Proof that it is possible for new towers to be successful
A common refrain among grizzled veterans of the towing and recovery business is that it must be tough—maybe just barely possible—for new guys to get into the business now. Cost of equipment, cost of insurance, and scarcity of sufficient staff are the solid reasons generally offered to explain why the process is likely to be even more difficult than in the past.
Therefore, it is truly refreshing to see a newcomer to the trade make good in just five years.
4 Lane Mobile, run by husband Chase Lane and wife Tessa, and “assisted” by a three-year-old boy and six-year-old girl, have gone from a mobile roadside service business to two light-duty wreckers and four rollbacks in a little less than five years. Based in Westmoreland, Tennessee, about 30-45 minutes from Nashville, and serving that entire area, they have been both fortunate and rewarded for hard, smart work.
Unlike many who end up in the towing biz, Chase was always most strongly attracted to the mechanical. He was not particularly attracted to the towing side of the business until it became a business imperative. He went to Nashville Auto Diesel College for heavy duty truck and trailer repair. After graduation, he says that he went on to work on trucks, worked in a few different shops around the Nashville area, and then started his own mobile mechanics business. As he said, “It kind of progressed from doing service truck work to doing the roadside service, so we finally went from roadside to doing the towing and recovery work also.”
What Chase fails to mention sometimes is that he began his towing business in the middle of 2020. That is, in the middle of COVID! But he doesn’t really see any effects on his venture from COVID, plus or minus, as he looks back on it.
Reflecting on the whole story, it seems a natural progression, though Chase says it wasn’t really planned out that specifically.
Chase is the first to make the point that his wife is a full partner in his success. “Couldn’t have done it without her. She handles the dispatching, all the electronic stuff that I don’t really understand. As a veteran in the business told me the other day, a business like ours absolutely must have someone very sharp on the administrative side these days.”
When he recounts the buildup of his fleet from zero to six, Chase says that his first truck was a flatbed Freightliner “We kept it for a few years, and then ended up buying a second truck. Got a used F650 flat bed, and then expanded from that. We went from having two trucks, to four trucks, that was kind of a big jump. We bought our first wrecker, that was probably about two years into the whole towing side of things. Took us about two years to get to that point.”
“Not long ago, he adds, “we got two more trucks, so that puts us at six trucks. So, we’re at six trucks now, five drivers, and then me, I keep a truck and run when I can and try to kind of stay local to Westmoreland, handy to the home office.”
With a growing fleet, he takes a brief inventory. Half his fleet is Jerr-Dan, and the Jerr-Dan units he has incline him toward looking that direction as he needs more trucks, and especially as he looks to upgrade to handle more medium and heavy-duty work.
“The Jerr-Dan equipment is basically trouble-free,” Chase says. “Zero down time. The construction especially Is tough, meant to handle the stress we put a vehicle through. And as I said, this will be especially important as we move into heavier duty work.”
It is hard to grow a fleet without operators though. And interestingly, Chase gives a lot of credit to the fact that he tricks out his trucks with custom wraps. “These are trucks that guys want to drive. If they’ve got a choice, they’ll drive mine. Plus, we take good care of them. Any report of mechanical problems, and we get it fixed right away. We try to treat them fair and make it easy for them to come to work every day.”
The first five years of towing and recovery for 4 Lane Mobile LLC have been pretty rosy. As more subdivisions are built all around him, and Nashville itself continues to grow, Chase is anxious to see what kind of story we’ll be telling in 2030 at his 10-year anniversary.
