The Monsters returned Monday to the Legendary Lebannon Valley Speedway for night one of the annual three night series. Fans began arriving at 2pm for the 8pm event hoping to get great seats and perhaps meet their favorite driver.

The Monster Jam compeititors lived up to their reputation with excitement from the start. The night featured the drama of crews attempting to repair equipment before the next round, three roll overs and the excitement of former World Champion Captains Curse making his first visit to the Valley.

The track is famous for the long no-mans land between the sets of cars. This leads to the trucks running as fast as possible when they hit the final ramp, finishing in the air. The excitement is something you have to experience to appreciate. Qualifying provided some insight to the action that was to come with Black Stallion driven by Michael Vaters earning the top spot with a time of 6.22 seconds. Placing second was Dennis Anderson aboard Grave Digger with a 6.53.

Racing was hard on the Top Qualifier, Black Stallion as the crew was forced to make repairs after each and every run. Stallion was indeed the fastest early on but the constant problems took their toll as the night went on. Tom Meents’ Maximum Destruction trucks also had gremlins haunting him all night causing the truck to run a bit slower than normal. Tom was frustrated with the lack of horsepower and devastated by the handling problems in freestyle.

Race Results:
Round One:
Black Stallion over Iron Warrior
Captains Curse defeated Blue Thunder
Maximum Destruction downed Bat Man
Grave Digger beat Escalade

Semi- Finals:
Black Stallion over Captains Curse
Grave Digger downed Maximum Destruction

Race Finals:
Grave Digger beat Captains Curse when Black Stallion could not answer the call.

Street Warriors came out in force for a chance to race in the big show. The top 8 of the 22 trucks in preshow qualifying earned the right to move on for the 8pm event. With non-stop excitement when the dust cleared it was crowd favorite Eric Calling taking his truck to the winners circle.

Monster Freestyle:

Iron Warrior                              12     power problems
Black Stallion                            21     sparks from the front end was evidence that problems remained
Blue Thunder                            21     Lindsey Weenk rolled the Ford to the cheers of fans.
Escalade                                    21     wheelie off the car stack displayed George’s driving abilities
Batman                                     16     the world champ could not connect with the crowd during his :90 run
Maximum Destruction             27     Meents dominated with great jumps before losing the front end and rolling
Captains Curse                        22     Alex Blackwell continues to show what a great driver he is
Grave Digger                           22     The Mac-Daddy roared out attempting the jump the entire track, the truck almost 
Rolled under power but Dennis saved it. The truck lost power, Anderson restarted 
Continuing his run but blew a motor half way thru the run. Anderson vowed to be     
Be back with a new power plant on Tuesday.

The night ended with Doug Rose and his Green Mamba Jet-powered funny car doing a car burn lighting up the Valley shy.                       

Monster Jam Tuesday Night Lebanon Valley

By: Joe Lowe

Perhaps the best indication that Monster Jam Fever has arrived is the fact that on a Monday and Tuesday Night in upstate New York thousands of people leave their homes to travel to West Lebanon for their annual Monster Jam fix.

For the second weeknight in a row a record number of fans arrived early and stayed late to see the Monster Jam competitors in action. It was an unforgettable night! The bad news, Grave Digger had a blown motor from the night before and NO spare. The good news, Monster Jam rich kid, bad boy George Balhan gave up the motor in his Escalade so Digger could run. “I am a Grave Digger fan just like most of the fans sitting in the stands”, Balhan said in a pre-race interview. “Dennis and I share the same engine builder so I decided to sit in the stands and see what Digger can do with my powerplant. I don’t know if his Social Security check was late or what but I think it is the right thing to do since Grave Digger cut his teeth on this track”. Fans gave the Escalade driver a standing ovation before setting their sights on the action trackside.

The new motor certainly improved Digger ability to get the job done. Digger was fastest qualifier, race and freestyle winner Tuesday night. “I double downed and then came back to make it a three way win. Grave Digger now has a new team member, George Balhan,” said Anderson after the freestyle win. The Escalade driver showed his support even more as he walked out to congratulate Anderson in a Grave Digger pit crew shirt.

Chuck Werner driving Bulldozer was added to fill out the field of truck for the remainder of the week.

