ice escapades

How low can you go? For Kinedyne Corp., which makes cargo-control equipment for heavy-duty trucks, the answer is 60 below zero. The Branchburg, N.J.-based company can make that claim with some authority because it has road tested its cargo straps, slings, and other tie-down products in some of the most extreme conditions truckers are likely to meet.

Kinedyne's products went along for the ride in the first season of "Ice Road Truckers," the History Channel's hit series about big rigs that deliver food and supplies to remote mines in the Far North. The equipment worked even in the worst weather, and Kinedyne's cargo straps, winch bars, and transport chains were invited back for the show's second season, which began airing in June. This year, drivers Hugh "The Polar Bear" Rowland, Rick Yemm, Alex Debogorski, and Drew Sherwood are traveling the Tuktoyaktuk Winter Road in Canada's Northwest Territories, some 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle.