Kara Holladay, Chris Shea and Wayne Thorne of Mountain West Truck Center, Salt Lake City, were crowned as Mack's champion service technicians on April 16 in the first Mack North American Vista Competition.


The inaugural competition to find Mack's top dealer service technicians was a seven-month event that challenged contestants' in-depth and hands-on knowledge of Mack's products and service procedures.

Vista is designed to reward Mack dealer service personnel who demonstrate excellence in technical skill and proficiency. Mack dealerships are encouraged to field as many three-person teams as they wish, with each team usually consisting of parts and service personnel. A total of 94 three-person teams competed in the competition, representing 62 Mack dealerships.

The competition consists of three rounds of online testing, which narrows the field down to the top team for each of Mack's five sales regions. Each online test consists of 20 multiple choice and one "creative answer" question. The tests are "open book" and all answers can be found using current parts and service information, emphasizing the need for technicians to stay up-to-date.

The three top-scoring teams of the regional winners qualified for the championship fourth round, which was held at the North American Institute in Greensboro, N.C. The other teams in the championship rounds were from Mack Ste-Foy, Quebec City, Quebec, and Nextran Truck Center - Orlando, Orlando, Fla.

The winning Mountain West Truck Center team, nicknamed "Titan Power," was selected after a final round that included hands-on challenges, including troubleshooting mechanical or electrical issues planted on two Mack trucks and a Mack MP8 engine. The problems had to be identified and repaired within a set period of time for the competitors to get full marks.