I think that often Monster Jam fans, drivers, crew members, officials, pretty much everyone who loves this awesome form of motor sports should send a huge thank you note to the inventor of the retractable roof, who ever that is. Last Saturday night in Cardiff was one of those days where one can only imagine how difficult a night it would have been without being able to close the top on Millennium Stadium.

Actually when the Monster Jam teams arrived in Wales late last Tuesday we were welcomed by fantastic weather that lasted all the way to Friday night. Add in the great meals we were enjoying each night at Cardiff’s Hard Rock Café, where everyone is a huge Monster Jam fan, and everything was close to perfect. After fighting week long rains the previous week in Poland at the open air Slaski Stadium, this time the dirt crew was able to construct the Monster Jam course with sun shining down each day as they made the most of one of the largest floors Monster Jam competes on anywhere. So weather wise, this week was a complete 180 degree turn from our venture to Poland, and it couldn’t have worked out any better. In Poland the rain stopped at noon the day of the event, bright sunshine helped dry the track out the remainder of the afternoon, the weather conditions at show time were perfect, and the Polish fans delighted in both the racing and freestyle battles. In Cardiff it was the opposite. Great conditions to build the track under the open roof during the week, then Friday as the weather turned sour the amazing technology that allows building personnel to close the roof saved the day.

Weather wise in the UK Saturday was just miserable, and every time any one of us walked outside we could not help but think of how tough it would have been on everyone if the show would have been contested that night without a roof over the stadium, with the temperature dropping into the low 50’s and a persistent, heavy rain that would have been rough on the fans and competitors alike. Days like that just reinforce how wonderful modern technology can be. Soaking wet conditions outside but under Millennium Stadium’s retractable roof the track stayed just right all night, and what a show the superstars of the sport on the Monster Jam World Tour turned in.
In past years one look at a huge floor like the one in the Welsh city, with what was obviously going to be a lightning fast cyclone style oval race course, and it would be well known that Tom Meents would be the favorite in Maximum Destruction. But remember that this year Tom had not won many races on this type of course that was featured on the Speed TV series throughout the season.  Forget all of that. Meents showed that the turnaround of winning fortunes that returned when he took home World Championship number 8 last March in Las Vegas is still in full effect as he drove Max-D like the dominator of years past, setting the fastest qualifying time and marching through the race bracket for the Cardiff racing triumph. Sure Meents was pushed by some of his opponents but still he was able to win each race on the long course by at least one truck length. Meents has shown he can adapt even in bad track conditions, but dry and fast is still his favorite race course condition.

That Meents beat George Balhan, who drove Backwards Bob in both Poland and Wales, in the Championship Race got me thinking. Has any driver ever been as consistently good as Balhan in a single year without winning a major race or freestyle? I mean throughout the 2009 busy winter season of mega events it seemed like a weekly occurrence in freestyle competitions: Balhan would put on an amazing show in his Escalade only to finish in the runner-up spot. Remember, this was a winter that until we got to Las Vegas Team Grave Digger was as dominant as we’ve seen them in years, maybe ever, and whether it Dennis Anderson, red hot Pablo Huffaker, or one of the other Digger drivers, they found a way to edge out Balhan time after time. To Balhan’s credit the talented shoe would take accolades, as he deserved, for his second place runs, and come out even better the next weekend.  The Digger unit turned in some memorable runs in 2009 freestyle competitions, and more often than not, it was Balhan who raised the bar that they had to surpass.

So here we get to Europe and now the runner-up honors have switched to racing, with Balhan powering Backwards Bob to a second place racing finish behind Marc McDonald in the Euro sponsored Verva truck in Poland, then falling to Meents in Wales. Neither is anything to be ashamed of. Meents has, of course, eight world titles and anyone who has ever watched a Speed show or the World Finals DVD can testify as to how fast McDonald can power a truck. Still, you have to think that George Balhan is primed to start taking that one extra step and grabbing some of these big event victories in the 2010 campaign.

Finally, back to Team Grave Digger. Charlie Pauken has been nothing short of spectacular in European freestyles so far on this year’s trek across the Atlantic. Two straight wins as the tour heads to Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden, the site where Meents back flipped Maximum Destruction two years ago. On the one hand even Meents will admit that it wasn’t the clean back flip that he successfully nailed in Las Vegas this past March because he landed the Swedish spectacle on the hood then continued backwards over onto the trucks wheels. But don’t forget that the Ullevi back flip was done during the actual freestyle competition in a truck without any special modifications for such a stunt, which makes that one two years ago even more mind boggling. Who knows what he’ll have in mind for the return to beautiful southwest Sweden, where this time of year there is only three or four hours of darkness each night.

And the reigning World Champion, Damon Bradshaw, will likely be near the top of the results page in El Toro Loco as well in Gothenburg, just as he was in Poland where he fell just a point short of Pauken (last weekend the truck broke early to cost him a chance at the Cardiff win).  You know that Meents, Bradshaw, and the other talent in this star studded line-up are all ready to “go big or go home” as Tom likes to say. When you count up the championships there are 17 world titles represented among the trucks and drivers in the Swedish field this weekend. But if the first two stops on this year’s European portion of the World Tour are any indication, they will have to go through Pauken and Grave Digger if they intend to get the freestyle win.