February 26, 2013 • 37 mins
They're huge! They're mean! They run over cars the way you'd crumble paper beneath your shoe. But where do monster trucks come from, exactly? Join Scott and Ben to learn more about the origins of monster trucks (and Robosaurus) in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood, and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey, Ben,
tell me what the statement means to you. You paid
for the entire seat, but you'll only need the edge.
(00:21):
Does that mean anything to you? Yes, it means several things.
What does that mean? Well, Scott Benjamin h uh and
Ben Bolan's Oh yeah, yeah, I guess we've got I
think we're gonna say I've got a question for you.
But yeah, I'm Scott Benjamin and you know I'm I'm
the other guy. We I'll tell you what it means
to me. It means that we are finally getting to
(00:43):
cover an episode that I have wanted to cover for
it down time. Car Stuff talks about monster truck. Yes,
monster trucks in that line that I read earlier, that's uh,
the typical marketing line that you know you'd hear every
weekend before a big event. Only need exactly And that's
so true, so true. That's it really is. It's such
(01:06):
a it's such a cool support. Now this is your
this is your idea for a podcast, right, Well, you
know I'm from Tennessee. Monster trucks have been pretty big there. Yeah, sure, yeah,
And and also in Detroit. It turns out silver Dome,
the Silver Dome which I lived. I could see the
Silver Dome from where I lived. It. It played a
huge part in the his in the beginning of this
whole thing, in the in the start of monster truck events,
(01:29):
monster truck rallies and uh and I was right there
in the midst of it, and I didn't know that
it was like really the dawn of monster trucks. I
guess I just hadn't thought about it because it was
I was just right at that sweet spot. That was
the age that I was kind of going to those
types of things, and it was all happening simultaneously. So
it's I don't know, the history of the thing goes
(01:50):
back about what thirty years now, Yeah, no longer than that,
a little bit longer than that, because this was let's see,
it's round nineteen V and D four. I guess that
Bob Chandler starts actually building the vehicle that he wants
to build. He uh worked in uh contracting for construction
(02:11):
during the day. UM and he was always uh four
by four kind of guy, right, And so he had
a nickname that people called him, and that nickname was Bigfoot.
I like where this is going, okay, and so he
uh he Also he was called Bigfoot because he had
a little bit of a reputation as a speeder into
(02:33):
uh so maybe lead foot. This could just lead foot.
This could easily have been lead foot. Mm hmm. And
so now let's keep in mind that the four world
drive vehicles that that are nearly ubiquitous now were weren't
as common in the seven Oh no, definitely definitely weren't.
You have to you have to try to find one.
(02:54):
So um, well, you know what, Yeah, sorry, let's pause
the history for just a moment. And you and I
talked about this offt air. We both have seen in
our past, and we're talking late seventies, mid mid to
late seventies, even into the early eighties, a lot of
vehicles that shouldn't have been built on truck bodies, built
(03:15):
on chassis rather, you know, car bodies whatever added to
truck chassis. Right, Yes, you're from Tennessee. I'm going to
assume that there's quite a few of these there. You
might see the trans am that's uh seven feet in
the air, or the the you know, maybe a hearse Yeah,
you can check on the internet. There's a bug. I
have personal experience. I saw a first one I can
(03:36):
remember was a purple l Camino that that was in
Indiana when I was a kid, and that was that
in the family, No, not the family. It was down
the street from a cousin's house that I see that
all the time. And uh, you know, that thing was
amazing incredible as a kid. You know, it's like it's
like a toy come to life. Really is. And there's
a lot of different versions of this that kind of
(03:57):
led up to what Mr Chandler was building, right right,
Yes we should that's you know what, that's a really
good point because, um, what he eventually does, um when
he decides that he needs to rely on his own
efforts to make sure he can get his repairs done
on his four by four and stuff. Uh, what ultimately
this leads to is that he and some buddies start
(04:23):
mess him with this, uh, the messing with this vehicle.
And what they end up doing is taking his nine
Ford F two fifty and uh, giving it a four
hundred and sixty cubic inch engine uh and then boring
that to over sixty and then a C six transmission
(04:45):
and boom, big Foot number one is born giant giant tires.
Oh yes, yes, the most one of the most important.
But and a huge lift kit, right because a huge
lift Now, obviously you know the the the idea is
to be his high offic round in these types of
things as pot. But he's just going from scratch. He
doesn't even know what he's really doing here. He's just
making a giant truck. He's not really going for what
(05:07):
we consider now as a monster truck. Originally, at this
point they wanted to test like climbing and off routing abilities,
the tires of tall over the first one all right,
and you know what, those are huge, but not what
we're talking now. And we'll get to the modern trucks
in a moment. But um, so here's what's his name, Bill,
Bob Bob Chandler. He's out you know it is farm
(05:31):
or wherever he's located. He's got a lot of property. Um,
he's out building this thing. And they decide one day,
this is like in the early actually one, I bet
I could crush that car. This car, this is so big.
You know what it'd be cool? Is it? Drive this
into town? Let's you know, I could just park on
top of any car I wanted to. It's probably a joke, right,
(05:52):
a lot of fun, you know, like this is I
could I could get through traffic. Really, they just drive
right over top of this car. So this truck is
so big, and you know, this kind of an unheard
of idea that time, which is crazy to think of
now because of what we've seen. But crushing cars was
a brand new thing. And so they're out on this
property out in the field somewhere videotaping. And I'm sure
(06:13):
this is a VHS tape, you know that that they're
taping this with VHS deck or whatever. Um, They've got
two cars that are apparently crushing cars, you know, like
some people have shooting cars. This is the crushing cars.
Pulls up to them and lo and behold, here's the
first car crush on video by Bigfoot. And uh, let's
(06:33):
also keep in mind because I know a couple of
people might write in about this. The first stuff we
described there, those forty eight inch tires and the type
of engine and the lift. Um that's stage one. Really
that's a prototype almost because they got to sixty six
inch tires. They of course, they had to do a
(06:53):
lot of work on the axle, because you can imagine
without a lot of work on the axle, uh, it
would be difficult to get that through and the the
suspension and um, you know, I think we can just
say this thing is completely custom other than the other
than the body work that's on it, this thing is
completely customed. It's a it's a home built vehicle that
was you know, purposely built for eventually for car crushing.
(07:16):
And so Bigfoot is born basically, and uh, let's just
say it's with this first car crush video, which you
can find online by the way, you can watch this.
But there's some controversy here, Ben, because at the same time,
other people were building trucks called like I think King
Kong and there's any one called high roller cyclops, and
they all claim that they were also crushing cars at
(07:39):
the same time. The difference here, Ben is the Bigfoot
was the first one with video proof, hard documentation, video
proof that they have crushed cars with with Bigfoot, and
you can watch the original crushing video on there's a
there's a site for Bigfoot specifically. And I want to
mention just a couple more things about Bigfoot because this
is fascinating history BIG's a dynasty notes, it's amazing. Uh.
(08:01):
There's a site, you know, it's called Bigfoot four by
four dot com, right right, Um, I think if you
go to big foot dot com, you end up at
something independent film company, but Bigfoot four by four dot
com And you can watch all these videos, but you
can watch the original footage in night one of them
crushing these two cars out in the field, and it's
it's pretty cool and knowing where that led, you know
(08:22):
what that led to and this is the first time.
Now here's how simple this video is. Um. You know,
there's a small crowd that cheering or whatever. They've actually
got the back end loaded up with wood and stuff
like that, just because they wanted to keep the weight
on the back end. And you know, I think have
you see that flying around in the video? It's it's
it's pretty interesting. It's a funny kind of a funny film, right,
(08:43):
but it's not you know, it's not something with dazzling
production value or no, no, no, no, it wasn't. It
was just to show what they could do. All right.
