Some new faces made big impressions in last Saturday’s Monster Jam at Detroit’s Ford Field, Courtney Jolly leading the way for the new guard with a real breakthrough performance. In just her second freestyle that will be televised on SPEED this season the Florida co-ed proved just what a quick a learner she is, and not just in the college classroom. Correcting the mistakes that she made in her stadium debut last month in Minneapolis, Jolly kept her Pastrana 199 Ford ripping through the Motor City for the entire :90 seconds with an action packed run, highlighted by some of the event’s biggest air and several outstanding wheelies. Even though it was not a winning performance, no one could have expected her to finish second at an event of this magnitude, with such a stellar line-up, this early in her career. Only a vintage Tom Meents freestyle performance in Maximum Destruction kept Jolly from her first win, Tom earning three 10’s from the judges to edge out Courtney’s score of 29. You know there is a reason Meents has won seven world titles, including last year’s World Freestyle Championship. Meents, as we have seen him do so many times before, rose to the occasion again with a freestyle that ended the event with a standing ovation from the huge Detroit crowd. Still Jolly showed she’s not just a pretty face. No it appears this young rising star will be a force to reckon with for a long time to come.

Meents, by the way, had warmed the crowd up for his freestyle at the end of his first racing loss of this season, an opening round defeat in his match-up with Pablo Huffaker and Grave Digger. With the race between the world’s two most popular and accomplished monster trucks dead even in the final turn, Meents clipped a turning pole and then almost lost control of Max-D, veering off the head-to-head monster course and onto the quad wars track, flying into a set of double rollers that almost turned him over. Amazingly Meents saved the truck and brought it back down on all fours, then really cut it loose in freestyle.

Speaking of Huffaker, he and his Racesource team had to be the hardest working crew in Detroit last weekend. What an up and down night for the Grave Digger unit. Things started badly when the truck slowed to a stop during introductions with obvious driveline problems. Grave Digger had to be towed off the track before race qualifying even began, but the team did not get down, instead they rolled up their sleeves and went to work. Thrashing throughout the qualifications and the majority of the first round Digger was fixed just in time to make it out for the final first round match-up, a battle with fast qualifier Maximum Destruction, and it was clear that they had Grave Digger back to 100% when Huffaker scored the exciting win that ended with Meents’ amazing off-course save. The roller coaster night continued as Huffaker recorded the fastest lap of the night in a second round win over Lee O’Donnell in the 106.7 The Fox truck (O’Donnell was another newcomer who opened eyes in Detroit, giving Huffaker a great race in round two and then putting on a strong show in freestyle that set the early pace), but that high was followed by a big low for the Digger gang with more mechanical problems resurfacing during Pablo’s final round loss to Tony Farrell and Blue Thunder. So it was back to work, and again Grave Digger’s crew answered the challenge getting the machine back to peak performance for Pablo’s freestyle, a great run that most of the crown (and this announcer, too, by the way) thought that the judges badly underscored. No matter the score, though, Team Grave Digger again delivered for its huge fan base. And in fairness to the judges, they did get the winner correct in my opinion.

The racing win for Farrell in Blue Thunder was huge. It was Tony’s first event win in an event on SPEED in over two years, the last one coming in the Minneapolis freestyle December 2, 2004. With a large presence at the event of execs and employees from Team Ford, his corporate sponsor, Tony was understandably beaming on the victory stage. Talking with him after the win Farrell heaped tons of praise on his crew chief, Bill Easterly Jr., who was making adjustments round after round, especially trying to get the fuel mixture right, which the results would indicate that he did.

Another of the new names in the sport that is clearly catching on quickly is former Supercross legend Damon “The Beast” Bradshaw, whose massive jump midway through his run provided what may have been the “sicest” air of the night. It seemed like he was at eye level with the fans in Ford Field’s upper deck at the apex of his jump….Michigan based trucks Avenger and Brutus had amazing fan bases in Ford Field, something close to 1,000 there just to cheer on Jim Koehler and Chris Bergeron. Bergeron’s night started as strange as any you could imagine when he rolled the Brutus truck over on his way to the start line in qualifying! Just one of those fluke things that even Chris couldn’t really explain how it happened, but he did get back on all fours, make his qualifying run and continued all night….coming up this weekend the Monster Jam teams and officials are as busy as they are on any one specific weekend of the entire year. Along with several arena Monster Jam events, and Thunder National events, fans are fired up for three tradition rich stadium events all this Saturday in Orlando, Phoenix, and Indianapolis. What a weekend it will be. Oh, and since I am an Indiana resident I have to close by saluting Peyton Manning as he leads the Colts into the Super Bowl!