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