Mark Schroeder is wrapping up his second season as the color analyst for the Monster Jam program on Speed TV, while at the same time continuing his career behind the wheel as the driver of his Devastator monster truck. For Schroeder, it’s the best of both worlds. He has the opportunity to bring his enthusiasm and expertise to the Speed viewers each week, while still being able to thrill fans with his high energy racing and freestyles in the Devastator.

It’s clear that Schroeder enjoys the TV opportunities, and says that when Monster Jam TV Producer Mike McFarlin brought him into the television booth at the start of the 2008 season he understood why he was being added to the Speed broadcast team. “Really it’s my perspective as a driver, a performer, I want to bring that, and I want to bring my mechanical aptitude to the table for the fans who are watching Monster Jam,” is how Mark views his television role. “The fans who can’t really see what’s breaking, they don’t know the technical term, if in fact that’s what they really want is the technical term. You know they want to know in layman’s terms of what broke, why the truck did what it did, and as a driver and a mechanic, which is how I’ve made my living for many years, is to bring that to the fans. I think that’s really why Mike brought me here, and as you know I can ramble on and on forever about everything.”

Make no mistake about it, Schroeder loves his dual roles as a broadcaster and as a driver. The enthusiasm he brings to both his Devastator performances and to his Speed commentary is natural. “I’m that way about life. It sounds kind of crazy but I live life every day as if it’s my last,” Schroeder admitted. “I think it is important to live your life to the fullest, to enjoy every minute that you are blessed to wake up and put both feet on the ground. A lot of times in the monster truck I don’t have two feet on the ground. I’m enthusiastic about my life, about the life of others, and being in the sport you really get to live life vicariously through other people’s footsteps in many ways. You get to see what they’re doing and you get to do it, you get to talk about what it is and just that is exciting to me, that element of it. It goes without saying that Monster Jam in exciting. “
Schroeder is unique as far as sports play-by-play analysts go. Whether you’re talking the NFL, NASCAR, Major League Baseball, or really, any other televised sport, the experts are almost always retired former players or coaches. Schroeder remains active in the sport he is commentating on, and that’s different from virtually every other color man. “Yeah, and I’m gonna put it out there right now. I’m not retiring any time soon,” Schroder chuckled. “I love this sport. I love high performance things. You know I came from the industry of drag racing on asphalt, then I went to drag racing a boat on water, then to be able to get into the monster truck. And I’ll be honest with you, I never thought 15 plus years ago when I first got into the monster truck that it would last this long, let alone lead into something this good. This is a good gig. This monster truck is a good thing. It’s fun, you get to meet so many great people, and you get to be able to perform for these people. The real benefit for me is that I still get to get out there and drive my monster truck, I can get out there and rip around with big horsepower and big trucks and live out every man’s dream, you know, to crush things.”

I asked Mark if he’s been received differently by the fans since joining the Speed broadcasts. He told me that he has seen some changes in those who recognizes him these days: “Our boss, Mike McFarlin, told me when he came to me about three years ago to talk about television, he said ‘you’re not going to believe your fan base, how it’s going to change’ and I thought to myself ‘that’s impossible’. Not that I had a big fan base, but the fans in this sport, no matter who you are, whether you are Devastator or Grave Digger, not that we’re even in the same league, but whoever you are the fan base is huge already. Then to be able to go to these stadiums now as a broadcaster side by side with you it is very cool that I get to talk to these people and they recognize me from television. You’ve had it. You’ve been in the airport and people recognize you. I’ve made phone calls, cold phone calls, and people recognize my voice, which totally freaks me out, and sometimes creeps me out.”

An aspect that almost no other broadcaster has to deal with, because as noted above almost all other analysts are no longer active participants in their sports, is that Mark finds himself walking that line of being a competitor with the other drivers, working with the other drivers on and off the track at times, and then going into the broadcast booth where sometimes he has to be critical of his colleagues. Has that posed him any problems? “All these drivers, really and truly, on the record and off the track, are my friends. I consider them all my friends. I believe that I can call any one of them any given day in a time of need and they would be there or they’d find someone to help me, or a way to help me. They’re pretty cool with it,” Schroeder claims. “No one has given me too much heat about me giving them heat on television. They give me a little nudge here and there, they’ll say like ‘there he is, the big shot TV guy now’. I get that king of ribbing. They know I’m not a big shot, they know I’m just full of it. They know that I can talk about them and the best part is that when they’re the ones who are full of it or they’re out there laying an egg I can do something to make them look good.”

From his unique perspective as both a driver and a broadcaster Mark Schroeder sees Monster Jam continuing to grow, but he thinks that there will be some changes in how the sport moves forward. “Everyone, whether it’s the fans or the guys or the operations people, they’ve always said ‘bigger, better, faster,’” Schroder explained. “I think that has changed a little bit. We’ve gone better. The technology of these monster trucks today, the way they are built, they continue to get better. We’re taking technology from drag racing, and bringing it from NASCAR, and from all forms of racing and bringing it to monster trucks. It’s really a great crossover sport. But I think where we are going today is not so much bigger, it’s different. What we are doing different is different obstacles, not necessarily bigger. We can only go so big. Let’s be realistic here. We can only get so much air. We can only go so big. But, and we talked about this on several TV shows, we’re now creating objects that you can hit in different ways, from different angles, do different things with them, rather than the traditional just one way, straight line, hitting them only one certain way. I think that is what is really the future of monster trucks, not just the faster racing and the better technology for the safety and comfort of the drivers, but it’s the entertainment value that I think is changing in the different ways that we are able to create obstacles and hit them differently.”

So for Mark Schroeder these days, and into the future it’s all about living the dream, being able to thrill fans as an elite Monster jam performer driving the Devastator while educating and entertaining even more fans as the Speed TV analyst. Schroeder brings an incredible passion to both duties and does them both at the top notch level that his growing base of fans has grown to love and appreciate. It’s the best of both worlds and Schroeder hopes to be thrilling the fans in both capacities for a long time to come.