Race Results:

Round One:

Grave Digger beat Iron Warrior

Maximum Destruction over Black Stallion

Blue Thunder defeated World Champion Batman

Bulldozer downed Captains Curse

Semi Finals:

Grave Digger over Maximum Destruction in a very close race

Bull Dozer dominated with a win over Blue Thunder

Finals:

Grave Digger beat Bulldozer

Freestyle was incredible with only one point separating the winner from second place. Tom Meents drove Maximum Destruction had with big air and cyclones before ending up with front end problems at the end of his time. Dennis Anderson displayed his driving ability by hitting everything that was even remotely in his way. Diggers legendary non-stop run featured big air, several saves and finally a cyclone that took the truck over the lane wall ending with the truck facing the grandstand with front tires on the track and rear tires on the infield side of the wall. It was an incredible ending for the second night of Monster Jam.

Freestyle Results:

Captains Curse                              Broke

Iron Warrior                                  16

Black Stallion                               14

Blue Thunder                               23 the truck broke but Linsey Weenk was fine

Batman                                         20

Bulldozer                                     13  the bull could not get things together to impress

Maximum Destruction                26  hard charging Max D thrilled fans with his cyclone

Grave Digger                              27  ended straddling the lane wall, Digger dominated

The nights Street Warriors event was also exciting with the race final between  Monday Night race winner Eric Calling, and local favorite Karl Barnes with Barnes racing with only three wheels. Barnes lost a front wheel in round one, returned for the semi finals, wining that timed event before going against Calling in the final. Fans again had something to cheer for as both drivers came out for the post race interview.

The night ended with Doug Rose’s Green Mamba burning a 1951 Plymouth sending sparks hundreds of feet into the night air.

Grave Digger’s Dennis Anderson and the rest of the Monster Jam competitors signed autographs for over an hour after the event with many fans vowing to return Wed. for the third and final night of Monster Jam at W. Lebanon.

Wednesday Night In West Lebanon N.Y.

By: Joe Lowe

The third night of Monster Jam at Lebanon Valley Speedway was not kind to Dennis Anderson and his Grave Digger truck. The event began where we left off the night before. Grave Digger broke all records with a qualifying time of 4.88. Maximum Destruction was next with a 5.93 a full second behind Mac Daddy Dennis.

Thing suddenly went from good to bad for Anderson and Team Grave Digger. A transmission was blown in qualifying forcing the crew to change out a tranny in record time if Digger was to make it for freestyle.

Maximum Destruction also had a tough time during the early part of the event as a leaking power steering pump needed almost constant attention until the crew had time to fix the problem during the intermission.

Linsey Weenk had a great run going in Blue Thunder during freestyle when he hit the Advance Auto Parts Car Pyramid and rolled over backwards at the end of his :90 run. He earned a modest score of 19 for his efforts. Judging was tough as it should have been for such a gathering of greats. John Seasock  drover Batman to a 19 also. In fact only Tom Meents in Maximum Destruction and winner Dennis Anderson aboard Grave Digger scored higher than 20.

Anderson may have lost the competition but he was number one in the hearts of Monster Jam fans who flocked to see him and Digger roar down and over the track. Race results were as follows.

Round One:

Grave Digger has a bye run but could not race due to tranny problems. That left 6 trucks to do battle side by side.

Bulldozer defeated Batman

Black Stallion over Iron Warrior

Maximum Destruction over Blue Thunder

Semi-Finals:

Batman (fast loser) came back to face Bulldozer

Maximum Destruction beat Black Stallion

Race Finals

MaXimum Destruction over Batman

Max D.is declared the winner but again problems with the power steering pump forced some in the crowd to wonder if he would make it for freestyle.

Freestyle Results:

Iron Warrior                   15

Black Stallion                 17

Blue Thunder              19

Bulldozer                    17

Batman                       19

Maximum D               22

Grave Digger             20

As promised Monster Jam officials worked hard to insure all trucks had a great run. Grave Digger fans saw the truck on its side early on. This forced Monster Jam officials to stop the clock until it was again ready for competition. Even with the truck restarting and his wild riding style the judges gave the win to Tom Meents and Maximum Destruction. It was an incredible night of action

The night ended with Doug Rose and his green mamba jet car again burning a car in the infield until the sparks flew rooster tail style down into turn two.

It was a wild early week for the monsters who worked hard to insure the beautiful weather would give monster Jam fans a beautiful event for not just one evening but all three.