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Last weekend was Monsterjam.  For anyone who has never been to a monster truck show, the audience  is divided pretty evenly between two groups.  Dads and kids, and guys who talk to the trucks like they’re people.  I don’t know who’s more amusing to watch: The wide-eyed eight-year-olds waving their checkered flags, ears-a-plugged, grins permanently shellacked on their faces.  Or the beer guzzling over-tanned gentlemen in Ted Nugent shirts who debate the finer points of which truck will triumpth over which truck and why.  Also, the best part about Monsterjam is that it hasn’t been overrun by stupid hipsters yet.  I guess they see this as being a little too blue-collar for them to shit all over.  I hope it stays that way.

Anywho, the show was a little less than entertaining this year (compared to last year), mainly because there was only one really competent driver there, that being Dennis Anderson driving Grave Digger.  Now, competentcy is a strange thing in montster truck racing.  Unlike every other sport, where the veterans are a little better than the young guys, but each have their strengths, monster truck racing is truly a skill that takes years to hone, which gives a 26 year veteran like Anderson a ridiculously huge advantage over the other guys.  The thing is, these trucks are too big to predict.  You launch it off a set of cars and it will land any which way but normal.  What 26 years of driving does is prepare you for all the ways that it might bounce or roll, and what to do to keep it upright.  Thus letting you drive much, much faster.  The greenhorns surrounding Anderson didn’t have a chance.

What made this year’s jam a little boring, was the suspicious absence of Tom Meents from the competition.  If Anderson is Monsterjam’s Grand-daddy, Meents is the Crazy Uncle that people have to keep an eye on at family events.  Where Anderson drives it like he stole it, Meents drives it like he needs to kill it.

I rest my case.

I can only hope that these two titans will clash at Monsterjam, Lebanon Valley Speedway.

And while I’m on the subject, I’m proud to say that not only am I a fan, I’ve also had the unique opportunity to drive one of these things.  When I was in New Zealand two years ago, we passed a guy who had a track set up behind his farm.  For $150 he’d let you ride.  For $250 he’d let you drive.  Guess which one I chose…

I wrote down the experience a few days later, so read on if you like:

Friday was the day we left Wanaka.  However, on the way out we had to make a stop: A stop at a place with a man named Ian behind the counter.  A stop that my parents couldn’t believe they were making.  That’s right, a stop at the monster truck track we’d seen on our way in from the Queenstown Airport.

My Dad and I walked in to the garage and a six foot four, two-hundred pound man with bleached blonde hair and a mouthful of slightly disorganized teeth greeted us with a smile and a warm handshake.  His name was Ian, and he is near the top of the list of coolest guys on the planet.

He gave me a fire-retardant suit, a fire-retardant mask, and a helmet.  I gave him my $250 NZ dollars.

I should break here to tell you the paperwork that I had to sign to be allowed to drive the truck: A signature on a piece of paper that more resembled a petition than a legal document.

That’s right, a single piece of paper with a list of six things is the standard legal disclaimer that these thrill-seeking outfits make you sign here in NZ.  The gist of the six points is this:

1. What you’re about to do can range anywhere from dangerous to insane.
2. The company is not liable if you get hurt attempting said dangerous/insane activity.
3. You will not sue said company once you get back to your own country, where laws might be on you side.
4. You do not have any medical conditions that would impair your activity in said dangerous/insane activity. If you lie about this, then get hurt, refer to points two and three.
5. Next of kin or something like that.
6. Sound mind blah, blah, blah.

So you can imagine my amusement when Ian gave me a piece of paper with a line for my signature below tons of other signatures dating back a year or two.  I signed it without looking (I’d already read the one at the whitewater rafting place, same document everywhere), and I was now “ready” to drive a monster truck.  While going over the finer points of his limited liability, Ian explained to me what the ride would be like.  Apparently, the NZ safety inspector strictly forbade him from allowing people to get the truck airborne.   However, Ian found a way around that by structuring the track so it was possible to allow the truck to pop a wheelie (not airborne, mind you).  Ian also told me that the safety inspector made him take the alcohol-burning engine out of the truck (”Sorry to disappoint you mate, but this truck is nat-trull-ley ass-puh-rated,” he said to me.)  Though half of me was disappointed, the other half of me was secretly glad.  An alcohol-fueled monster truck would produce in excess of 1200 horsepower, way too much for any novice (or most pros for that matter).  Suffice it to say, the safety inspector was correct, despite what Ian said about wanting to make the ride “fun.”