So we've got we've got the we've got the controversy here,
which I'm glad you mentioned because from one. For the
next couple of years, monster trucks are appearing um to
(09:05):
too great acclaim and fanfare, but they're mainly sticking with
this rolling over crushing cars trip yep In in nineteen
eighty two, which is just one year after this little
video surfaced, I guess some promoter got ahold of it
decided that, you know what, we've got these truck pulled
competitions that are happening. You know where they have UM
tractors or trucks that pull weight sleds. And we've talked
(09:25):
about this on our podcast. I think the weight pulling
competitions UM as an exhibition at the Pontiac Silver Dome
in two that is when Bigfoot did its first Like
I guess it would say, large scale show where um,
you know there's a big audience and you know there's
instead of just being out in the field with a
couple of people in video, they're in front of Get
(09:46):
this Bend and I this blew me away when I
heard this number, seventy two thousand people. Um, now this
is incredibly Now I think that's actually when seventy thousand
were there. But two is we need to first, um,
the first showing apart first public showing. UM in three
(10:07):
there's a there's this footage that they call it's kind
of loosely called the flash attack footage because the second
that that thing jumps, that's when all these i mean
the full stadium lights up with Remember flash cubes on cameras.
Everybody had flash cubes. He had to replace on the cameras.
So for all the all the younger listeners, UM give
(10:27):
you some old people tips here. Uh. The cameras used
to not have an embedded flash. Uh, phones didn't weren't
able to take pictures at this time. You you would
have to buy these cubes that were you know, consumables. Yeah,
they would meaning they would wear out over time and
you would have to Uh, you have to physically attach them.
(10:48):
Single use, single use, that's the problem. And some of
them had four and they would rotate around and you
get four shots I haven't. You have to replace the
cube or a stick or whatever it is. That anyway,
so all these flashes went off, I mean, seventy two
thousand people at the Silver Dome Bend, most of them
taking a photograph all at one time. It's pretty incredible.
And and the crowd shots because the one that I
(11:08):
saw online, Uh, it's really pretty funny. I mean, just
to see the way that you know, the people are
dressed in the hairstyles and all that, you know, all
that goes along with this being nineteen eighty eight three,
I guess um pretty amazing. The film footage that I
saw was from It was from on the floor of
the Silver Ime when it happened. So it's really good footage.
So what's funny? Yeah, And one thing that we're trying
(11:30):
to point out here, if if, if it's not too apparent,
Bigfoot was wildly popular. Those seventy plus thousand people were
not booing. Uh. In fact, Bigfoot was so popular that
Bob was forced to make more Bigfoot big Feet. Yes,
do you know what what generation were at at this point? Then?
(11:51):
Oh gosh, let's see I tell you. Uh oh wait, wait,
it's somewhere, it's somewhere gone. It's gonna get it. I'm uh,
I'm not, I'm gonna have to let it out. Is
it more than eighteen? It is? Eighteen? Oh? Good, Okay,
nice work. You really pulled it out there. I'm impressed. Well,
I got you know, I uh, Scott, you and I
(12:12):
talked about our notes sometimes. You know, I'm a more
more of a fan of typing and printing, and you
you write down, see hands, your notes don't stick out
quite to like mind you I can. I can look
for big Foot eighteen and great big Giant black letters
and it's there, so on a separate post separates. That's right, Okay,
So eighteen iterations eighteen at this point. So we're talking,
you know, from the very beginning of one big Foot,
(12:34):
the original, we're all way up to this. Now. Now
there's been you know, each one of them has kind
of their own little uh I guess, storied history in
the you know, the records that it sets. And I
looked up a couple of these different different records and
we'll just quickly blow through them if you have a chance.
But um, let's see there's uh, well, there's big Foot
(12:54):
bad Boy three, which is you know, big Foot number fourteen.
Big Foot number sixteen broke the Monster Trek World Records
world record for speed at Norwalk, Ohio, on a on
a drag strip of all places. Um, they did the
eighth mile in uh seven point eight five seconds at
eighty six and a half miles per hour and that
doesn't sound like it's ridiculously fast, but and an eighth
(13:17):
of a mile to go eighty six miles per hour
in something that large, that's pretty incredible. It's it's really
cool to see. And all these videos, by the way,
you can watch on big Foot four by four dot com.
Um you can see the original big Foot number one
Pontiac Silverdome footage from three, which I highly recommend. That's
so it's so cool to see the historical stuff. Um,
(13:38):
big Foot number sixteen, which is a retro big Foot,
which is exactly the same body style as the as
the original number one. Yeah, and then um, this is
really cool big Foot number eighteen. Did you happen to
see the long jump? Are you talking about the one
that went over the jet? No, Oh my gosh, this
is the one that would jumped over a jet. Yeah,
(14:00):
well the jet was on the ground. Well I kind
of figured, well, you know what, looking at some of
the commercials recently, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't,
you know, it was flying by well, and yeah, I'm
big Foot four by four. You can you can see
some trucks that jump over a seven seven whoa, all right,
what this is this is more for distance. Okay, this
one is. This was a record that was set just
(14:22):
last year. Late last year in September, UM, they did
a long jump like for the world record in Indianapolis, Indiana,
UM two and fourteen ft eight inches. Ben this this
when you're watching this, this is so crazy looking. It
looks like it's fake. It looks like it's movie magic,
but it's it's the honest to goodness world record for
(14:43):
the long jump. It's it's incredible to see something this
big jump that far. And I think, maybe, you know,
at this point we should tell them how big these
things are and what they're you know, what their dimensions are. Maybe,
oh yeah, yeah, if if anybody didn't get the sense
from the remember I didn't get the sense from from
the tires. Uh, these vehicles are definitely not light. They
(15:08):
let's see, I've got I've got so much stuff here. Okay,
So we're talking minimum ten thousand pounds. Uh, and that's
that's the low end um, all right, So the five tons, yeah,
and a a monster trucks usually gonna it's gonna be
more than ten ft tall surround eleven ft taller so uh,
and then wider than it is tall, twelve twelve wide
(15:32):
is what I've got. Twelve ft wide, twelve ft wide,
twelve ft and um, so these there, there are a
lot of there's a lot of fiberglass in there. Um.
Oh yeah. The bodies are definitely fiberglass replicas at this
point of of the original bodies that you know, the
trucks that their their namesake comes from. If it's a
(15:53):
four and f one fifty, it's a fiberglass bodied f
one fifty At this point. It's not like, you know,
the original big Foot that I would guess was probably
the original body or modified metal body. And at this point,
the chassis are all customed pretty much, right yeah. Yeah,
and they have huge V eight engines. Now we're talking
about like these are these are you know, supercharged alcohol
(16:14):
burning blown engines that um, you know are our five
hundred cubic inch engines that you know, it's like nine
and a half liters been Yeah, one like one really
popular model right now is um one popular engine is
the five forty cubic inst Merlin. Okay, all right, and um,
like if you go to well, I don't want to
dive into it too quick, but if you if you
(16:35):
check out on stats for a lot of places that
have multiple monster trucks competing. One thing you'll notice is
that a lot of them are using that Merlin Okay,
all right, and so a supercharged five forty that's you know,
an alcohol burning engine that you can imagine the power
that comes out of these things. We're talking like horse power. Yeah,
(16:56):
it's as much as two thousands, so fifteen hundred to
two thousand horse hours. What you're talking to these things
sixty six inch tires, their their tires they come from
well actually original purpose was like farm tires like fertilizers,
which is incredible. Um oh. And one of the cool
things about these things, and this is what makes something
that we want to talk about later possible. Uh, four
(17:16):
wheel steering. They've got they've got this really really intense
looking four wheel steering. I mean it's it's pretty dramatic.
You can you can see it easily when they make
a tight turn. But it allows them to maneuver within
the confines of whatever arena they're competing, and much much easier.
It's a lot more stuff to break. Yeah, but there
are a lot more nimble than they might appear. They're
(17:38):
very nimble and in fact, it's it's actually, it's it's
truly surprising to see how nimble they are and how
how fast and far they can fly. Really, dude, I'm
we're we're both fans of this, so you know, it's
it's really it's not huge fans. I haven't followed the
whole series or anything like that, but um, but I
did go to many, many of those and we're talking
(18:00):
can write at that sweet spot again. Back in the
early nineteen eighties at the Silver Dome, I was there
in the you know, eighty thousand people crowds. Um, it
was a big deal and it was really really it
was kind of the thing to do on the weekends.
You know. It was, it was fun, it was it
was loud. It's probably part of the reason I can't
hear very well now. Um, it's it's really really intense.
(18:20):
When you're inside in a closed building and you've got
you know, the horsepower engines that are just full throttle
all night long. You can imagine what that's like. Yeah,
these don't exactly per uh And I wasn't smart enough
to wear ear protection. Well don't. I don't beat yourself up, man. Uh.
These were also kind of a new thing at the
time too, so you can't you can't blame yourself. Uh.
