Imay be mistaken, but I am pretty sure that two years ago when I attended my very first WA Mack Muster, I couldn’t wait to start writing up my rundown of the show.
In fact, I remember racing through airport check-in and finding one of those primordial torture devices known as an airport seat with such gusto and enthusiasm, overly keen to get my thoughts down on paper. The buzz of an epic weekend was dwarfing the uncomfortable anticipation of a five-hour flight home.
The euphoria of a three-day trucking carnival had my fingers typing faster than an old-school Hume highway runner and my thesaurus was running out of ways to say awesome.
That was my first experience of the WA Mack Muster, just over two years ago and now I have returned for the biennial event and my eagerness to spread the story of the WA Mack Muster remains just as high. In fact, when I factor in all the changes involved in this year’s show, I’d say my eagerness has in fact increased.
The first change was all about me. This year I didn’t want to just attend the event. I wanted to really get involved, so I opted to ‘be one’ with this amazing show.
With a lot of help from the team at Auswide Transport Solutions, I managed to get a load to run across the paddock with an exceptionally cool truck that I could pilot, then clean, polish and enter in this year’s WA Mack Muster, held on March 24.
That’s why this year I’m not sitting waiting on my cattle class section to board for a long trip home. Instead, I am sitting in the bunk of 2022 Kenworth SAR writing this story, parked in a very crowded rest area in Coolgardie.
Waiting for my logbook to allow me to make my very long way back to Brisbane. So that is the first major change in regards to this year’s show. I went all in on this epic event.
The second major change is with the show itself. Technically I guess you could call it more of an evolution than change, but there are far too many syllables in a word that size and it didn’t fit with the narrative I was trying to portray. Let’s stick with change.
The 2024 Mack Muster, held in Australia’s sunniest city (Perth averages eight hours of sunshine per day) has changed, it has added more trucks, more food vans, more people and generally more awesomeness.
If it wasn’t already a must on everyone’s truck show calendar, the evolution shown this year has now moved it to be classed as definite.
While I would dearly love to focus entirely on me, drumming up respect for the hours and hours I spent cleaning, polishing, re-cleaning and re-polishing my ride for this year’s show, I won’t, though if I do say so, the SAR was absolutely popping. I will instead focus on the show and shy away from the accolades I feel I deserve.
First things first. This huge event on the WA social calendar may often be referred to purely as the WA Mack Muster, but the full title is the WA Mack Muster and Truck Show.
For while it started out as a way to gather a few like-minded ‘Bulldog Buffs’ together for a few beers, it is now a full-blown truck show and is by no means limited solely to Super-Liner supporters.
In fact, with the addition of this year’s designated ‘Kenworth Corner,’ I think the Kenworth bug outnumbered the iconic bulldog statue by a fair bit. It is also worth noting the legendary Hulk Kenworth of Ryan Demasi deservedly took out this year’s Truck of the Show.
In case you weren’t along for the ride in 2022 when I covered the show, or in case you are like me and hardly remember last week’s roadhouse menu much less a two-year-old article, allow me to give a little overview of how this show originated.
Like every great idea, it began with a beer or six. The founding fathers, as we shall call them, are WA Limestone director Steve Della Bona and CTS Low Loaders director Jason Clatworthy, two men with two immaculate Mack Valueliners.
Between them they have a massive Mack collection, but it was their Valueliners casting a shadow over the beers that day when they concocted the idea of a Mack Muster back in 2019.
The initial idea was just to have a weekend at Steve’s farm, with fellow fans of the iconic bulldog. A couple of beers, a few rums and a handful of sausages – simple.
Then it started to grow, one idea led to another and another, and pretty soon the beers were gone. The sausages were eaten and one of Western Australia’s premier wedding and event locations, Quarry Farms, was about to play host to a fully-fledged Mack Muster.
Steve and Jason put a lot of effort into drinking and thinking, bringing in the likes of Matt Lawrence in order to do the fun stuff, like organising it all.
