1952 Willys & 1937 Ford Classic Monster Trucks - Chariots Of Fire

Fully Functional Customs
By Jim Allen

If you knew the builder of these trucks also built real firefighting brush trucks, would you call "Lil Squirt" and "Silly Willy" art imitating life, or life imitating art? If you ask Jeff Cook, owner of 1st Attack Engineering, he'll answer, "Both!"

Cook is a graduate of "Monster Truck University" and "Custom Truck College," as well as a trained firefighter with 18 years experience.

It makes for an interesting mix of experience. Shortly after graduating from Northwestern College with a tech degree, Cook went headlong into the world of monster trucks, building and driving trucks for several teams, including his own, the legendary "War Wagon".

His father, Jack Cook, is well known in the Midwest for building custom cars and trucks and Jeff spent his early days at Cook's Body Shop in Auburn, Indiana, learning the custom car trade from a master.

After becoming a local volunteer firefighter, he put those fabrication skills to work building a brush truck for his fire company. In the process, he discovered a life's work and founded a company, Wildfire Manufacturing.

While not running the monster truck circuit, he built fire trucks. Business picked up enough that he recently left monster trucks behind to focus on fire trucks. The name of the company has recently changed to 1st Attack Engineering after nearly 10 years as Wildfire.

Silly Willy was constructed in 2002 to highlight the design and construction skills of the company. It's built on a custom chassis and suspension and mounts a '52 Willy pickup cab. Lil Squirt was built in '05, also on a custom chassis, but with four-wheel steering. Both have a lot of "show" and are regularly seen on the show and truck Jambo circuits, as well as at firefighting conventions.

They have a "go" side, however, and it may surprise you. They are both fully functional brush trucks, mounting 1st Attack hardware, and every once in a while, they are allowed to flex their firefighting muscles.

Such was the case in the fall of 2008, when they appeared at a training fire set in a wheat field. Yep, they may be "just" show trucks, but they can do the job of a brush fire truck. When asked why he would risk the expensive trucks, Cook replied, "Oh, they'll clean up."

Lil Squirt uses a fiberglass body to represent a '37 Ford truck. The chassis and underpinnings are a smaller version of what you might see on a competition monster truck.

The bed and firefighting apparatus are just the same as used on production 1st Attack brush rigs, which can include the 200-gallon water tank, Honda-powered fire pump, and two -inch handlines on reels as seen here.

The outward-facing jump seats, from which firefighters can safely work a fire while strapped in and protected by a rollcage, are a signature 1st Attack feature.

Silly Willy uses a '52 Willys pickup body on a custom, monster truck-style chassis. It's powered by a 454 fed by a Gerardot racing-style fuel injection system, adapted for gasoline.

The power feeds through a built TH 400 trans and into a New Process 205 transfer case. From there, power goes to a Dana 70 front axle from an IH application and an Eaton rear dropout-style axle used in a 1 -ton truck. Silly Willy also mounts a 1st Attack bed system with water tank, 3/4-inch hand lines, fire pump and jump seats. It also carries a chainsaw and a backpack sprayer for hot spots.

Taken From Fourwheeler.com

Monster Trucks Nitro Review: Quickly Runs Out of Gas

When it debuted on Macs earlier this year, Monster Trucks Nitro was a fantastic little diversion that took all the fun of Red Lynx’s previous title Trials 2 and brought the difficulty down to a manageable level that anyone could enjoy.

Now only 4 months later, Monster Trucks Nitro has made the transition from the Mac to the iPhone. Don’t jump for joy just yet. The developers took some risky moves to try and make the game more iPhone-friendly, and while it’s easy to applaud the initiative it’s not so easy to applaud the results.

The concept behind Monster Trucks Nitro remains unchanged from its predecessor. You’ll need to drive your Monster Truck across a 2.5D landscape, over obstacles and hills, and make it to the finish line in a set amount of time. In a lot of ways it feels like the spiritual successor to ExciteBike.

In fact, the game that came before Nitro, Trials 2, featured similar gameplay and dirt bikes. For anyone who loved that NES classic from the days of yore, you’ll find a lot to love in the Red Lynx catalogue. It’s just a shame Trials 2 hasn’t made the jump from PC to Mac yet like Nitro has.

But what made the Mac version of Nitro so much fun was the physics engine. Angling your jumps just right to jump the lake, accidentally over-tilting your truck and landing upside down, pulling off stunts like front and back flips — these are the things that made Monster Trucks Nitro such a fun title. The iPhone version, despite attempting to recreate that same physics experience, seems to be lacking all of that.

In an effort to streamline things the iPhone version now comes with a “cruise control” option that will keep you from varying your speed. The option becomes essential because you control the nose and tail of your truck using the built-in accelerometer, leaving no free thumb for the throttle.

