Weekend Race Recap
Saturday
Tonight at Reliant Stadium, Chaos was unleashed with everything from lasers to Robots, to high-powered street bikes, to Freestyle Motocross, to MONSTERS. This Thrills show even brought in a world renowned Stunt man to perform an incredible feat that has never been done before.
We began the night with Robots never seen before tonight here in Houston. First to the track was Draco the Dragonator looking for an old tired crush car to devour. The crowd lit up as Draco spewed fire while he crossed the track. On the far side, he found his victim, and folded the car in two while tearing it to pieces. At the same time that this was happening, the evil transformer, Reptar made his appearance, and his threat to take over the world. Fortunately, Galactron soon appeared and blew Reptar to pieces, and once again saved the planet.
The huge laser show took us into the Monster Cyclone Competition. For a Thrills show, Monster Jam knows that multiple trucks need to be running at one time on the truck. So tonight, we ran two trucks in a Cyclone at all times – when any one truck stopped, the next truck was already on the track, and into the Cyclone. To deliver non-stop action, we ran all trucks before asking the crowd to spike our decibel meter, and judge who would be champion. Toro (92.9), Turtle (93.5), and Guardian (90.0) ripped up the track, and had the crowd nearly tipping the meter off the deep end. Any of them could have taken the win, except for a single decision by Pablo. Grave Digger whipped into a cyclone just like the others, but with absolutely no time limits for any competitions, Pablo knew he could just keep it going. The simple decision NOT to stop had the crowd screaming for a meter reading of 96.8.
Next we brought a combination of Xtreme Sport Bikes (XSBA) and Freestyle Motocross onto the track all at once. The Sport Bikes led on the dirt track with stunts that are normally done on concrete only. With only a brief practice session to test the conditions, Big Scott, Zach Shockey, Brandon “Brando” Patton, and Andrew Nuding let it loose showing the crowd Circle nearly all of the great stunts including No Hands, Sit Downs, and Circle Wheelies.
When FMX hit the track, they took over the show. Five top riders unleashed sick air with huge tricks from start to Finish. To make this a true Thrills show, we had all five guys on the track at the same time, hitting the ramps multiple times. Hal Strauss, Eric Farr, Ben Veyna, Javier Villegas, and Cody Elkins-.com threw down variations and combinations of both the popular tricks, and some of the tricks fans rarely get a chance to see live. Javier nailed the Ruler and the Holy Grab multiple times before the huge backflip that had the crowd going wild. Cody was the one going over the handlebars with the Starfish, and the Deadbody, before he brought out the Backflip. The crowd again was recorded by our decibel meter, and it became so close between Javier and Cody that it was difficult to call the winner, even with the use of the meter. In the end, Cody got the nod, and took the championship. As tribute to these great fans, the five hit the ramps in a train as an encore, with Javier and Cody doing Backflips from different directions onto the same landing ramp.
The Monster Slap Wheelie Competition brought the fans to the edges of their seats. Team Suzuki had trouble one his first hit, but on the second, he nailed it and rode the wheelie the length of the track. His meter was good (96.6), but not good enough in the end. We had two trucks running at the same time on the track to keep the actions moving full speed. The final pair to run was Toro and Digger. Toro’s first hit was picture perfect. His second hit would never happen. Digger’s first hit was a spectacular wheelie that he rode right into the wall. Looking straight up, Pablo had no idea that he was angling off the track. He kept the nose of Digger in the air until it was forced down by the impact. Needless to say, the crowd loved it, and sent the decibel meter ‘off the charts’ for a winning reading of 101.1.
When you have a world class stunt man that holds 22 world records, you know that the word “Thrill” is going to be elevated to the next level. Spanky Spangler has survived over 22,000 different stunts, and he’s been here in Houston 28 times. This stunt, was one of his most terrifying. Using a 650 foot track that began outside of the stadium, Spanky launched his late model car from a narrow take off ramp directly into a bus that was standing vertical just feet away. He t-boned the standing bus at 65 mph, embedding the can through the roof of the bus. As the bus then crashed forward to the ground, the car seemed to partially embed itself inside. It took the track officials several minutes to extract him from the two destroyed vehicles. But when he emerged, shaken but completely fine – the crowd roared for the legendary stunt man.
Monster Jam Freestyle closed the show with a brand new rule put in place for this Thrill show – no time limit. With Anger Management out with a bad fuel line, The Broker led us off with a great run (96.6). Instigator topped the score with huge jumps (98.0), but was immediate outdone by Team Suzuki (99.5) with his non-stop action, big air over the FMX landing ramps. The final two trucks, however, completely stole the show. Lupe drove Toro right into the ground tonight, only one week after flipping in Anaheim. He had Toro on a great run until he hit the van stack after landing from FMX ramp. Toro rocked over to its side, then, went end over end. It seemed that Lupe would have put it right back onto to all four tires if he hadn’t been shut down as a safety precaution. His score seemed unbeatable at 104.1. Grave Digger then came out, and on the first jump, put up the sickest air of the night. He took the FMX ramp in the opposite direction, and launched Digger nearly into the stands. He kept it on the track, and kept it going with multiple hits on both the double van stack and the bus stack. In the end, Pablo rocked Digger between the two obstacles in the center of track, and cartwheeled the monster before come to a stop upside down. Once again, the crowd hailed the high speed Freestyle run, with the huge air… the reading of 105.1 was the best of the night.