Ian and I went out the side door where I was immediately greeted by USA Taurus.  It was only now that I could see the truck up close.  Two things became apparent almost immediately: One, this thing was home built and, two, it had been around for a while.  The suspension was several generations removed from what is being used now, and the chassis matched.  The newest thing on the truck, aside from the tires, which looked rather new, was the body.  I guessed it to be a mid-nineties Chevy Silverado.  (I wondered what the original body of the truck was, you never know with these things.)  Ian walked around to the front of the truck and picked up a ladder.  I surmised this was how I would get in.  He put the ladder down and walked to the rear drivers-side tire.

“Here’s how you get in the truck.” he said.  I was still trying to figure out why he had even picked up the ladder.  “You put your left foot there, your right foot there, climb up here, and swing your body over the back.”

He was pointing to various parts of the wheel-well, the tire, and the frame.  I was in heaven.  In half a second, Ian swung up into the bed of the truck.  I clamored up after him, juxtaposing his catlike movements with my own rhinoccerous-like attempts.  Once in the bed, I saw the entrance to the truck.  A rough hole, cut into the ceiling of the cab.  For the first time I was a little nervous.

“Climb into the passenger seat, I’m going to drive down the hill.” Ian said.

I cautiously balanced myself on the much dented ceiling of the cab and lowered myself into the passenger seat.  To my relief, the interior was braced by a regulation-looking roll-cage.  However, that was where the relief ended.  The seats were fiberglass bucket seats bolted directly to the frame though the bottom panel of the cab. Padding for both seats was courtesy of what looked like folded up egg-crate stuffed inside a giant pillow case.  The steering wheel was normal, but the shifter, located between the two seats was something out of monster garage.  There’s really no way to sugar coat this, it was a big metal lever, with 2×4, 4×4, REV, and PARK written in paint marker on various points on the floor of the cab under the lever itself.  The lever protruded from a large hole in the floor and led directly to what I was hoping was the gearbox.  My nervousness crept up a notch.

Ian slid into the driver’s seat.  He was wearing what looked like a motorcycle helmet, the kind that only protected the top of the head.

Nervousness back down: he trusts his machine.

He pulled some wires out of the steering column, twisted them together, then mashed a big black button with START labeled on the dashboard next to it with sharpie marker.  Nervousness back to previous level.

The engine fired once then died.  Ian smiled a big, disorganized smile, pumped the gas a few times and mashed the button again.  The engine caught and roared to life.  I don’t know if it had a muffler or not, but it sounded powerful nonetheless.  He motioned for me to put on my lap belt.  That’s right, a lap belt.  More nervousness.

“You’re lucky you came this morning!  I’ve been meaning to take the radiator out of this one!” Said Ian over the crackling engine “truck needs some love if you know what mean.”  Nervousness shooting to unheard of heights.

It was about this point that I began to look around me, but not at the interior of the truck.  I was looking at the roof of the garage in front of me.  Suddenly it dawned on me, I was fifteen feet up in a vehicle that commanded close to triple the horsepower of the most powerful truck I’d ever driven.  Ian grabbed the lever/shifter and creaked it into REV.

“Real tough backing this puppy up, that’s why I drive it down to the track for you.”

I nodded in a whatever-you-say-is-fine-with-me-cause-I-just-realized-that- I’m-in-over-my head fashion.

As we descended to track level, Ian went over the finer points of driving the truck.  “Don’t go over the cars wrong or it will roll.  Don’t try to keep the wheels absolutely straight while going over the cars or it will roll.  Don’t mash the throttle too hard, the gears are straight-cut and cost a fortune to replace, plus you’ll probably roll.  Line up the tires with the ends of the cars, do this by sticking your head out the window and looking, that’s how the pros did it until someone got the bright idea to cut holes in the floorboards.  If you’re not lined up you’ll roll.”

