MAP MAKER

New stand-alone GPS navigation system delivers the best of both worlds: high-performance, low cost

Outlaw Customs has teamed up with electronics design manufacturer M4A to bring an affordable, high-tech, high-performance GPS into your hands.

M4A’s full-featured stand-alone GPS, Trip2,  incorporates an ultra-sharp 7″ screen packaged in a thin body making it ideal for custom mounting in a dash or console.  It’s also a stand-alone GPS unit, so it can be used anytime, anyplace.

Trip2 provides unequalled map accuracy and speed thanks to a Samsung S3c2440A-40 computer processor and state-of-the-art SIRF Star III link to GPS satellites. The internal map is one of the most detailed available and covers the entire U.S so you don’t have to relaod maps depending on what region of the U.S. you are driving through.

Combined with a 800×480-pixel , 7″ high-resolution touch screen, the GPS shows you where you are instantly in crsip, rich colors. Easy-to-use navigation and search functions with touch-screen keyboard and buttons designed for over-the-road operation.

The M4A GPS features all the functions found in factory-installed, high-end luxury sedan navi units, but at a fraction of their price. It also incrporates Bluetooth, giving you hands-free phone operation with the ability to switch the sound right through your vehicle’s speakers.

And if you want plug-and-play rear parking sensors to warn when your vehicle is close to an obstacle, M4A offers a full kit that literally plugs right into the GPS unit’s auxiliary AV port. Internal Li-ion battery makes it totally portable. Retail: $399. www.outlawcustomshd.com; (303) 952-8109

And the winner is … John Lacusky!

OHIO TRUCKER WINS SEQUEL  SWEEPSTAKES

Custom Rigs reader will be driving home the Sequel after winning rig at GATS

Thousands of CDL holders filled out entry forms during the past three months for a chance to win Custom Rigs “Win big With Custom Rigs” ’98 International 9400 customized by the Chrome Shop Mafia and powered by a Detroit Diesel “reliabilt” replacement engine, covered by a three-year, 300,000-mile warranty.

But only one trucker was handed the keys along with the custom rig’s title – John Lacusky.

The Cortland, Ohio resident, and owner-operator of Lacusky’s Trucking, wasn’t present at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas when his form was pulled from the clear plastic box filled with other hopeful’s entries. Nor did he hear Ice Road Trucker Alex Debogorski (see our web video) announce he was the winner.

But he was overjoyed when Custom Rigs’ publisher Brad Holthaus called him with the great news.

“It wasn’t until the Monday after the show, when I as on the phone with Brad Holthaus [Custom Rigs' publisher], I realized what I did and then my hands started shaking.”

Lacusky was actually at the Dallas show but left just before the noon drawing.

“You see my daughter lives about 20 miles outside of Dallas and my wife and I drove down there from Ohio to see the grandkids. We went to the truck show Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Lacusky's daily driver/work truck is in really fine shape for its age. The Sequel winner will now have two nice rigs in his company's stable.

“I’d walked up and filled out the entry form on Friday,” he says of the events leading up to the drawing.

“Saturday we walked around until about 10 minutes to 12 and left because my granddaughter needed to be put down for her nap. So we left show 10 minutes before the drawing…and I missed it all.”

“The odd part about all of this is I really like Internationals. My everyday work truck is an ’88 1900 Series with a dump box,” says Lacusky during a phone interview from his home.

“When I get this truck [Sequel] it’ll a big step up-a lot bigger and way more fancier than what I’m driving right now.”

Lacusky says all he I was hoping for was maybe winning a couple steering tires.

“Now I have eight more in the rear and a really nice truck on top of it all! I tell my wife when we go to the casinos, ‘someday my picture will be there on the wall as one of the big winners.’ Now I win a $55,000 custom International.”

“The ‘Win Big’ sweepstakes was a great success,” says Custom Rigs publisher Brad Holthaus. “Giving away a fully customized truck created a lot of buzz during the past three months and introduced a lot of new readers to our magazine. We’re looking to do more sweepstakes in the future.” – CR

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