The first show back in 2020 took a good 12 months of preparation. The idea first sparked in November 2019 and was in full flight in November 2020, all done with a small committee of just eight. Steve and Jason, as well as Clem Catalano, Gerald Cunnold and Renee Whitsed from Truck Centre WA, Brand McNee of WA Hino, and Ross Cunningham from Rentco.
It was also decided that along with it being a great way to get the truck nuts together, it would also be a nice way to raise some funds for charity.
With many of the committee members having had immediate and close experience with cancer, the decision was made to work with the world-renowned Harry Perkins Institute, whose goal is to make cancer a non-lethal disease.
When the inaugural show was held in 2020 it was an instant success. They had 140 trucks from all over Australia turn up. The public open day saw 3500 people through the gates to check out the trucks and the event raised over $100,000.
Jump ahead to the second showing in March 2022 and everything went up a level with more than 200 trucks on display, over 6500 people wandering around and more than $250,000 raised.
Round three, 2024’s show, and there were 330 trucks parked up and over 8000 spectators. The amount raised? Well, they are still adding that up as we speak, but it will be well above their goal of $250,000 again.
Charity auction
Any of you who have had to add up your driving hours, night hours, rest hours and all the other technicalities in a work diary will be wondering how so much money is raised in a truck show. Well, allow me to elaborate. Whereas most truck shows are single-day fundraising events, the WA Mack Muster has taken a slightly different approach.
The show itself, with the crowds, the judging and the variety of delicious food vans, takes place on Sunday. That is the last day of what is a three-day event. It begins on the Friday with a sponsor’s dinner and charity auction.
Turns out if you flash around some media accreditation you can get yourself invited along among the transport celebrities. All be it, I had to help with the dishes at the end of the night, but for the steak they served, it was worth it.
The dinner includes several guest speakers including Professor Peter Leedman AO who enlightened us all to some amazing breakthroughs in the medical world. After another round of drinks, it was onto the charity auction, the big fundraising event of the weekend.
This year’s auction saw some incredible items up for grabs. Again, I could show some bias and speak only about the large, framed Mack Bicentennial print, kindly donated by Aitken Photography, which raised several thousand dollars, but I won’t.
I will mention some of the other items on the list, like a seven-night Bali holiday, a Paccar factory tour with flights and accommodation, even a brand new NTS flattop trailer.
However, the highlight item had to be the one-of-a-kind Mack-themed Softail Harley-Davidson, which went for over $80,000 in case you were wondering.
While Friday night was all about the dress pants and shirt sleeves, Saturday night was all about the cold beers and conversation. With a lot of trucks mustering in during the day and camping overnight for Sunday’s show, the WA Mack Muster committee brought in food vans and chilly bins to cater for all the drivers on Saturday night.
As you would expect it was a night of tall tales that went well into the early hours, ensuring there were a few sore heads as the West Australian sunrise broke, and the final cleaning clothes came out the next morning.
In terms of the truck show itself, everything lined up perfectly. The weather gods obviously took note of the committee’s emails and turned on a spectacular day.
Joe Public rolled in in their thousands to come and see some of the West’s best-looking rigs and most importantly I managed to find my new favourite food van, @Thelittlecorntruck. They specialise in fresh corn, flavoured corn and even popcorn. Trust me, it was legendary.
I could pleat on for pages about this event, but I will try to limit myself so you can just enjoy the photos and start planning for 2026. Where the WA Mack Muster shines is in the catering stages. I don’t just mean the diversity of its food vans, I mean overall.
There is a massive section for the kids, with all manner of souped-up sugar options, activities and interactive adventures. For the grown-ups, there are trucks from every era to appreciate.
The historic clubs have their own displays as well. There is representation from Main Roads WA on hand to talk to, there are new technology displays as well as state-of-the-art training displays. Add all that into a location that has every facility you could require, as well as a backdrop that blows you away and you have the recipe for what is an amazing show.
Once again, the photos are going to tell a better story than I ever can, so go and enjoy. Mark my words though, you definitely want to start looking for accommodation in Perth for March 2026. Better yet, polish up your truck, grab a load and let’s see the WA Mack Muster hit 400 in 2026.