I felt like I was in the monster truck version of Stalinist Russia.  Don’t do this or you’ll be shot.  Don’t do that or you’ll be shot.  If you this you’ll be shot.  Deserters will be shot…

“Okay, let’s go.” Ian said.  He lept through the hole in the roof and allowed me to shimmy into the drivers seat.  Thankfully, it had a five point safety harness, but still the same crappy padding.

I was sitting in the driver’s seat of a monster truck.  It had just become real.  I was expected to drive a monster truck!  I gingerly gave it a little gas and headed toward the first set of cars.  Over those no problem.  Now on to the ramps.  Everything went fine over the ramps, the hills, the second set of cars, and the bumps.  I was now approaching the wheelie ramp.  Ian reached over and cut the engine (pulled the mess of wires apart).

“Doin’ well Patrick, but now is the fun part.  Now, what I need you to do is inch it over this first hill, and as soon as the front wheels reach the bottom, you gotta floor it as hard as it will go.  Can you do that for me?”

He sounded so sincere.

“If you can do that for me, your folks will have a great picture for you,” he said, gesturing to my family, ant-like off in the distance.

He reconnected the wires and mashed on the START button.  Nothing happened.

“And remember, once you get down the hill, pull back inside the truck and brace yourself.  It’s gonna get bumpy.  Now, give it some gas, will you please?”

I complied and the engine sputtered to life once more.  I eased down on the gas pedal and started up the first hill.  Now, going up a hill is no big thing in a car, but in a monster truck, it’s utterly nerve-wracking.  First of all, I’m already fifteen feet off the ground, so once the cab tips a few degrees uphill, I’m driving blind.  Second, I’m no longer on the ground.  I’m now on a mound of dirt that just so happens to have a level part just wide enough for a monster truck [read: 15 feet wide].  I had my head out the drivers side window, my left arm braced against the roll-cage, and my right arm guiding the steering wheel.  The truck crested the hill and we started our descent.  Ian tugged me back inside, I’d almost forgotten.

“Now, Patrick!”

I gave the truck some gas, but not enough.  It crested the second hill quickly, but with not nearly enough momentum to get the wheels off the ground.

“Aww, Patrick, what was that?” Ian said, visibly dismayed,  “More gas, more gas!  Now take her around for another go.”  He was already cranking the wheel to the left for me.

I resolved myself to get it right the second time, and settled in for the bumpy trip back around.  We were no longer on the track, but were about to cross over a tire border back into it.  I hesitated for a second.  Shouldn’t we go around the tires?  Wouldn’t it be bad to-  Wait a minute.  I was in a monster truck.  A fifteen foot tall, 5 ton, fire-breathing, axle-snapping, frame-twisting, 750 horsepower leviathan.  There could have been a 7-11 in the way and it wouldn’t have mattered.

I idled over the tires.

Now I was ready for my second attempt.  Again, I climbed the hill.  Again, pulled myself back in the cab and braced for the landing.  I pushed my right foot down.  The throttle kept going, further and further down I pushed.  My hands were gripping the wheel hard enough to leave indentations in the plastic.  The truck was still tilted down hill, chewed up dirt filling my view.  And still more throttle to go!

Suddenly, the front of the truck vaulted into the air.  I could see nothing but sky and a few miniscule cracks in the windshield.  And suddenly all was silent.  The roar of the engine seemed far away, the vibrating cab somehow far off as well.  In the distance, I could see a plane beginning it’s descent into the Queenstown airport, or was it a bird-

“Hold tight!” Ian shouted.

The front end of the truck crashed to the ground, pushing me forward, almost into the steering wheel.  Had he not prepared me I would have driven my face into the top of the wheel.

“Not bad, not bad,” said Ian, who was all disorganized smiles in the passenger seat.  The truck sat there for a few seconds while I caught my breath.  A few drops of rain spattered on the windshield.

“Lucky thing you came here so early,” said Ian, “the truck doesn’t have windshield wipers.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 1:17 am and is filed under Idiot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.