(18:40):
A little bit of the look of a couple of
facts real quick about the engines, UM that I think
will hopefully segue into uh, something we're both excited to
talk about. So these engines, UM, I believe this is
from the Bigfoot site. Uh. These engines are custom built
so that the Merlin we're talking about has a lot
(19:02):
of customization going into it. Uh. They will. They can
burn up to two and a half gallons of methanol
each run. That's quite a bit. And when you're talking
about like each run, I mean you you're you're talking
about maybe the racing aspect of these where it's really
just one trip across like there and back across the
(19:22):
across the state, which which might surprise some people that
that sounds a little bit similar to more similar to
maybe drag racing than it does to um and does too,
you know, a stocker racing or something. Yeah, but we're
talking about like these are these are just about like
drag racing engines in giant trucks. Absolutely, there's a short
burst to speed, yeah exactly, and then and that quick
(19:44):
burst to speed is what's required for what they do,
because you know that when they're you know, lining up
for it for a jump, it's not like they're gonna
have you know, when you see a you know, someone
else jumping busses or you know, evil kin evil or
whoever they've got you know two ft you know run
to the ramp. These guys don't have that, you know.
They they sometimes will put the front tires on the
ramp and then gun it and and they're flying through
(20:07):
the air, you know, twenty ft in the air, but
that comes from you know, the the ten ft up
the ramp. That that and that's all they had going uphill.
It's incredible. I don't know how again, we're getting to
this fanboy area where we're both excited about it and
there's not enough good things we can say about it. Really,
it's it's so cool to watch. Well I can answer.
I'd like to anticipate a question some people might ask,
(20:28):
which is, hey, Scott ha been, why aren't the engines bigger?
What's with the c I there? Well, the size of
the engines, there's a limit on it by some folks
that you might hear of, you might have heard of before.
Dear listener. They are called U s h r A.
And they say that if you want to roll with them,
you can only have five D and seventy five c
(20:51):
I and below. Oh I didn't know that. Okay, so
there's a there's a limit on the cubic inches. Um.
Now that they're the the organization, So the the U
s h h r A, the hot Rod Association. Um,
they're the organization that markets the whole series of Monster Truck. Uh. Well,
all the vehicles that that that participate in this. And
there's a little bit of confusion on my part, then
(21:12):
maybe maybe you can clear it up. Maybe I don't know,
but um, I've heard of Monster Jam, Monster Jam, Now
I've heard of the Thunder Nationals. Now, is it the
Monster Jam thunder Nationals or is it two separate series?
Because I thought that the thunder I thought that the
Thunder Nationals were a separate series from the Monster Jam series.
But then you see the two together at some places. Yeah,
(21:33):
and sometimes you see overlap between the vehicles. Yeah. It's
an it's an odd thing that like it depends on
how it's how it's printed or how you read it.
But I get the sense that they're separate things that
sometimes come together. Their separate groups sometimes come together for
certain events to like a freestyler. So maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, I'm not. I'm not that up on the
series at this point. I know I love watching it,
(21:55):
I love seeing it, but I'm not. I'm not you know,
following tour or anything like that, and I haven't been
for many many years since you know, the eighties or
the early nineties. Maybe, um so if somebody can clear
that up for us, we would appreciate it. But but honestly,
you'll see like the Monster Jam and Thunder Nationals together
as like a Monster Jam Thunder National event, which is
(22:15):
kind of strange because, um, it seems like they have
different things now. They originally competed on bear concrete floors, um,
you know, and they had you know, a couple of
cars lined up and they would jump these cars, and
you know it's like kind of a competition there, like
one way there, one way back. Um, you know. For time.
They also had wheelie competitions, they had donut competitions, and
(22:36):
then then freestyle. Okay, yeah, I jumped the gun. No, no,
not at all. I think we should talk about freestyle
and maybe moving on from there because freestyle. To me,
this is this is the coolest part. I think, this
is what this This makes people lose their minds. Ben,
this is the more fun. But like the crowds, the funnest,
(22:58):
they go crazy, absolutely crazy. You know what, I don't
blame them. This is so it's just such an adrell
and rush to even watch them do this. I can't
imagine what it's like for the drivers to to do
some of these things, to accomplish what they do in
these in these amazing, amazing vehicles. Yes, so check it out.
You've got a ten thousand pound vehicle, uh sixty plus
(23:20):
inch tires, an engine that is probably half demon well
suited for a drag car, well suited for a drag car.
And then you rev it up and you drive up
a ramp, you flip over once, you bounce so hard
that you flip over again. I'm talking about that double
flip video. And then you somehow land it. Yeah. Yeah,
(23:43):
And you know what you may think, like, these guys
go out there and I'll tell you this, and this
is after watching we you know, we were watching this.
We we investigated this quite a bit over the last
you know, a couple of weeks and watching a lot
of videos and you know, just trying to catch up
on the series and what's going on. And I'm sure
that Okay, I probably made some mistakes early on what
we're talking about and hoping up, but uh, you know,
(24:04):
like maybe skipped over some stuff that was important in
the development of the series. But let me tell you this,
the freestyle competition continues to be the most popular of
all the competitions. And there's a lot of driver's skill
that goes into this that you wouldn't think is there initially.
But when you watch a few of these and you
watch let's say you watched as many as we have
in the last couple of ys, their control is apparent.
(24:25):
Oh my gosh. You realize that, you know, saving the
vehicle at certain points and it actually pays and plays
into the judging of this whole thing. Saving the vehicle,
um is definitely driver's skill. I mean, there's a there's
a way that they can you know, prevent rollover, they
can upright the vehicle after it has rolled over. There's
there's uh, there's a lot of different angles that they
(24:46):
can hit these things that you know, you wouldn't think
more throttle here, less throttle there. Um, it's really really
quite a skill. And also just just so we're clear,
like any other motor sport, and this is a legitimate
motor sport, uh, that any other motor sport, there is
so much time spent on safety there, there really is.
(25:08):
I know it might look like these are just some
devil make care people flipping gigantic trucks. Um, but they
do spend quite a bit. These these drivers are exceptional.
That's my point. You couldn't survive directs that they get
into if if safety wasn't a huge issue in this series.
I mean we're talking about like the Hans device and um,
(25:30):
all the all the strapping and the cages that are
built around the remote uh interrupters correct, yeah, yeah, for
the ignition shut off and uh, I mean it's just
this part of the competition, this this freestyle part of
the competition started when I think the mid right, Yeah,
it didn't it again, as we've said, it was primarily
(25:52):
exhibition car crushing in the beginning and h racing and
racing afterward. And then the third the third step in
the evolution, if you will, is there the crowd favorite
if I would I mean people love the racing because
you know, it's because the heat competition elimination, you know
where it's there and back and who can get their
(26:13):
fastest and then there's a winner. But the freestyle competition
is where they get to go out and they just
and I'll tell you that the uh, the rules or
how they're judged. If you want, Okay, so you get
a certain time and you're supposed to use the entire
time that's a lotted to you. UM, you're judged on
speed aggression, UH, your jump, height and length of you
know what you what you attempt to do. UM, the
(26:35):
tricks that you you know, employed throughout that whole thing,
like of the the combination maybe UM saves, which is
again we talked about that it's purely driver's skill in
most cases. Some cases it's luck, but mostly driver's skill.
And then also another one that's really cool spectacular moments.
There's another one that they that the judges actually consider
(26:57):
in their judging is spectacular moment, which is anything out
of the ordinary that happens, like let's say that UM,
and I want to follow this up in just a
moment with a mention of a certain vehicle that is
known for spectacular moments, um, but anything out of the
ordinary that happens, like let's say you snap a wheel
off and you continue on, you know, and yet you
still pull off these incredible tricks. You're you're steering breaks,
(27:20):
and you still continue to you know, pull off these
amazing tricks. That's all noted in the in the judging
and if you happen to if you happen to be
at one of these events and there's a tie, you know,
the judging, because there's truly judges that these things and
they're judging by points this point system. If there's a
if there's a tie, sometimes there will be been a
cheer off by the audience for who wins, which I
(27:43):
think is kind of cool because that's kind of going
way back, you know. That's uh, that's how things used
to be judged. Really is yeah, like well, yeah, dance
offs or whatever, you know, like that, you know, who's
the greatest year, let's hear the cheer meter? Um or
this is kind of neat too. What there's a there's
a secret judge that no one knows about, which can
(28:03):
sometimes at bigger events, break the tie, which is kind
of a cool idea. That there's this secret judge, someone
that's watching that no one else is aware of, that
is a judge that will break a tie. I'm picturing that.
