UtahGuy123

6 hours ago, NavySonicShell said:

Stop mindlessly blaming Feld for everything you don't like.

I agree, but it's not going to stop. I remember when people were bashing Live Nation for Backwards Bob and an overemphasis on destruction 9 years ago. Even though I wasn't there, I'm certain that 9 years before that, people complained about the WCW trucks and Clear Channel owning Grave Digger and freestyle being added to every show. It makes you wonder why they watch monsters in the first place if everything sucks, all the time in their eyes. I'm not saying that some complaints aren't valid, like really similar tracks and getting rid of the different paint jobs for the same truck. In that case, complain and argue away. But sometimes people are so quick to find things to try and make Feld the bad guy, it's insane and not worth even acknowledging.

I love BeamNG, but the community is the worst. This place on its worst day > Beam forums on their best day. Thankfully now that they've been exposed for stealing content and the mod is apparently cancelled, I've got no reason to read the forums anymore.

I just got back from Vegas a couple hours ago. I assure you guys, as great as it was watching highlights/livestreams, it was indescribably amazing live. Lee's flip was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It was so spectacular that the people around my family and me, complete strangers, were high fiving us and looking around like, "did that just happen?!?" The whole weekend was fantastic. 

I've only got one question. What came off of Ryan's truck at the end of his run? It shot through the body on what looked like the same corner of the suspension that broke on the backflip. Was it a cap off the shocks? The hole looked like it was about that size, but I'm not an expert at that like some of you guys are.

I hope that they are using different designs for each Digger, and they're just smart enough to not blow the reveal before the pit party even starts this time.

Anyway, it was really cool to see a broadcast of the show I went to last weekend. It's so surreal. It's one thing if it's Vegas, where there's been close to 2 decades straight of coverage. It's another when it's the tiny arena you've been going to since you were 3 years old. Also gave me tons of good reference footage, hint hint

The way Joe Lowe loses his poo at 2:26 in that first video is one of my favorite announcer calls in MJ history.

Most of the moments that come to my mind have already been posted, so here are a few that are just nostalgic for me:

13 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Grave Digger's 35th

They'd be insane to not do anything for Digger's 35th Anniversary, even if it's just a huge encore, especially since there might still be the possibility that Dennis retires after this coming year. It is extremely odd that they haven't even mentioned it yet. Hopefully if they do decide to run special bodies for the 35th Anniversary, they've learned their lesson from the 30th Anny bodies. Just add on to the current Digger scheme. Don't redesign the whole body, just base it off of the older bodies if you really want to make a noticeable change; no purple, stacked name, like this:

Probably not going to happen but it's fun to think about what would happen if Feld actually listened to the fans.

Jimmy Creten sweeps racing and freestyle tonight, again facing Tyler Groth and Double Trouble in the finals. A lot tighter racing tonight; there were a lot of guys getting loose and spinning last night. Travis Groth had a great run and should've been the winner, with probably the most ragged edge run I've ever seen at Rocky Mountain Raceway. I seem to recall that RMR judging is particularly bad, though, and there's a tendency for the big names to win over smaller indies (Bigfoot and Bounty Hunter have won the last few years' freestyle IIRC). Kamikaze ran tonight, it was pretty good for a truck making its debut. No major issues like we see with a lot of debuting trucks. 

Tyler Groth and Double Trouble beat Jimmy Creten and Bounty Hunter in an amazing final at RMR, as well as winning the first donut contest they've held at RMR. (They don't do freestyle Sat to save the trucks, I guess.) Surprisingly (IMO) The Felon made it to the semis against Groth. Kamikaze did not race, but it was there. It's a white trophy truck body with a skull wearing a gasmask on the side. Pretty sweet imo. Would've taken a pic, but my phone died. I'll get one up tomorrow night after the show.

My apologies if this is old info; been very busy lately. Paul Jensen is listed as the driver for Kamikaze at RMR, and IIRC he was part of Kreg Christensen's team at one point. Still no clue who owns it, my hunch is that it's Kreg. On a side note, when I was stuck in traffic on my way to work, I saw Kreg and Wicked pass me on the other side of the freeway. Just Wicked, no sign of Kamikaze unless I just missed it. That made that commute suck a little less.

1 hour ago, Charlie H. said:

Sounds brand new to me too, but as for Dan he retired from racing this spring 

Oh, I thought this summer was his "retirement tour" and he was done after next month. He's doing the Sioux Falls MTD show the same weekend as RMR. Oh well, the lineup is the best in a LONG time.

The lineup for the 20th Anniversary Show at Rocky Mountain Raceways: 

• Monster Trakker
• Bounty Hunter
• Scarlet Bandit
• Iron Outlaw
• Knucklehead
• Double Trouble
• Trouble Maker
• Nitro Menace
• Jail Bird
• Wicked
• Kamikaze
• Wild Thang
• King Crunch
• Nitro Hornet
• Felon
• McGruff

Most likely the first show without Bigfoot at RMR. Looks like they're all on the MTD Tour that weekend. That sucks, Dan Runte is usually a staple of the RMR shows.

Does anyone have any info about Kamikaze? I haven't really followed MTs since the World Finals. I googled it and nothing came up.

