By Scott Douglass

In front of a sold out, standing room only crowd of over 70,000 enthusiastic Monster Jam fans in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium the two biggest names in the sport grabbed the championship hardware as Maximum Destruction won racing and Grave Digger took freestyle Saturday night.

Unlike many years in the past when weather, specifically rain, was a big factor in the competition, this turned out to be a beautiful north Florida night and the fans were treated to an incredible show with the racing bracket being full of surprises and several close finishes followed by a freestyle competition where truck after truck not only filled the regulation clock and both bonus periods, but several drivers among the 14 superstars on hand actually gave the fans even more bonus freestyle action after the scoring was finished.

The new cyclone style race course was full of shockers starting in qualifying, where Maximum Destruction shut down less than half way through the qualifying run, and Blue Thunder failed to complete the full pass as well, dropping those two pre-race favorites to the bottom of the seeding for round one of racing. Florida's Scott Hartsock drove his Gunslinger Ford to the fastest time, and for his reward the number one seed was matched with Max-D in the opening race. Tom Meents' crew had fixed the problems Maximum Destruction encounter in time trials and Max won the opening round race against Gunslinger. Hartsock's truck advanced to round two as the fastest opening round loser, but again he drew Meents and Maximum Destruction eliminated Gunslinger from the race bracket in one of the night's closest races in round two. From there Maximum Destruction beat Rickey Ownley and Mopar Magic in the semifinals to advance to the Championship race. In the other half of the bracket 2007 Rookie of the Year Damon Bradshaw had his Air Force Afterburner again taking to the tricky Jax race surface, and as he did last year, Bradshaw advanced all the way to the finals against Meents. The Championship race was close all the way to the final turn, where Meents finally opened up the advantage and Maximum Destruction claimed the event racing victory.

The new bonus system, which offers drivers a pair of extra 30 second time periods to increase their scores if they can fill the :90 second regulation period first was wildly popular with the Florida fans as a majority of the trucks turned in freestyle runs that lasted the maximum of 2 and half minutes, and some of those drivers continued to reward the fans with extra action after all of the scored time was filled. The battle for the freestyle was fierce among the 14 trucks, the largest field ever to complete in Jacksonville, with Dan Evans pulling out his patented reverse move, flying over a bus stack backwards during the second bonus period to take the lead early in the competition, but Bradshaw and Linsey Weenk both used big air performances to edge Evans and share the hot seat until Randy Brown brought Grave Digger out for his freestyle. Brown thrilled the Grave Digger fans with tons of big moves in his bonus periods, and that would prove to be the difference between winning and second place. Meents came out as the final competitor in Maximum Destruction and appeared to be on a mission to take home the Double Down trophy with a run full of the biggest air of the night, and included barrel rolling Maximum Destruction, the truck landing back on its wheels and Meents continuing on without ever stopping, bringing the record setting crowd to its feet again. But with 15 seconds left in his regulation time Meents flipped Max-D onto it's roof to end the run short of filling the first :90 second time period. The judges scored Maximum Destruction with 25 points for the regulation time, more than any other competitor, but Grave Digger received five bonus points for the two extra sessions he completed to add to his regular timed score of 23, the bonus points carrying Grave Digger to the popular freestyle competition win.

RACING RESULTS
Fast Qualifier - Gunslinger
1st Round - Maximum Destruction def Gunslinger; Destroyer def War Wizard; Mopar Magic def Brutus; Stone Crusher def Avenger; Monster Mutt def El Toro Loco; Grave Digger def Taz; Air Force Afterburner def Blue Thunder (Gunslinger advanced to round two as fastest round one loser)
2nd Round - Maximum Destruction def Gunslinger; Mopar Magic def Destroyer; Monster Mutt def Stone Crusher; Air Force Afterburner def Grave Digger
Semifinals - Maximum Destruction def Mopar Magic; Air Force Afterburner def Monster Mutt
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION DEFEATED AIR FORCE AFTERBURNER

FREESTYLE RESULTS
GRAVE DIGGER 28
Maximum Destruction 25
Air Force Afterburner 24
Blue Thunder 24
Destroyer 22
Stone Crusher 21
Brutus 20
War Wizard 20
Mopar Magic 18
El Toro Loco 17
Gunslinger 17
Monster Mutt 15
Avenger 9
Taz 6