Ah, Valentine's Day. Most guys give their sweeties chocolates, flowers or candle-lit dinners. My wife, bless her heart, is secretly a barbarian princess--so this year we ended up trading smooches and happily yelling our brains out at the Thunder Nationals monster truck rally. Yee-ee-HAW! Now, I'm no motorhead. To me, a clutch is what you do to your throat upon first tasting caviar. My wife, the epitome of refinement and civility, knows even less about camshafts and carburetors than I do. Yet, even a modestly jacked-up suspension or slightly oversized tires will turn her head. "Ooo, Look!" and "Honey, I want a truck," are phrases I've heard more than once. "With b-i-g wheels," she'll add. So, you see: in a way, it was her idea.
Thank goodness we took earplugs. The PA system in the Rochester War Memorial was cranked to the max. So was the capacity crowd--a sea of flannel, tattoos and baseball caps. At least half were kids, some throwing popcorn, others waving huge "#1" foam fingers. The hockey rink had no ice, but the protective glass was still up. Towards our end of the U-shaped arena lay a raft of tightly packed Cadillacs, Pontiacs and so on with all their glass removed, in two rows of five cars each. Sacrificial victims. Prey.
"In-tro-ducing..." Boomed the announcer, and the crowd drowned him out, only to be itself overwhelmed by the truly thunderous noise of the five Monster Truck participants.
These babies are BIG--starting with the tires: each five and a half feet high and just over three and a half feet wide. The announcer says they're also used by earth movers. I believe it. Deeply cut "V" treads wider than the span of my hand disappear in a blur as one by one these beauties dance forward from the far end of the rink. Shiny, beautifully painted custom fiberglass bodies seem to float above the whirling wheels on nimbly articulated cats-cradles of struts and shocks and tubular space frames, giving the helmeted drivers a clear view from as high up as the top of a basketball backboard. Undertaker. Rap Attack. Black Stallion 2000. Excalibur. War Wagon. Each nimbly rolls its front tires up onto the pile. It's quite a tableau. Five humongous hunters, poised as if leaning casually on one knee atop the carcasses of these old clunkers. After a brief pause, all dismount and pull back to the far end of the rink. We've had our glimpse. Now, it's time for some comic relief.
The drivers reappear in a set of mini NASCAR racers, squat little squares about the size of Lay-Z-Boy recliners. They do laps and somebody wins, but nobody cares who.
Then, out pops a guy riding on--get this--a jet powered bar stool. A war surplus afterburner about the size of your backyard barbecue's propane tank nestles between the legs of this highchair on wheels. A two-second burn worthy of the space shuttle sends him scuttling around the rink. Every kid in the place is howling with delight. Me too.
More howls as the Monsters make donuts--burning rubber in tight 360-degree turns at high speed. Will they flip over? Not quite. But does the announcer blanche as 5 tons of truck spins rapidly straight at him? I notice the first four rows on that side of the arena are empty, roped off with yellow tape. Tested before each run, there are three ways to kill the engine on these big boys, one of which is by a remote control in the hands of the official. Still, "F=ma." Accidents could happen. But not tonight.
Next is the Green Monster, a jet-powered motorcycle with a roaring funnel of flame so fierce you can feel it hot on your face from the other end of the arena, even though the flame is pointed away from you.
During intermission, none of the designated contestants is able to toss a Frisbee half the length of the rink into the bullseye on the back of the pickup, so it goes un-won.
"Free style" ensues, with Monster trucks leaping, smashing, squashing and spinning to wow the crowd. Excalibur seems to come closest to tagging the suspended scoreboard in the center of the rink, with a near vertical leap and a hang time of almost four seconds. That's a long time to keep 10,000 pounds of wingless fiberglass and metal airborne. "Big air," crows the announcer.
Then it's the moment all the kids have been waiting for. Lights dim as a forklift places a Ford Pinto near center ice. Something like a green Zamboni on steroids lumbers forward. Its roof splits apart, flames leap up, and just like a toy "Transformer," the thing grows and unfolds and turns into Trans-saurus--a monster dinosaur that slowly grabs the hapless Pinto in huge hydraulic pincers, lifts it high, and within several bites literally chomps it in half. Pinto bits fall to the floor as flames leap out of the monster's snout. Then it's back into the box, Jack, until the next show.
Some are now bolting for the exits, not waiting for the side-by side leaping that's the final event. I'm tired too. What was first a wonder has through constant repetition lost much of it's charm. I wonder if maybe that's not how things were even back in the heyday of the Roman Coliseum. Half of any spectacle is its novelty. And I've had my fill.
Next day, however, my wife is still happily crooning, "Vroom, vroom!"
Now I'm afraid I may have to jack up my garage.
Appeared in "The Wayne Weekly," February, 1998.
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