I'm picturing the bad guy from Inspector Gadget, you know.
I mean, how cool is that to be like only
used in a certain like an emergency situation, like like emergency.
(28:25):
You know, there's a tie at the freestock competition at
Monster Jam, but an extraordinary situation exactly, So I think
that's cool. And the whole thing just visually, the visually
freestyle is so shocking to me. It's it's just an
incredible I can't believe that a twelve ft tall, ten
thousand pound vehicle can launch itself twenty ft in the air.
(28:47):
It's if you haven't watched one in ten, let's say
ten years. Yeah, do yourself a favor. You will not
believe what they're doing with these trucks and the one
vehicle that to me. And I've got this list here
that we didn't get to. Um uh, we're run a
little longer, I think, I don't think. But there's a
huge list of Monster Jam trucks which you can see
on the Monster Jam website exactly the Monster Jam website,
(29:08):
which is I think Advanced Auto Parts as the sponsor
at this point. The vehicle, Oh yeah, they do, Yeah,
they have the h the grinder is what it's called.
I'm looking at my list, but there's a lot of
different vehicles and they all have their own characteristics and features.
There's something that I think you should look at in particular,
and it's a vehicle that never seems to disappoint in
(29:28):
the clips. It's called Maximum Destruction. Have you seen this?
I was wondering if you were going to say maximum
destruction or Grave Diggers. Okay, okay, Grave digg is an
old school truck. It goes way back, but Maximum Destruction
is slightly newer. I think, Um, I don't know if
I've ever seen something as dramatic in in this type
of competition is what Maximum Destruction does. And I it's funny,
(29:51):
but it truly to me, it stands out. And they
they actually have what they call max D moments and
they have like account down with them, like ten to one,
and if you watch them, you know, there's like a
little lead in of what happened and you know the
date that had happened or whatever, and then they show
you the full freestyle segment. I'll tell you, Ben, it's truly,
(30:12):
like I said, it's shocking what this thing can do.
I just had no idea that they advanced so much
because I remember the I'm talking like Bigfoot one or
Bigfoot two days when I was watching. And now we're
up to you know, this maximum destruction. And there's there
must be it looks like seventy or eight trucks on
this list. Maybe I'm just guessing. Yeah, there's quite a few,
(30:32):
several of them, and they've all got their own features
and high points in own story, yeah exactly, and and talents,
and you know, the driver team, their own uh, their
race team, and also their own kind of family if
you will, of related vehicles. Like not only is their
grape Digger, there's Grave Digger, the legend. Oh yeah, there's
a son of Grave Digger or whatever, a son of
(30:53):
a grave digger, that's what they call it. That there's
there's so many different versions of these now, and they're
on tour all the time. I know, but you know,
as a matter of fact, this is going to date
this podcast. But there's one in town this weekend here. Ah, yes, uh,
the weekend we're recording this. This is uh, this is
just a few days into February. Yeah. Yeah, and there's
(31:13):
an event happening this weekend. I'm not going to be
able to make I didn't know it's even happening until
I started researching this and found out the dates. But
I may in the near future make plans to go
to one of these just from based on what I've
seen in these videos. We should go because these trucks
are in fifty different cities each year, they're all they're
continually on tour, really travel a lot. There's one thing
(31:34):
that we have to talk about. I'll never be able
to apologize to my childhoodself if we don't. What's that?
I mean, I'll never be able to make it up
to that good Scott. What is thirty ft tall and
eats cars? Oh? I know this one, then you know
I do. It's there's two names, Okay, is it truck
(31:55):
Asaurus or or is it Robosaurus? Now it if our purposes,
it's Robosaurus because we don't live in the world of
the Simpson. Oh, I knew there was a I knew
there was a distinction. Yeah, it's then that's the distinction.
Truck a source is fictional, Uh yeah, based on reality,
based on truck A source is the Simpsons version based
(32:17):
on Robosaurs, which is real. Robosource for anybody who for
some reason doesn't know, Uh, robosource is a gigantic, flame
breathing car crushing thing. Uh. That would be that that
people would bring around to um monster trucking events a
(32:37):
lot and and you know other demolition derby stuff like that,
and Uh. The idea was sort of a take on Transformers.
And so if you're a kid and you're at these shows,
then the idea is that Robosaurus has um driven to
the like disguised himself as a as a vehicle a
similar or something. It looks like it looks like a
(32:58):
giant RV or something like that, right, and that he's
come to this place to transform so that he can
eat cars. Now, of course there are plot holes in
this in his origin story, like he's driving by cars
it could eat. But um, this is a really really
cool thing. Um. We posted it earlier on our Facebook,
(33:20):
and for me, there's a bit of nostalgia here, but
I think we're on the same page with that. Have
you ever seen Rebosaurus in person? No? No, no, you
know it's still out there. It's still somewhere. I don't
know where it is. I recently got auctions, I uh
I have. I had the great fortune to see this
in you know, live when it was like this was
(33:42):
the big deal right at the Silver Dome and it
came out. It looked like an RV. It transformed into
this this monster that was suddenly staring us in the
eyes and you know, eighty feet up or whatever. Um
and it did pick up, you know, a giant car,
like an old late you know, nineteen seventies type car,
huge car, picked it up, held it up into its mouth,
and then you know, use the flamethrower to barbecue the
(34:04):
thing right in front of us, and then dropped it
dropped it from that height. That's so cool to see
that happen. It's twenty pounds of force. It's a so
it truly does crush the car when it bites it. Yeah,
it's not like you know, one of those cranes that
you know, it doesn't do anything when it when it
collapses on it. It's this is this is truly crushing
the car and cooking it with this this monster flamethrower thing.
(34:27):
And it's got an incredible show. It's got a human
pilot too in the head. How neat. This is what
a what a fun time. When you foot flames those
teeth on, it's got the teeth or four ft long,
that's a good day. When you see Robosaurus, well unless
you're in the car he's eating. Well that's true. So
obviously the Simpsons fans are Robosaurus. Uh the Simpsons guy's
(34:48):
a Robosaurus fans too, because they have truck Asaurus, which, uh,
if you watch some I think Bart the Daredevil is
one of the Episodesaurus I now I have to go
watch that on my desktop. Um, well, guys, we're uh,
we're gonna go ahead and wrap up here. Um, we've
had I know, we've had a good time doing this. Yeah,
you know, And and for any holes in the history
(35:10):
or whatever, I apologize, but we were such just we're
fans of this. We like had We had a tough
time on this one because it's it's so cool and
there's so many angles on this the fiberglass bodies that
are so amazing that we didn't even get to all
the different trucks and we only got to mention like
maximum destruction and Bigfoot and everything that Bob Chandler did.
He's really I heard him called once the Mario Andretti
(35:33):
of monster truck racing, and he really is a pioneer,
so actually named. He made so many advancements that we
have not talked about in this podcast. But I do
want to take a moment to thank Mr Chandler for
enabling you know, us as well as um millions of
people now to enjoy monster truck monster truck competition. Yeah,
(35:54):
I mean tens of millions of people. It's just it's
an exciting exciting thing to witness. And and seriously, if
one comes near you anywhere into you know that arena,
locally or wherever, make an effort to get there. It's
so worthwhile. So when uh robosource the last update, he
was sold for five hundred seventy five thousand dollars um.
(36:15):
I have considered starting a Roman Source rescue fund if
you guys are interested. Is that what the cup on
your desk is for? That is what the cup of
my desk is for. It's gonna have to be a
lot bigger. Well, you know, one step at a time,
all right, dream big, I've got I've got big dreams.
Scott um So we're gonna go ahead and head out.
(36:36):
If you're we would love to hear from guys. If
you have any monster truck experience, if you have some
stuff you want to tell us more about, or just
a lot of people have been sending their list of
their favorite cars. How about this I'm enjoying. If you
have a photo of the monster truck event from like
let's say their early days, like sure, Yeah, if you
(36:56):
can scan it and send it along, I love looking
at its. Yeah, you can post it on ebook. You
can drop us a line at Twitter, or you can
always send Scott nine emails regularly at car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
(37:17):
at how stuff works dot com. M
Go behind the wheel, under the hood, and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey, Ben,
tell me what the statement means to you. You paid
for the entire seat, but you'll only need the edge.
