Alexandria man invented popular tire gadget that helps truckers
By Tim King
If you drive a vehicle with dual wheels you may be familiar with a tubular looking gadget called a “valvecapper”. There are a lot of valvecappers in use, according to Al Starry, the Alexandria man who invented the tool and copyrighted the name.
“The manufacturer told me that they will make around 45,000 of them this year,” said Starry.
Valvecappers aren’t complicated tools but they are difficult to describe. On the company’s website, all of the online descriptions of the 11.5-inch fiberglass shaft, coated with polymer, have the phrase, “designed by a professional trucker.”
The valvecapper tool was designed for use with metal stem caps typically used on truck valve stems. One end is inserted over the valve cap, the flexible tip holding it for removal and re-installation, according to the company that now sells the product.
‘The opposite end of the valvecapper has a valve core removal tool to service a damaged valve core. The long shaft allows easy two-handed removal and re-installation of the valve core in the stem,” according to the web page.
Starry is, of course, the professional trucker the company is referring to as the tool’s designer. The valve core, by the way, is a little piece that screws into the valve stem and prevents air from escaping from the tire, he said.
Starry knows his trucks and was a professional trucker for years. And he is still a trucker at heart, even though he retired from the profession over two decades ago.
“I drove truck across the country for 30 years,” he said. “I drove in a company truck many years before I bought my own. I have owned five of my own trucks. Two were GMC trucks, one was a White Road Boss and two were Volvos. I’ve pulled tankers, flat beds, reefers and dry vans. My favorite truck was a Volvo because it had the most creature comforts.”
Comfort is important when you put as many miles on the road and spend as many hours in the drivers seat as Starry did.
“I’ve driven 2,250,000 miles in 48 states and five Canadian provinces,” he said.
Driving isn’t just sitting in a comfortable seat. It’s hard work. Sometimes, in all those miles, Starry would tune into a country western music radio station. Mostly though, he worked on focusing on the road and staying alert to what was going on out there. How does a truck driver stay focused on the road?
“Concentration,” he said. Two million miles of concentration!
Starry’s favorite part of the job was watching the beautiful, and ever changing, scenery unfold as he traveled across the United States and Canada. His least favorite job was unloading a truck.
In 1990, he had an accident, while unloading a truck in North Dakota, that nearly put an end to his driving career.
“On July 9, 1990, I was injured while unloading a roll of paper,” he said. “The owner of Custom Transfer at the time, whom I leased my truck to, and his wife drove out to Bismarck, N.D., where I was hospitalized, to take me home in their conversion van. I was unable to work for eight months.”
Things could have been worse.
“The doctor said I wouldn’t be able to work for a year to a year and a half, if ever, but, as smart as they are, doctors don’t know everything,” he said.
Unloading trailers is unpleasant work and can be dangerous, as Starry’s experience points out. Checking the air on 18 wheels is a repetitive chore that fits more in the area of tedious and mildly irritating work. It also can chew up a lot of precious time.
“I checked the tires visually daily and with a gauge weekly,” he said. “It used to take about an hour depending on how many times one had to move the truck to get at the valve stems.”
Moving a truck was especially irritating.
“I sometimes had to move the truck three or four times to get at the valve caps on the inside. The only way to get at the valve cap on the inside dual was to reach between the aluminum wheels,” he said. “The caps did not have to be on that tight but occasionally I would have to use a pliers.”
There had to be a better way to get the job done, Starry thought. So he started tinkering in his basement and eventually came up with the valvecapper tool described at the beginning of this article.
“After some trial and error I made a valve cap remover for myself and a couple of my friends,” he said. ‘Occasionally a valve core would leak so I made a core remover for the other end of the tool. It worked so well that I started selling them to a few truck stops and online.”
Starry was living in Osakis at the time, and when his bright idea started filling up his home’s basement, he rented a building downtown in Osakis. From there, he was able to assemble the valvecapper as well as have office space and room for taking orders and shipping.
Things were going well enough so his wife joined the enterprise so Al could keep on trucking. Then one day, somewhere on the highways of Tennessee, he got a phone call.
“A gentleman from Ken Tool, by the name of Rock Tyson, called me and said he saw my tool online and would like to buy from me,” Al said. “We couldn’t agree on a price so I went on my merry way. About a week later, however, he called me back and we reached an agreement.”
His first order from Ken Tool was 600 valvecappers. Al estimated that it took a half hour to assemble one valvecapper.
“That was the beginning of a very busy time for me driving truck and making, packaging, and shipping valvecappers,” he said. “Before long there was no way I could keep up so I sold the business to Country Enterprises in Lucan, Minn. They improved the tool with a molded shaft and they recently told me they would sell about 45,000 this year.”
Looking back Starry says he has mixed feelings about having sold the business but that he’s proud of having invented a tool that has made the lives of a lot of truckers a little bit easier.
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