In most sports being able to win an ultimate championship can serve as the highlight of a great career, but these days in Monster Jam we are starting to see a trend where winning a world title is not only a pinnacle accomplishment but can become a spring board to the absolute top of the sport on a weekly basis, and the current World Freestyle Champion is another perfect example.

Damon Bradshaw had been making an impact ever since the former Supercross legend debuted in Monster Jam. He was a no doubt winner of the 2007 Rookie of the Year award and throughout 2008 and 2009 had become a top level threat, a definite contender to challenge for wins at the sport’s biggest events. For the most part, though, Bradshaw was racking up lots of 2nd and 3rd place finishes, not a lot of wins. He had made himself into one of the industry’s elite, a firm threat to win at any time, but without a lot of trophies to show for it. Then at this year’s NGK Spark Plugs World Finals Bradshaw built on the momentum of an outstanding freestyle season and laid down one of his best runs ever at the most opportune time to win the World Freestyle Championship. Rather than the champ’s crown signaling a culmination of his career, Damon has used it as the catalyst to go from a driver and performer constantly on the cusp of huge victories to making regular trips to the winner’s stage.

Exhibit A here is the recent three events in two days battle at the Gelredome in Arnhem, Holland. Facing 11 other top tier superstars with names like Meents, Pauken, Madusa, Seasock, and so on, Bradshaw turned in a phenomenal weekend behind the wheel of El Toro Loco. Had Tom Meents not gone absolutely ballistic with a Maximum Destruction freestyle for the ages in the Sunday afternoon freestyle finale to the incredible weekend the banner headline leaving the Netherlands would have been screaming out about Bradshaw’s weekend dominance. That earlier Sunday afternoon Lee O’Donnell made it such a mission to find any means necessary to beat Bradshaw in the Championship Race, so much so that he was willing to destroy his Nitro Circus truck to get the job done, is further testimony to the fact that fresh from winning the World Freestyle Championship Damon Bradshaw is backing up that honor by trying to make himself the man to beat week-in and week-out. There’s a target on his back now, and Bradshaw seems to relish it.
With the creation this decade of a one night, winner take all showdown for the sport’s two world titles the opportunity is now there for an upstart to break through and claim the biggest prize in the sport. The chance is there more than ever for the stars to line up perfectly on that one night in Las Vegas and a driver who has been near the top, but not at the top, of the game to turn in the night of a lifetime and walk out of Sam Boyd Stadium as a World Champion, that being the highlight of his or her career, and to then go back to second level of Monster Jam superstardom. That’s not what we’ve been seeing however. The cases of Bradshaw and Adam Anderson illustrate how that accomplishment of winning a World Championship for a talent right on the edge of headliner status not only is a defining moment in their budding careers, but a breakthrough from being near the top of the food chain to actually reaching the peak of the Monster Jam mountain.

Back to Arnhem. Of the six competitions held in Holland before three packed houses that weekend Bradshaw powered El Toro Loco to a win in three of them (one race championship, two freestyle wins) against, again, a field full of the best in the business. To back up that claim, check out this number: some 17 World Championships were represented by the drivers and trucks in that Dutch field. Of the three disciplines that Damon did not win he finished second, literally by inches, to O’Donnell in the aforementioned Sunday afternoon racing throw down, and he was brilliant again in the final freestyle Sunday afternoon when his equipment finally gave out too early to grab another win, wrapping up his masterful weekend. Only an early loss in Saturday night’s race bracket to Meents in Max-D can be listed as a disappointment for Bradshaw. The tally for the six shows:, one disappointment against five fantastic performances.

Make no mistake about it, as proud as Bradshaw is of winning this year’s World Freestyle Championship he has no intention of coasting and resting on those laurels. To the contrary, that highlight win early in his Monster Jam career seems to have pushed Bradshaw over the edge to the absolute top of the game. The title seems to be a driving force to go for more greatness, not to stop there.  Adam has been the same way. Look at any line-up you see for an upcoming event that includes Taz and tell me that Adam doesn’t enter the fray, at least in freestyle, as one of the top favorites to take home the win. It’s another great thing about the mega weekend that the World Finals has become. The sport’s biggest stage is now where the next generation of the sport’s greatest drivers are cementing there place in Monster Jam history, and then looking to catapult from there to even greater heights.

While this article has been focused on the new young guns breaking through to the top at the World Finals let me close by pointing out that the blueprint here was created by the sport’s two greatest names. Both Dennis Anderson and Tom Meents have never been content with any one World Championship. That pair has shown everyone that each year, to them, is a golden opportunity to win another and further extend the two greatest legacies in Monster Jam. It’s just that these last two years have shown us that the big two have to make some room for some massive younger talents who have already ascended to the top, and the great thing for us as fans is that all of them will continue to push each other, and the entire Monster Jam sport for that matter, to greater and greater thrills and breathtaking action.