The 2008 Monster Jam season is full of new aspects, both at the live events and on the Speed TV series. HD cameras, new trucks, new drivers, and team personnel switches are just a few of the changes, but the one that may have the biggest impact on the actual competition is the concerted effort by Monster Jam officials and the track construction crews to create challenging new racing courses, and the ability of the Monster Jam superstars to adapt to the new circuits is a real wild card this year and one that may create the most wide open season of race results that we’ve ever seen.

The two events in the book so far that will be part of the 2008 Speed TV series, in Minneapolis and Houston, have been contested on first time courses. In both cases the race tracks included unusual angles at the start, the trucks then roaring onto oval tracks that were longer and faster than in past Metrodome and Reliant Stadium battles. No matter how much experience a driver has the new designs open things up even more, with no driver having the advantage of previously running on these types of tracks before and the early results have shown that this could be a season full of surprises. While Linsey Weenk’s Minneapolis win driving Blue Thunder and Kreg Christensen’s impressive victorious stadium debut in Iron Outlaw were not huge upsets, they nonetheless came over fields that in both venues included three drivers who are always considered to be the racing favorites in any Monster Jam that they are entered: Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger, Tom Meents and Maximum Destruction, and Jimmy Creten in Bounty Hunter.

While it is very early in the season it is interesting to note that of the big three mentioned in the previous sentence, only Creten is over the .500 mark in round racing so far. Anderson and Meents have the same won-loss record at this point of the season: one win against two losses. While no one believes that those two legends will have a losing record for very long, their slow racing starts may just point to the immediate impact these new course designs are already having on the competition. Each new course becomes a learning experience for every driver and he, or she, who makes the right adjustments and adapts to the differences quickest will succeed. I haven’t looked into this statistically, but it seems to me that we are seeing more penalties for hitting turning poles and for missing the crush car stacks this season than in the past. These new courses challenge the drivers to find the perfect combination of speed and control to win.

Christensen’s victory in Houston is an excellent example. Kreg marveled at the power of his new ride, telling me that 2Xtreme racing’s Iron Outlaw provides him with “four or five hundred more horsepower” than he has in his Dragon Slayer machine. Yet the veteran showed that just because you have all of that steam doesn’t mean you need to use it all of the time. Christensen was able to use the power when necessary, then handle the tricky turns with finesse to take the big trophy against a 16 truck star-studded line-up. Even though Christensen has years of Monster Jam experience under his belt his performance in Reliant Stadium has to be a huge confidence booster, considering the fact that the only time that Christensen will have to battle a larger, more talented racing field will be if he makes it to the Monster Jam NGK World Finals March 29th at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.

Speaking of Vegas, another new twist to Monster Jam 2008 is how the berths in the championship field are being announced. Rather than just disclosing the entire field a few weeks before the event Monster Jam officials are announcing the participants individually on an ongoing basis as the season goes on during the live events that lead up to the biggest event in the sport. To no one’s surprise the first driver to receive the coveted invitation to this year’s Monster Jam NGK Spark Plugs World Finals was Anderson, who has won three World Championships in Grave Digger. Anderson was honored as the first participant to be named for this year’s Vegas title tilts while in Houston, and Monster Jam officials will continue to add to the field each week. Now I have no inside information here, but does anyone want to bet me that the next invite goes to Tom Meents? Anybody?

Some other notes following the awesome action last weekend in Houston: as proud as Christensen was on stage after his racing victory, I think his team owner may have been even happier. It was a trying off-season for Creten, who has made no secret of his displeasure with Weenk’s decision to leave his team for the Blue Thunder ride. Despite his success as a driver Jimmy is just as committed to winning as an owner, to having all three of his teams at the top level, not just Bounty Hunter. Rather than bring in a new untested talent as he did when he originally hired Weenk he made a deal with the veteran Christensen, who has won tons of events in his career but has rarely competed in the past on the sport’s biggest stages, which he will now do weekly. Christensen’s win right out of the box certainly vindicates Creten’s decision to turn the reigns of the Iron Outlaw over to him, and Jimmy was ecstatic while celebrating the win with his new teammate…..Don Frankish brought his new driver to Houston, Kristy Edge taking over behind the wheel of the popular Jurassic Attack machine, the team truck to Frankish’s Maniac. The young lady from British Columbia has lots of potential and seems to be a good fit for that team. Now she just needs seat time…..if Creten was one of the happiest people at the conclusion of the Houston event, Adam Anderson may have been the most disappointed. The younger Anderson has made it clear that he has no intention of just waiting around for his father and Meents to retire before he tries to step to the top of the Monster Jam mountain; he plans to go after both of them every week, right now. He ran pretty well in racing, making it to the final four before Iron Outlaw eliminated Taz, but in freestyle he rolled the truck about half-way through his scheduled time. He’ll come back strong, though, so watch out for Adam. He’s adapting to lots of new changes to his truck, so many updates that Paul Cohen, who constructed most of the updates, and Grave Digger shock guru Josh Garcia both were in Houston in Adam’s pit continuing to make adjustments and work on the new set-up. As we’ve seen with other trucks it takes time to dial in new upgrades, and Adam will be a player for lots of wins sooner rather than later…..Meents, who has shown nothing but total respect for 2007 Rookie of the Year Damon Bradshaw, was still the first to use the term “sophomore slump” in wondering if the former Supercross star will fall victim to the struggles that we’ve seen from other Monster Jam stars that have made big splashes in year one, and fallen back in year two. Obviously it is way too early to tell if Damon will suffer from a “sophomore slump” but it is worth noting that he is off to a bit of a slow start through his first two events. Keep in mind though that he started slow last year, but by the season’s end Bradshaw had the Air Force Afterburner in the mix for wins at some of the sport’s biggest events….. Houston was the site of the first round in the “game your way to Vegas” promotion, where four Texans raced the Monster Jam video game’s Nintendo Wii version in front of the Reliant Stadium crowd with the winner earning a trip to Las Vegas where he will compete in the Monster Jam Video Game national championship. There will be seven more regional winners determined in the coming weeks, but even if you are not in one of the regional contests you can still qualify for the tournament and that awesome trip to Las Vegas if you are selected as the wild card contestant on line. Just go to monsterjamonline.com/videogame to enter, and to get all of the details…..speaking of incredible promotions and a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas it is great to see that the Monsters on Main Street promotion is back. For the last two years Ford Trucks has given fans the chance to win a full blown Monster Jam event for their home town in truly a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity. Make sure you enter for a chance to be Ford’s guest at the finals and to ultimately have the chance to win your very own Monster Jam event at monstersonmainstreet.com…..the Monster Jam schedule is packed this coming weekend with major events all over the continent, and personally I can’t wait for Saturday and a date that has become one of the most exciting and tradition rich events on the circuit, the annual monster invasion of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.