Backing Exams Are The Most Humbling Experience I’ve Had In A Long Time!!

I haven’t kept a diary because there are plenty of diaries about the Prime program. I just wanted to relate the testing part of my PSD program which I aced the pretrip part thanks to all the help here, daily practice & writing my speeches over & over again until I had them memorized. That was the easy part.

My initial test day was yesterday. I passed pretrip so now it’s my backing maneuvers. I aced the straight line & blind side offset. Now comes my alley dock! I came in close to the driver’s cone but didn’t touch it. Instead of pulling left & out, I pulled right & left, trying to get under the trailer & just got stuck in an S position. Not once but twice.

It was drummed into me that you steer into the problem & I thought this would fix my issue. Well that only works when you have plenty of room to go out forward. Not happening in an alley dock. The fix was obviously going out to the left & repositioning to back in a better line than the original trajectory. By the time I figured that out, I failed cause I lost most my points making the same mistake twice in the beginning of the maneuver.

Today was a poop show from the beginning. It was raining & my brakes kept locking up. My straight line back passed but barely. I lost it to the left but was completely out & didn’t lose any poInts. My offset was somewhat off but I recovered it & only lost 3 pointson that one. Then it got crazy.

I got the drivers side parallel as my last back & got overconfident cause I was knocking these out the park. I lined up too far out of the box. Normally I would line up my trailer mud flap just outside the box with the rest of the trailer & bumper still well inside the box. 1.5 turn to the right until I see the V of the landing gear then 1.5 to the left to under the trailer & boom! Perfectly lined up with what I thought was the last cone!

Obviously it wasn’t. I GOAL’ed twice & never noticed I was lined up on the second to last cone instead of the last one. Needless to say, overconfidence together with nervous anxiety just took over, made the same mistakes trying to correct something that was not correctable since I was ignorant to the real problem & pointed out again.

Needless to say, I am quite devasted. When my examiner came over with his fist closed & told me to stop? I was dumbfounded!! I had no idea I had set up on the wrong cone. My easiest back & I failed miserably. So for the second day, I’m here in my room licking my wounds & eating humble pie in huge chunks.

This is where all those diaries have helped me! Many others on here before me have been in my shoes & overcame their adversities. I take solace in their resilience & perseverance. Tomorrow I get to do it again. I will take more time & take deeper breaths. With will, grace & patience, I will get this.

Thank you TT’ers for the amazing & great examples of how to overcome these bumps down a road with many huge learning curves. Stay safe out there & God bless!!

Tomorrow is a new day. You'll get it! Just remember your training and don't overthink it.

Tomorrow is a new day. You'll get it! Just remember your training and don't overthink it.

Thank you very much Packrat!

Join the club of third time is the charm. It took me 3 times to pass. You will do this. What you don't know is that I have been cheering you on. I know you can do it. Good luck and keep us posted.

Join the club of third time is the charm. It took me 3 times to pass. You will do this. What you don't know is that I have been cheering you on. I know you can do it. Good luck and keep us posted.

Big Scott, it was crazy this morning. When my examiner told me I was on the second cone rather than on the last cone, my jaw dropped. I got out & looked twice & never caught that! Which tells me that it was the whole combination of nerves, anxiety & over confidence cause I knew I had that one. When my trainer told me I lined up well past the starting line is when it all made sense. Of course I’d come up short if I’m past my reference point.

Thank you kindly for your moral support & cheering me on. It means a lot to me. Yours was one of the many diaries that showed me what mental toughness & perseverance mean when facing these challenges. God bless & stay safe out there.

Good luck to you. Your future TNT trainer has my number if you ever want to talk. You can do this. Good luck.

Hahaha! Thank you!! Now it makes sense.

We are waiting to hear how it went today.

Aced the backing!! No points!! Stalled the truck 3x at the same light. Impeding traffic. Auto-fail. I’m telling you, this is no joke.

So let me give you background. When I was supposed to be out driving on my PSD , his truck was in the shop for 6 days of those 2 weeks. I drove on the highway for about 8 hrs a day almost exclusively, That’s not what I needed to develop good muscle memory.

Compound that with my nerves getting the best of me. I mean seriously, forgetting the splitter right out the box? Just stupid mental f*rt. My examiner was cool though. He let me do a abbreviated drive with him to get comfortable with this part of the process.

Tonight I’m going out for a test run with my trainer. Tomorrow I go test again but just the road trip. Fingers crossed!! Thank you again for the encouragement & support.

Just relax. Learn what to do when you stall at a light. Splittler down, second gear, go. Good luck.