It was awesome to relive the thrills of the Monster Jam World Finals during the special two-hour airing May 12 th on Speed TV. One of the moments that was most vivid for me was at the end of the freestyle hour, when the highlights of the encore were shown. Five Grave Digger trucks freestyling on that obstacle laden track at the same time was truly amazing to see live and the cameras were able to capture that excitement for those watching on Speed.

One of the most interesting parts of the encore, to me, was Randy Brown ending up in maybe the most unique spot any driver ever has been in. Brown flipped his Grave Digger fairly early in the encore, so he actually had an amazing seat for most of the special performance: his truck laying over on its side, Brown remaining strapped in, tightly held in the truck by his safety harness, as four other 25 th anniversary Digger trucks continued to fly all around him, and in at least one case, flying directly over top of him.

“We were back there talking about it (before the encore) and we knew that whoever went over first, in whatever order, we’d do our best to stay away from them for their safety,” Brown reflected. “Once I hit that jump I did my best to get out of it and it just wasn’t going to happen and it flipped over. When I got my wits together and figured out where I was I had to signal, to throw my glove out. We had a signal that anybody who flipped over would throw their glove out to let the tech officials know that we were o-k, and not to stop the other trucks, that we were fine. So my first thought was to get that glove off and get it out the window because I didn’t want the show to stop at all. And then the second thing was I had the best seat in the house.”

You talk about a seat no Monster Jam fan can ever buy. That’s the seat Randy Brown had. Literally laying on his side, strapped into his truck, watching from the floor as his four teammates continued to fly all over Sam Boyd Stadium putting the sold out crowd of fans from all over the world into utter amazement. “I was sitting there trying to hunker around, watching, and figure out which truck was which,” Randy recalled. “Then all of a sudden I see Chad Tingler coming at me from the other direction, and I’m sittin’ there going ‘is he gonna hit me, is he gonna miss me’? Then I saw he was pushed over enough and I said ‘well, there he went’. He went right past me.” On the TV show it was clear that Tingler really did leap his Grave Digger high in the air, almost directly over Brown’s truck providing a perspective than even the most seasoned Monster Jam veterans have never enjoyed. Brown truly had a once in a lifetime seat. But that wasn’t Randy’s most exciting moment. That would come a little later.

After the unbelievable sight of seeing Tingler’s truck several feet in the air that close to him Brown was looking to enjoy even more from his colleagues. “Then I started adjusting in my seat, trying to see out of the left hand side, but I couldn’t really see them, I could just hear them zooming by every know and then” Brown remembered with a big smile on his face. “Then all of a sudden I hear this truck coming. It’s a little softer, and then it’s getting a little louder. And it’s getting louder and I’m thinking ‘uh-oh’. So I grabbed the steering wheel and here comes Pablo (Huffaker) flying in directly over top of me, and I’m not kidding man, it was the best seat in the house. I hated to go out early but then I was the biggest fan when it came to that point right there. I was sitting in the seat and there was nothing else I could do but enjoy the show, and it was just a blast.”

Brown says he has only one true regret from that unforgettable spot he found himself in, and was enjoying so much. “I wish I had an on-board camera at that moment because there were sights that I’ll never, ever get to see again,” Brown concluded. “You know everybody in the stands, they saw all those trucks at one time, but I’m sitting down there on the floor and I’ve got all these Grave Digger trucks zooming past me like bumble bees. If I’d have had an on-board camera that footage would have sold a million times over, I guarantee you that.”

For all of us who follow Monster Jam year-in and year-out we all know the most spectacular sights we are going to see are coming the next time we go to the Monster Jam World Finals in Las Vegas. I have no doubt that next year I’ll see things in the finals that I’ve never seen before, moments more memorable than any in previous years. That’s Vegas. The bar at the World Finals is raised every year, and that’s not going to stop. But for one person, Randy Brown, it’s likely he’ll never have a more incredible seat or have any thing happen that he’ll remember more vividly than his time on the floor during the Grave Digger 25 th anniversary encore at World Finals 8.