(00:21):
Does that mean anything to you? Yes, it means several things.
What does that mean? Well, Scott Benjamin h uh and
Ben Bolan's Oh yeah, yeah, I guess we've got I
think we're gonna say I've got a question for you.
But yeah, I'm Scott Benjamin and you know I'm I'm
the other guy. We I'll tell you what it means
to me. It means that we are finally getting to
(00:43):
cover an episode that I have wanted to cover for
it down time. Car Stuff talks about monster truck. Yes,
monster trucks in that line that I read earlier, that's uh,
the typical marketing line that you know you'd hear every
weekend before a big event. Only need exactly And that's
so true, so true. That's it really is. It's such
(01:06):
a it's such a cool support. Now this is your
this is your idea for a podcast, right, Well, you
know I'm from Tennessee. Monster trucks have been pretty big there. Yeah, sure, yeah,
And and also in Detroit. It turns out silver Dome,
the Silver Dome which I lived. I could see the
Silver Dome from where I lived. It. It played a
huge part in the his in the beginning of this
whole thing, in the in the start of monster truck events,
(01:29):
monster truck rallies and uh and I was right there
in the midst of it, and I didn't know that
it was like really the dawn of monster trucks. I
guess I just hadn't thought about it because it was
I was just right at that sweet spot. That was
the age that I was kind of going to those
types of things, and it was all happening simultaneously. So
it's I don't know, the history of the thing goes
(01:50):
back about what thirty years now, Yeah, no longer than that,
a little bit longer than that, because this was let's see,
it's round nineteen V and D four. I guess that
Bob Chandler starts actually building the vehicle that he wants
to build. He uh worked in uh contracting for construction
(02:11):
during the day. UM and he was always uh four
by four kind of guy, right, And so he had
a nickname that people called him, and that nickname was Bigfoot.
I like where this is going, okay, and so he
uh he Also he was called Bigfoot because he had
a little bit of a reputation as a speeder into
(02:33):
uh so maybe lead foot. This could just lead foot.
This could easily have been lead foot. Mm hmm. And
so now let's keep in mind that the four world
drive vehicles that that are nearly ubiquitous now were weren't
as common in the seven Oh no, definitely definitely weren't.
You have to you have to try to find one.
(02:54):
So um, well, you know what, Yeah, sorry, let's pause
the history for just a moment. And you and I
talked about this offt air. We both have seen in
our past, and we're talking late seventies, mid mid to
late seventies, even into the early eighties, a lot of
vehicles that shouldn't have been built on truck bodies, built
(03:15):
on chassis rather, you know, car bodies whatever added to
truck chassis. Right, Yes, you're from Tennessee. I'm going to
assume that there's quite a few of these there. You
might see the trans am that's uh seven feet in
the air, or the the you know, maybe a hearse Yeah,
you can check on the internet. There's a bug. I
have personal experience. I saw a first one I can
(03:36):
remember was a purple l Camino that that was in
Indiana when I was a kid, and that was that
in the family, No, not the family. It was down
the street from a cousin's house that I see that
all the time. And uh, you know, that thing was
amazing incredible as a kid. You know, it's like it's
like a toy come to life. Really is. And there's
a lot of different versions of this that kind of
(03:57):
led up to what Mr Chandler was building, right right,
Yes we should that's you know what, that's a really
good point because, um, what he eventually does, um when
he decides that he needs to rely on his own
efforts to make sure he can get his repairs done
on his four by four and stuff. Uh, what ultimately
this leads to is that he and some buddies start
(04:23):
mess him with this, uh, the messing with this vehicle.
And what they end up doing is taking his nine
Ford F two fifty and uh, giving it a four
hundred and sixty cubic inch engine uh and then boring
that to over sixty and then a C six transmission
(04:45):
and boom, big Foot number one is born giant giant tires.
Oh yes, yes, the most one of the most important.
But and a huge lift kit, right because a huge
lift Now, obviously you know the the the idea is
to be his high offic round in these types of
things as pot. But he's just going from scratch. He
doesn't even know what he's really doing here. He's just
making a giant truck. He's not really going for what
(05:07):
we consider now as a monster truck. Originally, at this
point they wanted to test like climbing and off routing abilities,
the tires of tall over the first one all right,
and you know what, those are huge, but not what
we're talking now. And we'll get to the modern trucks
in a moment. But um, so here's what's his name, Bill,
Bob Bob Chandler. He's out you know it is farm
(05:31):
or wherever he's located. He's got a lot of property. Um,
he's out building this thing. And they decide one day,
this is like in the early actually one, I bet
I could crush that car. This car, this is so big.
You know what it'd be cool? Is it? Drive this
into town? Let's you know, I could just park on
top of any car I wanted to. It's probably a joke, right,
(05:52):
a lot of fun, you know, like this is I
could I could get through traffic. Really, they just drive
right over top of this car. So this truck is
so big, and you know, this kind of an unheard
of idea that time, which is crazy to think of
now because of what we've seen. But crushing cars was
a brand new thing. And so they're out on this
property out in the field somewhere videotaping. And I'm sure
(06:13):
this is a VHS tape, you know that that they're
taping this with VHS deck or whatever. Um, They've got
two cars that are apparently crushing cars, you know, like
some people have shooting cars. This is the crushing cars.
Pulls up to them and lo and behold, here's the
first car crush on video by Bigfoot. And uh, let's
(06:33):
also keep in mind because I know a couple of
people might write in about this. The first stuff we
described there, those forty eight inch tires and the type
of engine and the lift. Um that's stage one. Really
that's a prototype almost because they got to sixty six
inch tires. They of course, they had to do a
(06:53):
lot of work on the axle, because you can imagine
without a lot of work on the axle, uh, it
would be difficult to get that through and the the
suspension and um, you know, I think we can just
say this thing is completely custom other than the other
than the body work that's on it, this thing is
completely customed. It's a it's a home built vehicle that
was you know, purposely built for eventually for car crushing.
(07:16):
And so Bigfoot is born basically, and uh, let's just
say it's with this first car crush video, which you
can find online by the way, you can watch this.
But there's some controversy here, Ben, because at the same time,
other people were building trucks called like I think King
Kong and there's any one called high roller cyclops, and
they all claim that they were also crushing cars at
(07:39):
the same time. The difference here, Ben is the Bigfoot
was the first one with video proof, hard documentation, video
proof that they have crushed cars with with Bigfoot, and
you can watch the original crushing video on there's a
there's a site for Bigfoot specifically. And I want to
mention just a couple more things about Bigfoot because this
is fascinating history BIG's a dynasty notes, it's amazing. Uh.
(08:01):
There's a site, you know, it's called Bigfoot four by
four dot com, right right, Um, I think if you
go to big foot dot com, you end up at
something independent film company, but Bigfoot four by four dot
com And you can watch all these videos, but you
can watch the original footage in night one of them
crushing these two cars out in the field, and it's
it's pretty cool and knowing where that led, you know
(08:22):
what that led to and this is the first time.
Now here's how simple this video is. Um. You know,
there's a small crowd that cheering or whatever. They've actually
got the back end loaded up with wood and stuff
like that, just because they wanted to keep the weight
on the back end. And you know, I think have
you see that flying around in the video? It's it's
it's pretty interesting. It's a funny kind of a funny film, right,
(08:43):
but it's not you know, it's not something with dazzling
production value or no, no, no, no, it wasn't. It
was just to show what they could do. All right.
So we've got we've got the we've got the controversy here,
which I'm glad you mentioned because from one. For the
next couple of years, monster trucks are appearing um to
(09:05):
too great acclaim and fanfare, but they're mainly sticking with
this rolling over crushing cars trip yep In in nineteen
eighty two, which is just one year after this little
video surfaced, I guess some promoter got ahold of it
decided that, you know what, we've got these truck pulled
competitions that are happening. You know where they have UM
tractors or trucks that pull weight sleds. And we've talked
(09:25):
about this on our podcast. I think the weight pulling
competitions UM as an exhibition at the Pontiac Silver Dome
in two that is when Bigfoot did its first Like
I guess it would say, large scale show where um,
you know there's a big audience and you know there's
instead of just being out in the field with a
couple of people in video, they're in front of Get
(09:46):
this Bend and I this blew me away when I
heard this number, seventy two thousand people. Um, now this
is incredibly Now I think that's actually when seventy thousand
were there. But two is we need to first, um,
the first showing apart first public showing. UM in three
(10:07):
there's a there's this footage that they call it's kind
of loosely called the flash attack footage because the second
that that thing jumps, that's when all these i mean
the full stadium lights up with Remember flash cubes on cameras.
