Photo Credit: Jason Miller, TheMonsterBlog.com
With the 2011 year drawing to a close, many motorsports have seen their final event and crowning of a champion. Sunday saw NASCAR crown Tony Stewart with his third NASCAR championship, second in the Chase era, and the week before the NHRA crowned its four champions in its Full Throttle Tour.
But even with many motorsports coming to a close for the year, one is set to kickoff it's long winter tour.
Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam is ready to begin it's winter tour at the HHH Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's the first time Monster Jam has been back since the roof collapsed last winter due to the snow.
Multiple events were cancelled at the Dome, including two Monster Jam events. But now, as the 2011 year comes to a close, another season is set to begin.
To kick off this season, Monster Jam has brought in every big name they could possibly get to make the season start off right. The big name trucks return, the big name drivers, and five past world champions will rock a 10-truck field.
The leader of the pack at this event is once again Dennis Anderson, who is set to kick off his 30th Anniversary Tour in the Grave Digger. After a season where Anderson dominated racing, winning 14 of the 16 events he competed in, he returns to the seat looking to top what he accomplished one year ago. Plus, having lost in the World Finals due to a blown motor, Anderson and crew chief Dustin Brown went through the truck and made vast improvements for the upcoming tour.
If Anderson gets on a roll to start the year, it will be almost impossible to stop it. But, one driver hoping to spoil the tour right out of the chute is the defending World Finals racing champion, Tom Meents in Maximum Destruction.
That victory was Meents' ninth championship, the most of any driver in Monster Jam, and he has already been given the honor of coming back in 2012 to defend that championship.
Meents will be going full-bore all season, and will care less about the damage his truck will endure throughout the campaign. Meents' truck says "On A Mission" right on the front, and that motto has not changed since he started driving. He will be ready to go for the opening season win inside the Metrodome.
The other three champions represented in the field are all freestyle champions. The 2004 champion, Lupe Soza, brings in the Advance Auto Parts Grinder to go for the glory. The 2009 champion Damon Bradshaw is ready to fly high in his truck, the U.S. Air Force Afterburner.
The final champion represented will also be the defending freestyle champion, as Jim Koehler returns to Minneapolis in the 1957 Chevy Bel-Air known as the Avenger. His run in Las Vegas was good enough to win his second world title, the previous one coming in 2003.
No question, "Mr. Excitement" will be ready to rumble when freestyle comes around.
The final five trucks include Linsey Weenk making the Minneapolis debut of the Lucas Oil Crusader, along with Chris Bergeron bringing in Brutus. The crazy bull known as El Toro Loco also returns to the Metrodome, along with the other dog-style truck known as the Monster Mutt. Drivers for both trucks have yet to be named.
The final truck in the line-up is continuing a family lineage, and has already made headlines in concluding the 2011 season, and also winning a major event over the summer.
Ryan Anderson is ready to compete in his first full winter season behind the wheel of his 1950 Willys Panel Van, Son-Uva Digger. The younger Anderson already won a freestyle trophy this past summer, doing so at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he beat out both Meents and his dad, to get his first major trophy.
Now ready to make a run to get into the World Finals in 2012, the newest Digger in the fleet is ready to make noise entering the new season.
It's going to be an exciting start to a new year in the biggest promoter of monster trucks in the country. This opening event takes place on Saturday, December 10, and is the final event of any type for monster trucks in 2011 as every team will take time off to be with family for Christmas, and crews will take time to make repairs to the truck and prepare for the three-month season.
For ticket information, along with event times and times for the pit party at the event, visit MonsterJam.com.
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