Damon Bradshaw, who was a huge fan favorite in Europe more than a decade ago riding Supercross, has relished the opportunity to return across the Atlantic Ocean and thrill even more European fans on the Monster Jam World Tour. The 2008 version of Monster Jam overseas continues this month with the sport’s return to the Gelredome in Arnhem, Holland, with events still to come this year in Barcelona, Helsinki, and Stockholm as well.
Driving El Toro Loco for the first half of this year’s World Tour Bradshaw spent the entire month of June in Europe, competing in Wales, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium, and now in his mid-thirties and with more time to spend in these countries away from the track, Damon appreciates his time enjoying different cities and cultures much more than he did in his younger days competing there on two wheels. “This is quite a bit different because I used to come over and just be here four or five days and race and sleep and eat and go home,” Bradshaw remembered. “This, to me, is a lot more relaxing, to be able to come over and actually get to see some of the countries we’ve been to, actually going into some of the squares and to do some exploring. To me it has been a lot more fun, a lot more laid back.”
Getting to return to Europe and experience many places where he’s been before in greater detail has been special to Bradshaw, so special that he mentioned only one regret to me. “At times I felt guilty because my wife and my kids are at home and I’m getting to see these countries in a way I’ve never seen them before,” Damon admitted when we talked during his return to Europe. “I’ve been doing this kind of stuff for 25 years and I appreciate it more now. When I was younger I took a lot of this for granted. I’ve tried to tell some of the younger guys to take advantage of this, to go out and see everything here. As for me this time I’ve gotten to do a lot more, but I didn’t bring a camera with me! So I guess I just have to go home and tell them about it.”
Along with loving the chance to enjoy these places and spending time with so many of Monster Jam’s newest fans, the competitor inside of this special talent gets always gets jacked up to battle against the sport’s best, and the Monster Jam Europe line-up of drivers is a star-studded array of the sport’s elite. “I didn’t have a clue as to who all was coming, and then the first week you get there and look down the line and realize there are no slouches in the line-up,” Bradshaw told me. “So when it comes time for racing or freestyle you really have to be on your game. It used to be put on your race face – now it’s put on your race and show face.” That Damon did well, capturing a pair of freestyle wins during the June part of this year’s Monster Jam World Tour.
Bradshaw also told me that he has noticed that another relative newcomer to Monster Jam competition, Adam Anderson, has taken advantage of the extra seat time a driver can get on the European Tour and turned it into great experience to succeed in the U.S., and that’s a formula he wants to duplicate. “I was really looking forward to getting more events this year for that simple reason,” Damon said when we discussed the seat time issue. “Because I want to be the best guy out there, and in order to do that it’s seat time. And I know that last year Adam was over here and did a good job and got extra time. Each time I get in the truck I learn something different. I learn from talking to the guys, I learn from watching the guys, I’ll learn ‘til the day I get out of a truck. I want to capitalize on every show and become better and better so that when I leave the track the fans are not going to forget that I was the one driving that El Toro truck, or Air Force Afterburner in the States.”
Speaking of the reigning World Freestyle Champion Bradshaw told me that he thinks that Adam’s ascension to the top inspires every competitor not named Dennis Anderson or Tom Meents to realize that the dreams of a world title can be attained if you turn in the performance of a lifetime at the NGK Spark Plugs World Finals. “I feel like Vegas is one of the fairest freestyle spots that we go to, mainly because Tom and Dennis are so famous in a lot of the other places we go that it is really hard to beat them when the fans are judging,” Bradshaw explained. “Not that they don’t do a good job, but there are times when other guys should probably win. So I feel like Vegas is a good, fair playing field for everyone. It’s kind of neat to see Adam do what he was able to do there. I’ve kind of been where he’s going, just in a different sport. And now I’m trying to go to the same spot in a different sport. So I can take that into perspective as to where he’s going in this sport because Tom and Dennis aren’t going to be around forever.”
After all of his success in Supercross, then in essence retiring from competition, Damon says that this new motorsports life in the Monster Jam world is something he loves every minute of. “I do, I really enjoy this,” Damon told me. “I want to be a part of the next step of Monster Jam and I feel like I’m right in the middle of it. We’re going to new levels and new heights; I know we are as far as freestyle, so it is a new challenge. That’s the most fun for me, to have a challenge at anything that I do and this is probably one of the biggest ones I’ve ever had.”
Damon Bradshaw is part of an exclusive and impressive fraternity of former Supercross legends now making their names in other forms of motorsports. Bradshaw says he thinks it’s awesome to see the likes of Travis Pastrana dominating freestyle motocross and rally car competition, or a Ricky Carmichael making a name in NASCAR. “It is, and each time, regardless of who it is, whether it’s Travis or Ricky or Ricky Johnson or (Jeremy) McGrath or Jeff Ward in Indy Cars, it’s nice to be able to see guys switch over and be successful,” Bradshaw proclaimed. “I think with me in Monster Jam it is something totally different than what those other guys have done. You know, I would like to go car racing. Racing is in my blood. I want to do it but I feel like I’m at that age where I missed my window for the race car stuff. Off road truck racing is something else I’d like to do, like with Monster Jam, I don’t think that 35 is too old for that series. But with car racing today the guys start so young and parents have to have millions and millions of dollars to get them there. I’m just happy to be doing this and I hope to continue to do it for a long time.”
With all of his success in different types of motorsports, and in an age when so many of today’s stars in Monster Jam and other sports are second generation racers, it’s natural to wonder if Damon wants his two sons, now 5 and 9 years old, to follow in his footsteps and make their own names in Supercross or Monster Jam. Damon has a healthy attitude about that possibility, one that he will let his sons determine: “I just recently got both of them motorcycles and everybody’s like, ‘are they going to race?’ I’m just going to give them bikes and four wheelers and we’re just going to go and play and if that’s what it turns into, then so be it. But I’m not going to push them; I’m not going to be the t-ball Dad at the motocross track.”
Enjoying his family and his amazing early success in a brand new career, Damon Bradshaw is a driven competitor who still wants to win every event he enters as he did as a Supercross legend in his 20’s, but he now also relishes the opportunities to stop and enjoy so many other wonderful parts of life away from the track and the spotlight.