The entire game is built around this concept, and itworks to a certain degree, but it falls short of recreating the fun of the original. Adding in a left and right command for nose control on the left side of the screen would have gone a long way towards recreating the experience.

Instead you’ll find yourself playing a game that looks like Monster Trucks Nitro, but feels more like using a level in shop class.

Because of the change in controls, a lot of the levels from the original version simply wouldn’t play well on the portable. Thankfully the team at RedLynx had the forethought to cherry-pick the levels that would work best given the new control scheme.

Despite this, there are a few stages that just prove problematic. One stage has you completing a loop five times. To do this you need to spin your iPhone 360 degrees — five times. Try doing that without making a mess of your headphone wires.

Only 8 stages are included in the iPhone version. With any reasonable amount of skill you can easily play through everything the game has to offer in a lunch break and still have time to eat that sandwich you packed from home.

Those who haven’t experienced the superior version will likely find this to be an acceptable time waster. At 99 cents, it gives you a small taste of that classic ExciteBike-style gameplay, even if it only offers a fraction of what you’ll find on the Mac.

If you don’t mind sinking the extra cash though, the Mac version is a vastly superior product (with a free demo available, too!) If you have any interest in this game, we’d suggest you skip the iPhone version and go straight for the good stuff. 99 cents is enough for a taste, but you’re just not getting enough product here to make it worth a purchase.

Monster Trucks Nitro is available on the iTunes Store for 99 cents.

Taken From Macapper.com

Monster Trucks

Love them or hate them, monster trucks have brutally stomped and crushed their way into their own niche in pop culture drawing massive crowds to arenas and stadiums all over North America who cheer with glee at their ability to destroy helpless cars.

In the beginning they had steel bodies, leaf-spring packs large enough to support the weight of a battleship, and lots of chrome. They crushed cars slowly, with their massive weight doing the work of flattening the cars.

Nowadays they are all high-tech, fast, agile, and impressive. Now they fly over cars with ease.

On Sunday afternoon the Monster Spectacular rolls over the coliseum featuring competition between some of the biggest names, and hugest trucks out there. The Iron Outlaw, Bounty Hunter and others will take on Monster Spectacular reigning world champion, Black Stallion.

Monster truck shows are the professional wrestling matches of the automotive world.

Jimmy Creten drives Bounty Hunter, and also owns the Iron Outlaw.

"I've been doing this since 1995, so about 14 years," says Jimmy. "I always tell people I got into this through stupidity, I was a four wheel drive enthusiast and I mud raced, then I bought one as a hobby. After that I lost my job as an engineer for Colgate-Palmolive and made my hobby my career."

"Now we are one of the busiest teams in the business," Jimmy muses. "We do 50 shows a year, a show every weekend. Then we take the big tires off and put little tires on them and drive them in a semi trailer to the next show."

"I love to travel and see different cultures, see how the French culture influences things. But it is hard on the family too; when we finish in Moncton we are going to Windsor, then I am catching a plane home to see the family," says Jimmy.

If you have never seen one, a monster truck is an automobile, typically styled after pickup trucks, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension.

It all took off in the 1970s when modified pickup trucks were becoming popular and the sports of mud bogging and truck pulling were gaining in popularity. Several truck owners had created lifted trucks to compete in such events, and soon competition to hold the title of "biggest truck" developed.

In 1981, Michael Vaters bought a black 1982 Ford F250 at a local dealership. At that time, a lift kit wasn't available for this truck so he designed and built one. He added 40 inch tires which had recently became available. He named his black Ford "Black Stallion."

It didn't end there. One year later Mike had transformed his street truck the Black Stallion. It boasted a 12' suspension lift with 44" tires. Mike designed and built rear steering and it crab-walked down his hometown streets.

Michael not only drove his truck on the streets he mud-bogged in it one weekend and would spend the entire week cleaning it to enter a show and shine competition the next weekend typically winning first place or best in show. In 1983 Mike drove the Black Stallion over 500 miles to Indianapolis Indiana for the Jamboree and won runner up for the "best engineered truck."

These trucks can run up and over most man-made barriers, which usually means they can crush other cars under their tires as well. For competition there are either timed race events or regular single elimination races with two drivers on the track at once.

"I guess we think of ourselves as paid motor sports entertainment," says Jimmy. "We are paid to put on a show for people, but the show entails a competition, and obviously we didn't come all this way to lose."

In recent years they have begun to add a "freestyle" event at the end of the show. If you are creative enough you can think of this as figure skating with giant trucks. Drivers are free to select their own course around the track and its obstacles. Drivers will often try 'Donuts', wheel-stands and jumps during this segment. Additional items for the drivers to crush -- usually including a motor home -- are frequently placed on the track specifically for the freestyle event. Other obstacles sometimes placed on the track include school buses and small airplanes.

