Ian Newey’s passion for trucking becomes obvious within a few minutes of meeting him.

He’s one of those truckers who grew up in the cab of his dad’s truck. As a kid, it was all he wanted to do — drive a cement tanker, like his dad. Dad Keith Newey owned a fleet of four trucks carting cement. At 22, Ian got the chance to make his lifetime ambition come true, driving one of his dad’s trucks. “I lasted six months,” says Ian. “I got bored.”  

So, cement tankers didn’t have the x-factor, but another budding career had pointed him in the right direction. He had left school at 16 and gone into forestry. He did a government-funded TOPS training course in farm forestry while he was boarding in Clevedon. After that he got a job thinning, cutting, and stacking posts in the Aupouri Forest north of Kaitaia. 

“I did that for six months too, earning good money but ended up getting dragged home by my ear by my parents. I was no good with money. I ended up working in harvesting crews in the Woodhill Forest as a cross cutter.” 

He worked his way up through the ranks, running logging crews but the trucking bug got him a job with Craig Stokes in Riverhead driving log trucks there and around Gisborne. After that, he took the chance to fulfil his burning desire to drive cement tankers, which, as we saw, quickly burned out.

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