9 minutes ago, bkelley said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTnhjNtigN8

Thanks for posting that. Probably should've looked into it instead of relying on what I remember of an 8-year old MonsterMayhem thread. I don't really see the drivers going easy. It just seems like typical stadium freestyle for the time. Either way, there are a lot of empty seats in that building... It's actually worse than I remember.

On 5/8/2016 at 3:46 PM, TheDude said:

Supercross ran in Rice-Eccles from 2009-2013, and Monster Jam has never ran there, it has always been in the Vivint Center (used to be Energy Solutions). Based on this, I don't think there will be new shows for Monster Jam, but hopefully I'm wrong because I would love to finally have a stadium show in Utah.

I wouldn't hold my breath honestly. Monster Jam ran at Rio Tinto Stadium (a fairly large MLS stadium for those not familiar) for one show probably like 6 or 7 years ago. By all accounts, it was not worth going. If I recall correctly, the stadium told Feld/LiveNation (can't remember if they'd sold MJ yet) that they needed to go easy to make sure that they didn't tear up the grass, so the officials were very trigger-happy with the RII. I also read that the attendance was not great so I doubt they'll come back.

NVM actually, let's just let this thread die

Delete this please

1 hour ago, jdshark000 said:

Lol we say that every year

This^. A lot of people here will ever be satisfied until every truck in the field does the full regulation, plus bonus. It's draining.

EDIT- Holy love, why even bring up Trump, either of you? 

1 minute ago, MonsterJam2008 said:

That encore was pathetic. 

Yeah it was. They might've wanted to play it safe though after this madness last year: 

The landings on that were brutal

Congrats Morgan! Haven't been this excited to see a guy win a championship in years!

Come on, Morgan. You're so close

EDIT- Whoops, I might've jinxed it

Better angle of the Meents/Dennis race: 

Yeah Dennis, Andy, and Fred Shafer are all in there already. Tom absolutely should be in there already, but it seems like they want more guys from the very early days of monster trucks in there. I don't know why a 20+ year veteran who has been one of the industry's biggest stars for over 15 years wouldn't even receive a nomination after 5 or 6 years, but whatever.

EDIT- On that note, what about Jimmy Creten? He's a top-tier driver in Monster Jam and is pretty much 2nd only to Dan Runte in any promotion outside of MJ. I know that they don't really want a ton of drivers that weren't around in the TNT/leafer era but come on

Just got back from Salt Lake. Coty won the first show (I'm tired I might be wrong) and Morgan won the second. NEA continued to struggle mechanically, to the point where Travis didn't drive a monster truck for the night show. Freestyle was again spectacular for such a small venue. They actually let them cut loose a little bit, whereas in years past the reins were VERY tight and the RII used very frequently. I saw twice as many rollovers in the 3 shows I saw in the past day (3 vefore vs 6 this weekend) than I have the entire time I've attended shows at the arena (I believe about 20 shows since 1999). That is a good indicator of how much harder they were allowed to run. During the afternoon show, Tyler Groth did something like a slap wheelie and caught the rear tires on a ramp, endoing back on to his wheels. This was easily the highlight of any show I've ever seen at the arena simply because I've never seen it happen there before. Scooby's body was so trashed that it was completely ripped off by the show's end. Same with Zombie, save for the arms and parts of the cab.

Overall, I was a little worried that I wouldn't like the format change, but I love it. I don't really mind that the shows are shorter because the show is really tight, almost no downtime outside of intermission and moving trucks that broke/flipped, and the side acts feel like they matter because of the Amsoil Series. Very satisfied with it, hope that they bring the series back to Salt Lake next year. 

Morgan Kane wins the first show in Salt Lake City. I'm exhausted and I'm going to both shows tomorrow so I'll just do a quick wrap up. I haven't been able to follow monsters as much as I'd hoped, so I didn't realize that this was the new gold Max D's debut. There were 3 rollovers, which is as many as I'd seen in the Vivint SmartHome Arena in the past 15 years. They did circle track racing in place of obstacle course. I don't think they've ever done any type of head to head racing besides straight line drags until tonight in the VSHA. NEA rolled in wheelies and wasn't running right after that. Speedsters are okay in the circle track portion and actually pretty exciting for a side act in the obstacle course portion. Morgan and Coty (with one of the three rolls) had probably the two best runs I've seen in that arena and finished 1st and 2nd respectively IIRC. I'm so glad that Feld decided to bring the Amsoil Series shows here. It was great, but admittedly very weird to see the new format after 16 years of wheelies->racing->freestyle with random side acts in between. 

It's just unfortunate that so many promoters seem to value cutting costs over taking safety precautions. Yeah, I get it. They're a business. But it seems like a stupid business move. IMO it's a wiser choice to lose out on a small amount of ticket sales and make sure everybody is safe, than it is to ignore safety procedures and risk paying through the nose for lawsuits/etc if an accident happened. They'd lose out on, like, a few thousand maybe for tickets, versus potentially millions if something went wrong.

I thought that after George Eisenhart, most promoters learned that it's a terrible idea to have people out on the floor when trucks are moving. It should be pretty obvious but I guess it's lost on some of them... Let's also not ignore that there are no safety holds either, which is another pet peeve of mine when it comes to shows. This pic is like a guide on how NOT to run a safe show.