(FORTUNE Magazine) – Trucking industry analysts think this could be the year Viking Freight begins delivering more reliably to investors. At a recent $17.50 a share, Viking stock is about 40% above its price a year ago, but still substantially lower than the high of $25.25 reached in 1983. The Santa Clara, California, trucker carries small freight shipments, often overnight, throughout the Western U.S. at premium prices. While revenues have more than doubled in the past three years, to $130.3 million, earnings have hit potholes. Last year profits dropped 12% to $3.2 million as Viking ran out of investment tax credits. But the company has now completed a three-year expansion program and absorbed much of the business of a bankrupt competitor. For the first half of the year, revenues and profits both rose 35%, to $79.4 million and $1.7 million. Analysts estimate that 1986 earnings will exceed $4.5 million.