Everybody had flash cubes. He had to replace on the cameras.
So for all the all the younger listeners, UM give
(10:27):
you some old people tips here. Uh. The cameras used
to not have an embedded flash. Uh, phones didn't weren't
able to take pictures at this time. You you would
have to buy these cubes that were you know, consumables. Yeah,
they would meaning they would wear out over time and
you would have to Uh, you have to physically attach them.
(10:48):
Single use, single use, that's the problem. And some of
them had four and they would rotate around and you
get four shots I haven't. You have to replace the
cube or a stick or whatever it is. That anyway,
so all these flashes went off, I mean, seventy two
thousand people at the Silver Dome Bend, most of them
taking a photograph all at one time. It's pretty incredible.
And and the crowd shots because the one that I
(11:08):
saw online, Uh, it's really pretty funny. I mean, just
to see the way that you know, the people are
dressed in the hairstyles and all that, you know, all
that goes along with this being nineteen eighty eight three,
I guess um pretty amazing. The film footage that I
saw was from It was from on the floor of
the Silver Ime when it happened. So it's really good footage.
So what's funny? Yeah, And one thing that we're trying
(11:30):
to point out here, if if, if it's not too apparent,
Bigfoot was wildly popular. Those seventy plus thousand people were
not booing. Uh. In fact, Bigfoot was so popular that
Bob was forced to make more Bigfoot big Feet. Yes,
do you know what what generation were at at this point? Then?
(11:51):
Oh gosh, let's see I tell you. Uh oh wait, wait,
it's somewhere, it's somewhere gone. It's gonna get it. I'm uh,
I'm not, I'm gonna have to let it out. Is
it more than eighteen? It is? Eighteen? Oh? Good, Okay,
nice work. You really pulled it out there. I'm impressed. Well,
I got you know, I uh, Scott, you and I
(12:12):
talked about our notes sometimes. You know, I'm a more
more of a fan of typing and printing, and you
you write down, see hands, your notes don't stick out
quite to like mind you I can. I can look
for big Foot eighteen and great big Giant black letters
and it's there, so on a separate post separates. That's right, Okay,
So eighteen iterations eighteen at this point. So we're talking,
you know, from the very beginning of one big Foot,
(12:34):
the original, we're all way up to this. Now. Now
there's been you know, each one of them has kind
of their own little uh I guess, storied history in
the you know, the records that it sets. And I
looked up a couple of these different different records and
we'll just quickly blow through them if you have a chance.
But um, let's see there's uh, well, there's big Foot
(12:54):
bad Boy three, which is you know, big Foot number fourteen.
Big Foot number sixteen broke the Monster Trek World Records
world record for speed at Norwalk, Ohio, on a on
a drag strip of all places. Um, they did the
eighth mile in uh seven point eight five seconds at
eighty six and a half miles per hour and that
doesn't sound like it's ridiculously fast, but and an eighth
(13:17):
of a mile to go eighty six miles per hour
in something that large, that's pretty incredible. It's it's really
cool to see. And all these videos, by the way,
you can watch on big Foot four by four dot com.
Um you can see the original big Foot number one
Pontiac Silverdome footage from three, which I highly recommend. That's
so it's so cool to see the historical stuff. Um,
(13:38):
big Foot number sixteen, which is a retro big Foot,
which is exactly the same body style as the as
the original number one. Yeah, and then um, this is
really cool big Foot number eighteen. Did you happen to
see the long jump? Are you talking about the one
that went over the jet? No, Oh my gosh, this
is the one that would jumped over a jet. Yeah,
(14:00):
well the jet was on the ground. Well I kind
of figured, well, you know what, looking at some of
the commercials recently, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't,
you know, it was flying by well, and yeah, I'm
big Foot four by four. You can you can see
some trucks that jump over a seven seven whoa, all right,
what this is this is more for distance. Okay, this
one is. This was a record that was set just
(14:22):
last year. Late last year in September, UM, they did
a long jump like for the world record in Indianapolis, Indiana,
UM two and fourteen ft eight inches. Ben this this
when you're watching this, this is so crazy looking. It
looks like it's fake. It looks like it's movie magic,
but it's it's the honest to goodness world record for
(14:43):
the long jump. It's it's incredible to see something this
big jump that far. And I think, maybe, you know,
at this point we should tell them how big these
things are and what they're you know, what their dimensions are. Maybe,
oh yeah, yeah, if if anybody didn't get the sense
from the remember I didn't get the sense from from
the tires. Uh, these vehicles are definitely not light. They
(15:08):
let's see, I've got I've got so much stuff here. Okay,
So we're talking minimum ten thousand pounds. Uh, and that's
that's the low end um, all right, So the five tons, yeah,
and a a monster trucks usually gonna it's gonna be
more than ten ft tall surround eleven ft taller so uh,
and then wider than it is tall, twelve twelve wide
(15:32):
is what I've got. Twelve ft wide, twelve ft wide,
twelve ft and um, so these there, there are a
lot of there's a lot of fiberglass in there. Um.
Oh yeah. The bodies are definitely fiberglass replicas at this
point of of the original bodies that you know, the
trucks that their their namesake comes from. If it's a
(15:53):
four and f one fifty, it's a fiberglass bodied f
one fifty At this point. It's not like, you know,
the original big Foot that I would guess was probably
the original body or modified metal body. And at this point,
the chassis are all customed pretty much, right yeah. Yeah,
and they have huge V eight engines. Now we're talking
about like these are these are you know, supercharged alcohol
(16:14):
burning blown engines that um, you know are our five
hundred cubic inch engines that you know, it's like nine
and a half liters been Yeah, one like one really
popular model right now is um one popular engine is
the five forty cubic inst Merlin. Okay, all right, and um,
like if you go to well, I don't want to
dive into it too quick, but if you if you
(16:35):
check out on stats for a lot of places that
have multiple monster trucks competing. One thing you'll notice is
that a lot of them are using that Merlin Okay,
all right, and so a supercharged five forty that's you know,
an alcohol burning engine that you can imagine the power
that comes out of these things. We're talking like horse power. Yeah,
(16:56):
it's as much as two thousands, so fifteen hundred to
two thousand horse hours. What you're talking to these things
sixty six inch tires, their their tires they come from
well actually original purpose was like farm tires like fertilizers,
which is incredible. Um oh. And one of the cool
things about these things, and this is what makes something
that we want to talk about later possible. Uh, four
(17:16):
wheel steering. They've got they've got this really really intense
looking four wheel steering. I mean it's it's pretty dramatic.
You can you can see it easily when they make
a tight turn. But it allows them to maneuver within
the confines of whatever arena they're competing, and much much easier.
It's a lot more stuff to break. Yeah, but there
are a lot more nimble than they might appear. They're
(17:38):
very nimble and in fact, it's it's actually, it's it's
truly surprising to see how nimble they are and how
how fast and far they can fly. Really, dude, I'm
we're we're both fans of this, so you know, it's
it's really it's not huge fans. I haven't followed the
whole series or anything like that, but um, but I
did go to many, many of those and we're talking
(18:00):
can write at that sweet spot again. Back in the
early nineteen eighties at the Silver Dome, I was there
in the you know, eighty thousand people crowds. Um, it
was a big deal and it was really really it
was kind of the thing to do on the weekends.
You know. It was, it was fun, it was it
was loud. It's probably part of the reason I can't
hear very well now. Um, it's it's really really intense.
(18:20):
When you're inside in a closed building and you've got
you know, the horsepower engines that are just full throttle
all night long. You can imagine what that's like. Yeah,
these don't exactly per uh And I wasn't smart enough
to wear ear protection. Well don't. I don't beat yourself up, man. Uh.
These were also kind of a new thing at the
time too, so you can't you can't blame yourself. Uh.
