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RALEIGH, N.C. — After four years of learning, technician Christopher Tate, 37, overcame the challenges of 81 competitors, 14 skills station hurdles and a four-hour written test to lay claim to the title of grand national champion of SuperTech 2009.

As trucking groups continue to express opposition toward the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposal to more than double registration fees starting in 2010, the agency said it was extending the public comment period by 10 days.

The Obama administration last week issued its proposed new fuel efficiency and first-ever national greenhouse gases reduction standards for passenger cars and light trucks.

After a year in which the trucking industry has been battered by a recession and buffeted by political change, members of American Trucking Associations will gather next month in Las Vegas to celebrate surviving the storm and to rally one another in preparation for the coming rebound.

Trucking company failures declined to 370 during the second quarter, plunging 61.9% from the 970 recorded a year earlier, despite the economic turmoil that has sent fleet profits reeling. But the stock analyst who prepared the data warned that the bankruptcy improvement wasn’t a sign of better times.

Navistar Inc. closed its sole heavy-duty truck plant in North America outside Mexico when the union contract expired and said it would reopen the factory in Chatham, Ontario, only if a new agreement was reached that gave it “flexibility” over production and allowed Navistar to run a “much smaller operation.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Truck and engine makers took advantage of one of the last major marketing forums before the onset of new federal emission rules to starkly set the stage for buyers of heavy-duty vehicles in choosing between SCR and EGR for their diesel engines.

Trucking suffered the greatest loss of jobs in history during January, excluding the month of the national drivers’ strike in 1994.

The Maryland Transportation Authority has approved increased truck tolls its seven toll facilities, the Associated Press reported.

Class 8 trucks rolled up 139.3 billion miles in 2006, up from 130.5 billion in 2005, according to American Trucking Associations’ American Trucking Trends 2008-2009 report, released this week.