Years ago the fall of the year was almost a complete off season for Monster Jam, but that’s no longer the case and this upcoming week is the perfect example of how busy autumns now are in the industry, thanks in part to the sport’s expansion overseas and into many areas of mainstream American life as well.

On the track things get busy this coming weekend when the Monster Jam World Tour resumes, this time in one of the original Monster Jam Europe locales, the Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. The Swedish fans have turned out in great numbers each year and will again be out in force for four arena events with a line-up headlined by Grave Digger and Maximum Destruction.

Then next week it is the release of the new Monster Jam Video Game that has so many fans and gamers excited. Activision’s new game will be the greatest video game ever created with a Monster Jam theme, with players able to compete in video Monster Jams modeled after the most popular events on today’s circuit. You can drive, in the game anyway, 20 of the biggest superstar trucks in the sport on several versions of the stadiums and courses that the Monster Jam stars actually compete on, and you will be able to both race and freestyle in the new Activision product. Lots more information on the release of the new Monster Jam Video Game is available on the main page here at Monster Jam Online.

Back to the World Tour. During my interview in this space recently with seven-time World Champion Tom Meents, the Maximum Destruction driver talked about how beneficial competing in Europe in the fall has been for several drivers, especially newcomers to the sport who, in years past, would have struggled to find seat time in the summer and fall, but now get the opportunity to hone their skills overseas and carry that momentum into the new season. So let’s take a look at who has had success so far on the Monster Jam World Tour in 2007, something that based on past history can carry over and turn into big things in the next season.

There are still two weekends of competition in Europe scheduled for 2007, this weekend in Stockholm followed by another set of arena battles the following weekend in Helsinki, Finland. After all the events are in I’ll recap completely the statistics from this year’s entire overseas schedule, but we can right now look at some interesting results from just the big stadium shows, since that part of the European scheduled was completed last month in Cardiff, Wales, and because those Euro stadiums are a great indicator of who is running well right now on the types of courses that we will see during the first quarter of 2008 and the trek to Monster Jam World Finals 9 next March in Las Vegas.

Looking just at the stats from the six stadium events on this year’s circuit across the Atlantic Ocean it comes as no surprise that the parity we’ve seen develop recently in North America has carried over across the pond as well. Of the six stadium events held there were five different racing event winners, and Meents was not one of them. In fairness to Tom he took teammate Neil Elliott’s Maximum Destruction overseas so his piece can remain available for commitments in this country, including the start of the new North American stadium season for Speed TV next month in Minneapolis. Neil’s Max-D is an awesome piece but Meents admitted that there are subtle differences in the two trucks that require a little getting used to. It did not affect Tom’s freestyles but it did keep his won-loss racing record in the European stadiums under what we are used to seeing from him. Meents had only a record of 6 wins and 5 losses in round racing at the European stadiums (a .545 win percentage), and again, he did not win an event, his best finish being a runner-up performance in the final event of the three show weekend in Arnhem, Holland, where Meents was beaten in the championship race by Adam Anderson and Taz.

Speaking of the young Anderson, for the second straight year the stats indicate that he was the best of the all-star line-ups that competed in these big floor racing events. In 2006 Adam drove Taz to his first ever stadium win anywhere in the world at the Gelredome in the Netherlands, and he again won an event in Arnhem in ’07. Adam drove Taz to more stadium wins than anyone else in the round by round racing totals this year, compiling an impressive 14 and 5 won-loss record, and he was number one on the tour with a .736 winning percentage. Chad Tingler, who has dominated the freestyle events in Europe this year, has been pretty strong in racing as well. Tingler has driven Grave Digger to one overall event win and has been second only to Adam Anderson in round wins with 11 and in winning percentage at .687.

It has been Dan Evans who has been on the winners stage the most often at this year’s overseas racing events with a pair of event victories driving the Jetix sponsored machine, having claimed the championship race win once in Gothenburg, Sweden, and once in Arnhem, Holland. Evans had a 9 win, 6 loss record in the Europe stadiums this year, a .600 winning percentage. The only other drivers over the .500 mark in win percentage for this year’s tour were: Frank Krmel in El Toro Loco who won the championship at the opening Gothenburg event and had an 8 and 4 record overall (.667 win pct); George Balhan won the final stadium event of the tour when he drove his Escalade to the championship round win in Cardiff, and overall won 7 rounds of racing against 5 losses (a .583 win percentage); and Alex Blackwell, who was over the break even mark in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with a .555 winning percentage.

It’s interesting to note that World Racing Champion John Seasock has struggled racing in Batman on these larger foreign courses, even though they are more like the one at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas where he won this year’s title than the smaller arena race tracks. In the stadiums Seasock has driven Batman to wins in only two out of the ten rounds he has competed in but he is undefeated so far in 2007 racing on the smaller arena courses in Europe thanks to winning all 9 rounds he raced in during the three competitions at the Sportspaleis in Antwerp, Belgium.

The freestyle stats, as I noted above, are all Tingler and Grave Digger. Chad has won four out of the six freestyles outright and tied with Meents for another win, for a total of five triumphs in a half dozen chances. His average scores are more than four points higher than any one else on the tour, which is a significant gap in freestyle scoring. Only a career best performance from Don Frankish in Jurassic Attack to win the Cardiff freestyle has kept Grave Digger’s Europe freestyle record from being perfect in 2007. Averaging out all the freestyle scores for the tour Tingler is a dominant number one, with Meents and Max-D having the second highest average, followed by Balhan in Escalade, with Frankish and Jurassic Attack fourth best and Anderson and Taz completing the top five.

If the past is any indication of the future, keep these results in mind when we head into 2008. Several drivers who have been successful in Europe in past years, especially in the stadium events, have parlayed that momentum into success on this continent the next year. If that holds true this year the stats indicate that Adam Anderson will continue to rise to the top of the sport driving Taz in 2008; Frank Krmel, Dan Evans, George Balhan, and Don Frankish may be looking ahead to the best year’s of their careers; and Alex Blackwell is looking better than ever these days as well. As for Maximum Destruction, even driving his teammate’s truck with mixed results may not be good news for the other Monster Jam competitors in ’08 as Tom Meents figures to hit the New Year sharper than ever on the big courses with this busy fall now under his belt. And Tingler has shown Team Grave Digger what they wanted to see, lots of wins on the big courses, and it would not surprise me to see more stadium events showing up on Chad Tingler’s schedule in the coming years based on this autumn’s success for the Grave Digger being wheeled by Tingler.

One final note about the World Tour’s impact on drivers success in the first quarter back home is that it is the seat time as much as winning and losing that benefits the newer drivers in the business, and one rookie getting lots of invaluable time in action this fall is Candice Jolly in the Monster Mutt Dalmatian. While her experience overseas has not produced many wins yet it’s obvious that she is getting better and stronger, and more comfortable in her truck every time out, and that could pay her big dividends in 2008.