(18:40):
A little bit of the look of a couple of
facts real quick about the engines, UM that I think
will hopefully segue into uh, something we're both excited to
talk about. So these engines, UM, I believe this is
from the Bigfoot site. Uh. These engines are custom built
so that the Merlin we're talking about has a lot
(19:02):
of customization going into it. Uh. They will. They can
burn up to two and a half gallons of methanol
each run. That's quite a bit. And when you're talking
about like each run, I mean you you're you're talking
about maybe the racing aspect of these where it's really
just one trip across like there and back across the
(19:22):
across the state, which which might surprise some people that
that sounds a little bit similar to more similar to
maybe drag racing than it does to um and does too,
you know, a stocker racing or something. Yeah, but we're
talking about like these are these are just about like
drag racing engines in giant trucks. Absolutely, there's a short
burst to speed, yeah exactly, and then and that quick
(19:44):
burst to speed is what's required for what they do,
because you know that when they're you know, lining up
for it for a jump, it's not like they're gonna
have you know, when you see a you know, someone
else jumping busses or you know, evil kin evil or
whoever they've got you know two ft you know run
to the ramp. These guys don't have that, you know.
They they sometimes will put the front tires on the
ramp and then gun it and and they're flying through
(20:07):
the air, you know, twenty ft in the air, but
that comes from you know, the the ten ft up
the ramp. That that and that's all they had going uphill.
It's incredible. I don't know how again, we're getting to
this fanboy area where we're both excited about it and
there's not enough good things we can say about it. Really,
it's it's so cool to watch. Well I can answer.
I'd like to anticipate a question some people might ask,
(20:28):
which is, hey, Scott ha been, why aren't the engines bigger?
What's with the c I there? Well, the size of
the engines, there's a limit on it by some folks
that you might hear of, you might have heard of before.
Dear listener. They are called U s h r A.
And they say that if you want to roll with them,
you can only have five D and seventy five c
(20:51):
I and below. Oh I didn't know that. Okay, so
there's a there's a limit on the cubic inches. Um.
Now that they're the the organization, So the the U
s h h r A, the hot Rod Association. Um,
they're the organization that markets the whole series of Monster Truck. Uh. Well,
all the vehicles that that that participate in this. And
there's a little bit of confusion on my part, then
(21:12):
maybe maybe you can clear it up. Maybe I don't know,
but um, I've heard of Monster Jam, Monster Jam, Now
I've heard of the Thunder Nationals. Now, is it the
Monster Jam thunder Nationals or is it two separate series?
Because I thought that the thunder I thought that the
Thunder Nationals were a separate series from the Monster Jam series.
But then you see the two together at some places. Yeah,
(21:33):
and sometimes you see overlap between the vehicles. Yeah. It's
an it's an odd thing that like it depends on
how it's how it's printed or how you read it.
But I get the sense that they're separate things that
sometimes come together. Their separate groups sometimes come together for
certain events to like a freestyler. So maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, I'm not. I'm not that up on the
series at this point. I know I love watching it,
(21:55):
I love seeing it, but I'm not. I'm not you know,
following tour or anything like that, and I haven't been
for many many years since you know, the eighties or
the early nineties. Maybe, um so if somebody can clear
that up for us, we would appreciate it. But but honestly,
you'll see like the Monster Jam and Thunder Nationals together
as like a Monster Jam Thunder National event, which is
(22:15):
kind of strange because, um, it seems like they have
different things now. They originally competed on bear concrete floors, um,
you know, and they had you know, a couple of
cars lined up and they would jump these cars, and
you know it's like kind of a competition there, like
one way there, one way back. Um, you know. For time.
They also had wheelie competitions, they had donut competitions, and
(22:36):
then then freestyle. Okay, yeah, I jumped the gun. No, no,
not at all. I think we should talk about freestyle
and maybe moving on from there because freestyle. To me,
this is this is the coolest part. I think, this
is what this This makes people lose their minds. Ben,
this is the more fun. But like the crowds, the funnest,
(22:58):
they go crazy, absolutely crazy. You know what, I don't
blame them. This is so it's just such an adrell
and rush to even watch them do this. I can't
imagine what it's like for the drivers to to do
some of these things, to accomplish what they do in
these in these amazing, amazing vehicles. Yes, so check it out.
You've got a ten thousand pound vehicle, uh sixty plus
(23:20):
inch tires, an engine that is probably half demon well
suited for a drag car, well suited for a drag car.
And then you rev it up and you drive up
a ramp, you flip over once, you bounce so hard
that you flip over again. I'm talking about that double
flip video. And then you somehow land it. Yeah. Yeah,
(23:43):
And you know what you may think, like, these guys
go out there and I'll tell you this, and this
is after watching we you know, we were watching this.
We we investigated this quite a bit over the last
you know, a couple of weeks and watching a lot
of videos and you know, just trying to catch up
on the series and what's going on. And I'm sure
that Okay, I probably made some mistakes early on what
we're talking about and hoping up, but uh, you know,
(24:04):
like maybe skipped over some stuff that was important in
the development of the series. But let me tell you this,
the freestyle competition continues to be the most popular of
all the competitions. And there's a lot of driver's skill
that goes into this that you wouldn't think is there initially.
But when you watch a few of these and you
watch let's say you watched as many as we have
in the last couple of ys, their control is apparent.
(24:25):
Oh my gosh. You realize that, you know, saving the
vehicle at certain points and it actually pays and plays
into the judging of this whole thing. Saving the vehicle,
um is definitely driver's skill. I mean, there's a there's
a way that they can you know, prevent rollover, they
can upright the vehicle after it has rolled over. There's
there's uh, there's a lot of different angles that they
(24:46):
can hit these things that you know, you wouldn't think
more throttle here, less throttle there. Um, it's really really
quite a skill. And also just just so we're clear,
like any other motor sport, and this is a legitimate
motor sport, uh, that any other motor sport, there is
so much time spent on safety there, there really is.
(25:08):
I know it might look like these are just some
devil make care people flipping gigantic trucks. Um, but they
do spend quite a bit. These these drivers are exceptional.
That's my point. You couldn't survive directs that they get
into if if safety wasn't a huge issue in this series.
I mean we're talking about like the Hans device and um,
(25:30):
all the all the strapping and the cages that are
built around the remote uh interrupters correct, yeah, yeah, for
the ignition shut off and uh, I mean it's just
this part of the competition, this this freestyle part of
the competition started when I think the mid right, Yeah,
it didn't it again, as we've said, it was primarily
(25:52):
exhibition car crushing in the beginning and h racing and
racing afterward. And then the third the third step in
the evolution, if you will, is there the crowd favorite
if I would I mean people love the racing because
you know, it's because the heat competition elimination, you know
where it's there and back and who can get their
(26:13):
fastest and then there's a winner. But the freestyle competition
is where they get to go out and they just
and I'll tell you that the uh, the rules or
how they're judged. If you want, Okay, so you get
a certain time and you're supposed to use the entire
time that's a lotted to you. UM, you're judged on
speed aggression, UH, your jump, height and length of you
know what you what you attempt to do. UM, the
(26:35):
tricks that you you know, employed throughout that whole thing,
like of the the combination maybe UM saves, which is
again we talked about that it's purely driver's skill in
most cases. Some cases it's luck, but mostly driver's skill.
And then also another one that's really cool spectacular moments.
There's another one that they that the judges actually consider
(26:57):
in their judging is spectacular moment, which is anything out
of the ordinary that happens, like let's say that UM,
and I want to follow this up in just a
moment with a mention of a certain vehicle that is
known for spectacular moments, um, but anything out of the
ordinary that happens, like let's say you snap a wheel
off and you continue on, you know, and yet you
still pull off these incredible tricks. You're you're steering breaks,
(27:20):
and you still continue to you know, pull off these
amazing tricks. That's all noted in the in the judging
and if you happen to if you happen to be
at one of these events and there's a tie, you know,
the judging, because there's truly judges that these things and
they're judging by points this point system. If there's a
if there's a tie, sometimes there will be been a
cheer off by the audience for who wins, which I
(27:43):
think is kind of cool because that's kind of going
way back, you know. That's uh, that's how things used
to be judged. Really is yeah, like well, yeah, dance
offs or whatever, you know, like that, you know, who's
the greatest year, let's hear the cheer meter? Um or
this is kind of neat too. What there's a there's
a secret judge that no one knows about, which can
(28:03):
sometimes at bigger events, break the tie, which is kind
of a cool idea. That there's this secret judge, someone
that's watching that no one else is aware of, that
is a judge that will break a tie. I'm picturing that.