"The popularity over the last 5 years has exploded, they see it on television; Speedvision has two shows a day. So the fans see us doing the big shows and the world finals and want to come meet us in person," says Jimmy.

"Well, I guess they really come to see us make those trucks dance on edge, or catch some air, or to make 15,000-horsepower engines in 10,000-pound trucks dance in a hockey rink," laughs Jimmy.

Monster Spectacular is known for putting on one of the best dome shows in Canada. Fans get an opportunity to meet the drivers and get a chance to see the trucks up close. But the real fun starts with the races and a chance to watch drivers roll over as many as five cars before crossing the finish line.

"I've done Moncton the last two years and the trucks that we bring to town here are very good, we put on a good show in Moncton. The fans always get a good show and it keeps them coming back," Jimmy said.

Taken From CanadaEast.com

Truckin' Weekend: Allen County Fairgrounds Roaring With Monster Trucks

LIMA - Six-year-old Reid Liechty has cases full of toy monster trucks at his Pandora home. But they don't come close to comparing to the monster truck he and 3-year-old brother Tanner took a spin in Friday.

The boys and dad Jeremy Liechty spent Friday evening at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Spring 4-Wheel Jamboree Nationals at the Allen County Fairgrounds. Their first stop was Sergeant Smash, a passenger designed monster truck.

"That was pretty incredible, really," dad said. "These guys like monster trucks and they play with them all of the time. They absolutely love them."

Dad wasn't exaggerating.

"They are really cool and fun to watch. They go around and they crash cars," said Reid, whose eyes darted from one monster truck to the next.

The Jamboree continues from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Sergeant Smash will be available for rides both days, showing monster truck enthusiasts what it really feels like to drive one.

"That was pretty cool. All those bumps, the ride. That was really awesome," said 8-year-old Caleb Mikesell, of Bluffton.

Herbert Chaney, 11, came running off the ride, heading to hopefully get more money from mom for another ride. He and brother, Haden, 6, were successful. They soon were back on the truck. Herbert, who saw his first ever monster truck Friday, eyed the front seat.

"That was awesome," he yelled. "When you go up the hill and come down, it's like a rollercoaster."

The ride is new to the Jamboree this year, as are a few other family attractions, including a Family Fun Zone and Sprint Car simulators. Drivers of all ages can race each other while hearing the roar and feeling the shake of a real Sprint car.

Jon Wirth, of St. Marys, took on his son, T.J Wirth, 13, and a few of his friends. Only dad prevailed without crashing. The father and son come to the Jamboree each year, but the simulators let them experience the real thing.

"You sit back and watch and you are always aspiring to be one of the drivers," T.J said.

Now he feels like he is.

What: 4-Wheel Jamboree

When: 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Allen County Fairgrounds.

Admission: $19 adults, $11 children 3 to 12 years; $30 for two-day pass

Taken From LimaOhio.com

April New Big Truck Orders Still In The Dumper & Projected To Stay There - Here Are Some Thoughts From Ground-Level

Implications

Trucking company planning continues to be mirrored in new truck sales - run with what we got. While freight demand is one big factor in the decision to not buy trucks now, others like the driver glut and a lack of financing add notably to it. It’s still about previously noted F-words (freight, financing, folks & fuel)! The other one - focus - is seems to be clearer now.

Analysis

My fellow Hoosier friend Eric Starks and his folks at FTR Associates are telling the manufacturing industry things that they don’t want to hear. That is that new truck sales continue to be running a half throttle - and there are no big projected changes coming. We generally agree, but still think we will see some bumps in orders from today’s levels before year-end.

North American new truck orders for April ’09 are quoted by FTR to be 7,935 - down 9% from March and down 57% from April ’08. This follows January numbers of a bit over 10,000 units, February a dismal 6,200 and March around 8,600. Of course, the ’08 comparison was during the time when freight was softening and financing was evaporating - where numbers were down 30%+ from ‘07.

Market shares of manufacturer’s Paccar, Navistar, Daimler Freightliner and Volvo / Mack aren’t changing. Their financing arms are really the only consistent players in the for-hire truckload sector.

The truck-buyers quandary on what, how many or even if one should buy is so clouded that the standard approach is just to hit the pause button. We know the freight issues, although we believe we are in the trough (as written previously).

Driver issues are diminished - witness the dramatically lower driver turnover numbers. Financing is key, as one must finance both new trucks and trades to get throughput in the flow of equipment. Low fuel costs are also a positive (at least today).

