Weekend Race Recap
Friday 7:30
It has been three years since Monster Jam has rolled into the beautiful Erie Pennsylvania area and the welcome and wait was well worth it. This was my first time in the six years that I have been announcing at one of the best racing facilities in the US. The Lake Erie Speedway is about 13 miles from downtown Erie and features a premiere Family racing track.
The night started off with the Wheelie contest and Grave Digger struck with the first win with a score of 28. Eradicator was second with a 23 followed by Bad News and Backdraft scoring sixteens. Chris Baker full time crew chief for Randy Brown and Grave Digger is moving into the seat of the monster truck driver and as a first time at Monster Jam he settled into El Toro Loco and scored a 14.
Racing was next and the times were a bit slower than normal. The car stacks in the racing lanes were not in the best of condition and they were throwing the trucks in every direction making it hard to get set up for the turns on the Chicago style track. In round one Grave Digger had the bye run, Bad News defeated Eradicator and El Toro Loco took his first win by beating Back Draft. Eradicator would come back as the fast looser in the semi finals only to get beat again by Grave Digger. Bad News and the veteran Bruce Haney took out El Toro Loco in another close race. In the finals, Digger taking on Bad News won the race by inches as the result took nearly two minutes for the officials to decide.
Since the race track was concrete and this was a Monster Jam Summer Heat series the fans were treated to a Doughnut Competition. Eradicator came out on top with a perfect score of the night (30) with a wicked cyclone and Digger and Bad News tied for second with scores of 26. Back Draft and the young 18 year old Jeremy Slifko scored an impressive 25 followed by El Toro Loco with a 22.
Freestyle, the fan favorite, was last and each truck and driver had something to prove knowing the fans had waited three years for this moment. Bad News scored first with a solid run of 20 that held up until the last two trucks were to go. The two rookies Baker and Slifko had good runs and looked to get better as the night went on but fell short with score of 18 (El Toro) and 19 (BACKDRAFT). Eradicator was next and took the lead with a combination of speed, air and cyclones scoring a 24. Grave Digger was next and had the crowd on their feet as Randy Brown sailed through the air and had some great slap wheelies to wow the judges for a perfect score of 30 and his third win of the night. Randy afterwards stated to the fans that the competition tomorrow night would get tougher and the air could get bigger and invited the great fans of Pennsylvania back for the next show.
Saturday 7:30
The sky's were dark to the north at the start of the Advance Auto Parts Party in the Pits but the sun came out as the rain held off. A thousand or more fans showed up the the pit party to get an autograph and picture from thier favorite monster jam superstars and then waited to see them in action.
The show kicked off on time and to an exciting wheelie competiton as Eradicator took the opening win with a perfect score of 30. Grave Digger was next with a 28 and Bad News followed with a 23. Back Draft scored a solid 22 and El Toro finished with a 17.
the racing bracket was set and Eradicator took the first round buy as the winner of the wheelie contest. Bad News advanced to the semi finals with a win over Back Draft and Grave Digger won his first round race by defeating El Toro Loco. In the semi finals Grave Digger beat Bad News even though Bad News crossed the finish line first he had also hit both turning poles for a ten second penalty. Eradicator beat Back Draft in an anticipated father son match up that had the home town fans on thier feet. In the finals Grave Digger was to tough and took home another racing trophy.
The rain that we thought we had miss snuck up on us and the show was shorten to only freestyle leaving out the doughnut contest. As the rain came down harder and harder the freestyle contest got wilder. Bad News went out first and scored a 24 with some wicked doughnuts. El Toro and the rookie Chris Baker wowed the judges with some air and speed and took thew lead with a 27. Back Draft was next but fell short with a score of 18 and Eradicator tied El Toro with a solid run. Digger was next and had some room and as the rain came down in buckets digger splashed through and over the track and won the freestyle competition by one point and a score of 28.
Monster Jam Announcer Greg Whitacre.