I'm picturing the bad guy from Inspector Gadget, you know.
I mean, how cool is that to be like only
used in a certain like an emergency situation, like like emergency.
(28:25):
You know, there's a tie at the freestock competition at
Monster Jam, but an extraordinary situation exactly, So I think
that's cool. And the whole thing just visually, the visually
freestyle is so shocking to me. It's it's just an
incredible I can't believe that a twelve ft tall, ten
thousand pound vehicle can launch itself twenty ft in the air.
(28:47):
It's if you haven't watched one in ten, let's say
ten years. Yeah, do yourself a favor. You will not
believe what they're doing with these trucks and the one
vehicle that to me. And I've got this list here
that we didn't get to. Um uh, we're run a
little longer, I think, I don't think. But there's a
huge list of Monster Jam trucks which you can see
on the Monster Jam website exactly the Monster Jam website,
(29:08):
which is I think Advanced Auto Parts as the sponsor
at this point. The vehicle, Oh yeah, they do, Yeah,
they have the h the grinder is what it's called.
I'm looking at my list, but there's a lot of
different vehicles and they all have their own characteristics and features.
There's something that I think you should look at in particular,
and it's a vehicle that never seems to disappoint in
(29:28):
the clips. It's called Maximum Destruction. Have you seen this?
I was wondering if you were going to say maximum
destruction or Grave Diggers. Okay, okay, Grave digg is an
old school truck. It goes way back, but Maximum Destruction
is slightly newer. I think, Um, I don't know if
I've ever seen something as dramatic in in this type
of competition is what Maximum Destruction does. And I it's funny,
(29:51):
but it truly to me, it stands out. And they
they actually have what they call max D moments and
they have like account down with them, like ten to one,
and if you watch them, you know, there's like a
little lead in of what happened and you know the
date that had happened or whatever, and then they show
you the full freestyle segment. I'll tell you, Ben, it's truly,
(30:12):
like I said, it's shocking what this thing can do.
I just had no idea that they advanced so much
because I remember the I'm talking like Bigfoot one or
Bigfoot two days when I was watching. And now we're
up to you know, this maximum destruction. And there's there
must be it looks like seventy or eight trucks on
this list. Maybe I'm just guessing. Yeah, there's quite a few,
(30:32):
several of them, and they've all got their own features
and high points in own story, yeah exactly, and and talents,
and you know, the driver team, their own uh, their
race team, and also their own kind of family if
you will, of related vehicles. Like not only is their
grape Digger, there's Grave Digger, the legend. Oh yeah, there's
a son of Grave Digger or whatever, a son of
(30:53):
a grave digger, that's what they call it. That there's
there's so many different versions of these now, and they're
on tour all the time. I know, but you know,
as a matter of fact, this is going to date
this podcast. But there's one in town this weekend here. Ah, yes, uh,
the weekend we're recording this. This is uh, this is
just a few days into February. Yeah. Yeah, and there's
(31:13):
an event happening this weekend. I'm not going to be
able to make I didn't know it's even happening until
I started researching this and found out the dates. But
I may in the near future make plans to go
to one of these just from based on what I've
seen in these videos. We should go because these trucks
are in fifty different cities each year, they're all they're
continually on tour, really travel a lot. There's one thing
(31:34):
that we have to talk about. I'll never be able
to apologize to my childhoodself if we don't. What's that?
I mean, I'll never be able to make it up
to that good Scott. What is thirty ft tall and
eats cars? Oh? I know this one, then you know
I do. It's there's two names, Okay, is it truck
(31:55):
Asaurus or or is it Robosaurus? Now it if our purposes,
it's Robosaurus because we don't live in the world of
the Simpson. Oh, I knew there was a I knew
there was a distinction. Yeah, it's then that's the distinction.
Truck a source is fictional, Uh yeah, based on reality,
based on truck A source is the Simpsons version based
(32:17):
on Robosaurs, which is real. Robosource for anybody who for
some reason doesn't know, Uh, robosource is a gigantic, flame
breathing car crushing thing. Uh. That would be that that
people would bring around to um monster trucking events a
(32:37):
lot and and you know other demolition derby stuff like that,
and Uh. The idea was sort of a take on Transformers.
And so if you're a kid and you're at these shows,
then the idea is that Robosaurus has um driven to
the like disguised himself as a as a vehicle a
similar or something. It looks like it looks like a
(32:58):
giant RV or something like that, right, and that he's
come to this place to transform so that he can
eat cars. Now, of course there are plot holes in
this in his origin story, like he's driving by cars
it could eat. But um, this is a really really
cool thing. Um. We posted it earlier on our Facebook,
(33:20):
and for me, there's a bit of nostalgia here, but
I think we're on the same page with that. Have
you ever seen Rebosaurus in person? No? No, no, you
know it's still out there. It's still somewhere. I don't
know where it is. I recently got auctions, I uh
I have. I had the great fortune to see this
in you know, live when it was like this was
(33:42):
the big deal right at the Silver Dome and it
came out. It looked like an RV. It transformed into
this this monster that was suddenly staring us in the
eyes and you know, eighty feet up or whatever. Um
and it did pick up, you know, a giant car,
like an old late you know, nineteen seventies type car,
huge car, picked it up, held it up into its mouth,
and then you know, use the flamethrower to barbecue the
(34:04):
thing right in front of us, and then dropped it
dropped it from that height. That's so cool to see
that happen. It's twenty pounds of force. It's a so
it truly does crush the car when it bites it. Yeah,
it's not like you know, one of those cranes that
you know, it doesn't do anything when it when it
collapses on it. It's this is this is truly crushing
the car and cooking it with this this monster flamethrower thing.
(34:27):
And it's got an incredible show. It's got a human
pilot too in the head. How neat. This is what
a what a fun time. When you foot flames those
teeth on, it's got the teeth or four ft long,
that's a good day. When you see Robosaurus, well unless
you're in the car he's eating. Well that's true. So
obviously the Simpsons fans are Robosaurus. Uh the Simpsons guy's
(34:48):
a Robosaurus fans too, because they have truck Asaurus, which, uh,
if you watch some I think Bart the Daredevil is
one of the Episodesaurus I now I have to go
watch that on my desktop. Um, well, guys, we're uh,
we're gonna go ahead and wrap up here. Um, we've
had I know, we've had a good time doing this. Yeah,
you know, And and for any holes in the history
(35:10):
or whatever, I apologize, but we were such just we're
fans of this. We like had We had a tough
time on this one because it's it's so cool and
there's so many angles on this the fiberglass bodies that
are so amazing that we didn't even get to all
the different trucks and we only got to mention like
maximum destruction and Bigfoot and everything that Bob Chandler did.
He's really I heard him called once the Mario Andretti
(35:33):
of monster truck racing, and he really is a pioneer,
so actually named. He made so many advancements that we
have not talked about in this podcast. But I do
want to take a moment to thank Mr Chandler for
enabling you know, us as well as um millions of
people now to enjoy monster truck monster truck competition. Yeah,
(35:54):
I mean tens of millions of people. It's just it's
an exciting exciting thing to witness. And and seriously, if
one comes near you anywhere into you know that arena,
locally or wherever, make an effort to get there. It's
so worthwhile. So when uh robosource the last update, he
was sold for five hundred seventy five thousand dollars um.
(36:15):
I have considered starting a Roman Source rescue fund if
you guys are interested. Is that what the cup on
your desk is for? That is what the cup of
my desk is for. It's gonna have to be a
lot bigger. Well, you know, one step at a time,
all right, dream big, I've got I've got big dreams.
Scott um So we're gonna go ahead and head out.
(36:36):
If you're we would love to hear from guys. If
you have any monster truck experience, if you have some
stuff you want to tell us more about, or just
a lot of people have been sending their list of
their favorite cars. How about this I'm enjoying. If you
have a photo of the monster truck event from like
let's say their early days, like sure, Yeah, if you
(36:56):
can scan it and send it along, I love looking
at its. Yeah, you can post it on ebook. You
can drop us a line at Twitter, or you can
always send Scott nine emails regularly at car stuff at
Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is that how stuff works dot com. Let
us know what you think. Send an email to podcast
(37:17):
at how stuff works dot com. M
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