THIS INVENTOR RARELY SPINS HIS WHEELS

Perhaps the only place on earth where thoughts about the best way to cook bacon intersect with contemplation of the aerodynamics of heavy-truck wheels is in the fertile brain of Jon Fleck.

Nearly 20 years ago, Fleck and his 8-year-old daughter, Abbey, concocted a kitchen utensil, the Makin Bacon, that ended up on Wal-Mart's shelves - it's still there - and made Fleck's fortune.

Now Fleck, a 47-year-old Minnesotan who specializes in seemingly simple ideas that work, has a new one: a fabric wheel cover that cuts fuel consumption of over-the-road trucks by as much as 1%.

That may not sound like a lot, but with America's millions of heavy trucks averaging less than 6 mpg, little numbers soon add up to big ones.

They did for Schneider National Inc. The Green Bay trucking company, one of the nation's largest, plans to buy 48,000 of Fleck's gizmos, enough to cover the wheels of all 12,000 Schneider tractors.

The company, which is regarded as a technology leader in trucking, is doing this even though it estimates the net fuel savings will be less than 1%.

But Fleck's covers are cheap enough that Schneider vice president of purchasing Steve Duley figures they'll pay for themselves in six to 12 months. And they appear durable enough, he said, to last five years or so.

Duley thought Fleck's concept sounded logical from the outset.

"On the other hand," he said, "it seemed like such a simple idea that if there was merit there, why didn't somebody think of this before?"

Hard to say. The math looks pretty compelling.

The Deflecktor, as Fleck has dubbed his invention, retails for $50 on his Web site. With its huge order, Schneider probably gets a discount. But even at $50 a pop, the company's one-time capital outlay totals $2.4 million.

Now for the savings. When installed fleet-wide, the covers should cut fuel use by 1.8 million gallons a year, Schneider estimates.

Diesel currently averages $2.94 a gallon nationwide, but Schneider, buying in bulk, certainly pays less. Let's guess $2.75 a gallon. Annual savings: $4.95 million.

If Duley is right and the covers last five years, Schneider ends up saving 10 times what it invested - more if the price of oil rises.

The savings come by reducing the turbulence and drag created as a big truck cuts through the surrounding air at 60 mph while its deep-set wheels spin about 500 times a minute.

Try, try again
The Deflecktor isn't Fleck's first wheel cover. In 1990 he patented an aluminum version, but it turned out unhappily.

It sold for twice as much as the Deflecktor. Diesel fuel, meanwhile, cost less than half what it does now. And the things fell off.

Fleck said the debacle left him at the edge of bankruptcy.

But Makin Bacon rode to the rescue, eventually giving Fleck the means and time to ponder things like truck-wheel turbulence.

It was a few years ago when a newspaper article on the U.S. Patent Office's leading wheel specialist sharpened his focus. Then, as he walked a housewares trade show in Germany, Fleck spotted a vendor with a pop-up clothes hamper made from fabric and a coiled spring. The wheels, so to speak, really started turning.

"That made me think I could go down the trail of fabric and wire and make this thing minimalist," Fleck said.

Which he did. Two metal rings secure the device over the wheel's inner hump. Then the cover itself, fashioned from the same tough vinyl used to make truck tarps, is attached with a wide-gauge, "self-healing" zipper.

"No hand tools, no assembly," Fleck said.

Rigorous testing
Schneider moved methodically toward embracing the Deflecktor, first running rigorous comparison tests in Shawano County, then installing the covers on a limited number of working trucks two years ago.

"No one in this industry has the capacity to really hone in on the savings that Schneider does," Fleck said.

The zippers sometimes have required lubrication, but that aside, the covers have held up well, Duley said.

Schneider has thought about deploying them on trailers, too, he said, but the savings there aren't as clear.

The firm has three times as many trailers as tractors. So for every trailer rolling down the highway, two others are standing in some freight yard where no fuel savings are possible because no fuel is being burned.

But Fleck believes the next industrial revolution will revolve around conserving resources, and he'll have plenty of opportunity even if he never sells a single Deflecktor for a trailer. There are something like 2.2 million combination tractors scattered around the country. That's room for 8.8 million wheel covers.