for PodWheels, and each year we’ve worked to find ways to raise the bar in sharing what we believe are some of the most important stories that we can offer about the trucking industry, the stories of the nation’s safest professional drivers and the people supporting them,” said Thompson. “In 2025, we are taking all the experiences and successes that we have had to date in covering the NTDC, and PodWheels is stepping up our game with a dedicated website that not only has our audio podcast series, but also features state-by-state results, video podcasts and other special content offerings.”
Coverage of the NTDC and its state championships has become a centerpiece production for PodWheels since Executive Producer Thompson visited the truck driving championships in his home state of Tennessee in 2019. Experiencing the combination of the competition and the family reunion feeling at the state level of the national tournament inspired Thompson to request media credentials from ATA for PodWheels to cover NTDC 2019 in Pittsburgh. Once NTDC returned in 2022 following the pandemic, PodWheels and Thompson became a regular part of the media team covering the national championships.
“Over the past several years, we have watched the commitment that Greg Thompson and his PodWheels team have made to highlighting the people involved with the various aspects of NTDC. Through its ongoing NTDC podcast series, PodWheels has taken ATA’s three-day national championship event and given the NTDC a year-round platform that celebrates safety,” said Jacob Pierce, executive director of ATA’s Safety Management Council and Transportation Security Council. “We believe that the Road To Minneapolis series has become a must-listen podcast in the trucking industry, especially for anyone who is interested in the stories of the men and women who are the best of the best in their profession.”
PodWheels.com has dedicated the NTDC News Section of its website to be a true celebration of safety, complementing the online offerings that ATA provides through its NTDC website platform, which includes an NTDC News Blog.