The new technologies Selective Catalyst Reduction (SCR) versus Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) seems to be less of a factor, since many buyers are still weighing the pros and cons of each - and are actually more loyal to their dealer (brand) than technology (unless it’s a disaster).

Interestingly, new Navistar trucks seem to be doing better (reliability-wise) than the competition today - all with EGR. We also know that SCR (or advanced EGR) trucks will not be seen in any numbers in the real world until mid-’10. Nonetheless, it’s another reason to wait - at least until closer to the end of the year.

Some major truckload fleets like Swift offer insight into all sizes of trucking companies who seem to have firmed up their situation after parking some trucks and replacing their less-than-desirable truck drivers for better ones. These-type changes have affected the cost side by a couple pennies per mile - and it looks like the freight demand-capacity mix is working.

Within trucking, the food sector continues to be the strongest followed by consumer essentials. We also see some firming up in the home improvement sector, while the home building sector continues to be in the tank. We need not comment on the auto sectors’ negative impact on trucking, which is not expected to change for some time either.

While we see signs of bottoming within the freight marketplace, we must keep our eyes on the recent crude oil price increases. That is the old “elephant-in-the-room” issue that affects us all! We also need to watch the financing marketplace.

Taken From GLGroup.com

Cadillac Escalade vs. Monster Truck

The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid is most at home in the hills of Hollywood, California, or cruising next to South Beach in Miami, Florida.

It is a big luxurious SUV with twenty-two-inch wheels, leather everything, and a gas and electric engine.

So how will this biggest and most luxurious of American SUVs do when it is pushed beyond what it was originally designed to do?

To find out, I raced it against a monster truck — a remote control Traxxas T-Maxx monster truck, to be exact.

The challenge was a simple: to see which car would do better tackling the rough and tough mountains and dirt roads of Colorado.

To find out just watch the video below to see which car won the challenge.And as a bonus take a look at the new off road sport we created in the process:

To read more of Roman Mica's car reviews and other automotive news, visit: thefirstlemming.com.

Taken From TheWeeklyDriver.com

Driver Charged In Point-to-Point Turfing With Monster Truck

A 31-year-old Hockessin man was arrested for drunken driving after Sunday’s Point- to- Point festivities at Winterthur, state police reported today.

Damage to the grounds was estimated at nearly $5,000, state police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh said.

The incident occurred about 3 p.m. at the Winterthur estate at 1505 Kennett Pike at the conclusion of the annual Point-to-Point event.

About 4:30 p.m., officers providing security at the event reported that someone operating a Ford pickup with massive tires and a lift kit was turfing the fields.

Other attendees had mud thrown on them from the truck’s spinning tires on the horse track, Whitmarsh said.

Troopers went to the area and arrested the driver, Ryan Gallo, as he was driving through Gate #3.

Gallo was charged with DUI, malicious mischief by a motor vehicle and felony criminal mischief.

He was later released on $1,000 unsecured bail.

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Contact Terri Sanginiti at 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com

Taken From DelawareOnline.com

Dorset Fire Service Unveil £230k Monster Truck

By Joanna Davis »

A MONSTER fire truck is to ride roughshod over heath fires and floods in Dorset.

The £230,000 off-road Unimog will be used all over the county to tackle blazes and major incidents in rural areas.

And not only will it save residents’ lives – it will help to safeguard Dorset Fire and Rescue Service’s firefighters too.

Fleet and engineering manager Mike Dredge said: “We currently have 125 firefighters putting themselves at huge risk in a typical heath fire.

“Firefighters are lugging equipment around and have to walk into the fire. Having to fight aggressive fires with beaters is very exhausting and leaves them dehydrated.

“With the Unimog they’ll be able to start putting out the fire from up to 60 metres away as soon as they arrive on the scene.”

The specialist vehicle, which will be based at Wareham, can carry 5,000 litres of water and has a roof-mounted monitor that can direct large quantities of water or foam at a fire. Its giant wheels can power through 1.2 metres of water.

Around 16 officers will be trained at Bovington to drive the Unimog over rough terrain. The Unimog is based on a French design and travels at a maximum speed of 56 mph.

It was ordered two years ago, took a year to be built and is expected to be brought into full service in around three months.

Chief fire officer Darran Gunter said: “Compared to a standard fire engine, this is unique. There is no other vehicle in Dorset designed for this purpose.”

The launch of the Unimog was combined with a display of other unusual vehicles, including a special events vehicle, a a MAN 4x4 and a small fires unit.

The small fires unit and the other vehicles could be bought by the fire service for use in Weymouth and Portland during the 2012 Olympics.

Mr Dredge said: “We need something smaller to be on site for the duration of the Games rather than a normal fire engine.”

Taken From DorsetEcho.co.uk