50 Fun Facts About Monster Trucks

Bigfoot 14 set a 1999 record by jumping 202 feet over which aircraft at a Tennessee air show?

A Boeing 727 airliner sat beneath driver Dan Runte as he flew 202 feet, smashing the old monster truck mark of 144 feet.

Which Pixar Cars character wrestles as a monster truck called The Tormentor in a 2010 short?

Mater spins the tale in Monster Truck Mater, beating rivals such as the I-Screamer before tagging in Lightning McQueen under the alias Frightening McMean.

The robot dinosaur Truckasaurus crushes which cartoon family's car at a monster truck rally?

The Simpsons meet Truckasaurus in Bart the Daredevil, an episode spoofing Robosaurus, a real fire-breathing machine that eats cars at motorsport shows.

Bigfoot 5's 10-foot tires came from an overland train the US Army ran in which state in the 1950s?

Alaska was where the Army ran its overland train; Bigfoot's builder later bought the giant tires from a Seattle junkyard owner for $1,000.

Bigfoot 7 was built to flatten a car showroom in a single take for which 1989 Patrick Swayze film?

Road House spent $500,000 on the scene, in which the truck destroys a dealership and crushes four new cars, so there was no room for a second try.

Monster truck axles usually come from heavy military trucks or which everyday civilian vehicles?

School buses give up axles strong enough to be rebuilt with planetary gears at each hub, which help turn tires that stand 66 inches tall.

Which color do Grave Digger's headlights glow whenever the graveyard-painted truck is competing?

Red stop lights that Dennis Anderson pulled off a vehicle he was converting into a team transporter happened to fit the headlight sockets, and they stayed.

Which toy brand's Monster Jam deal ended in 2018, before it launched its own monster truck tour?

Hot Wheels had even sponsored a truck in the series; after the split, owner Mattel co-produced Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live, with Bigfoot on the bill.

Most modern monster truck engines are supercharged and burn which fuel instead of gasoline?

Methanol-based fuel feeds supercharged V8 engines of up to 575 cubic inches, which is roughly 9.4 liters.

Bigfoot 20, unveiled at the 2012 SEMA Show in a world first for monster trucks, is powered by what?

An electric motor fed by 36 batteries turns the wheels of the truck, which made its first car crush within days of its debut.

Which former pro wrestler became the first woman to win a Monster Jam World Finals racing title?

Madusa, real name Debrah Miceli, beat her own trainer, Grave Digger creator Dennis Anderson, in the final bracket, driving a truck that carried her ring name.

Tom Meents's truck Maximum Destruction began life in 2000 named after which WCW wrestling star?

Goldberg the truck carried Meents to the first World Finals racing title; after WCW folded in 2001 it ran as Team Meents before its 2003 renaming.

Which Missouri shop owner built Bigfoot, often called the first monster truck, from a family pickup?

Bob Chandler opened a four-wheel-drive shop because Midwest stores lacked the parts he kept breaking, and the growing truck became its rolling advertisement.

Dennis Anderson built the first Grave Digger in 1982 for which sport, before it ever crushed a car?

Mud bogging was his game until a booked monster truck failed to turn up at a show and he offered to flatten the cars himself.

Grave Digger bodies since 1989 have been modeled on which type of 1950 Chevrolet, not a pickup?

Panel van steel from a 1950 Chevy formed the body of Grave Digger 2, but it was soon swapped for a fiberglass replica, and every later truck has copied that shape.

Digger's Dungeon, the home base and museum of the Grave Digger team, is in which US state?

North Carolina's Poplar Branch is home to the shop, where the first Grave Digger, nicknamed Grandma, stands on display alongside several of the trucks that followed it.

Which George Thorogood rock song became Grave Digger's theme music in the late 1980s?

Bad to the Bone, a 1982 single, began accompanying the truck just as its wild passes on TNT Motorsports shows were making it a crowd favorite.

Robosaurus, the car-eating robot of monster truck shows, unfolds from a trailer into which dinosaur?

Tyrannosaurus rex was the model for the 40-foot machine, which breathes fire from its nostrils and tears vehicles apart with hydraulic claws.

The Monster Jam World Finals spent 19 straight years at Sam Boyd Stadium, on the edge of which city?

Las Vegas staged every final from 2000 to 2018, an event fans call the Super Bowl of monster trucks, before it began moving between cities.

Bigfoot, the pioneering monster truck, began in 1975 as a modified pickup from which automaker?

Ford went on to sponsor Bigfoot from 1983 until 2005, and the original F-250 survives as a display truck at the team's shop in Missouri.

The first competition backflip by a monster truck came in a truck owned by which action-sports star?

Travis Pastrana had failed at the stunt himself on his Nitro Circus show, slamming onto the roof from about 40 feet, before driver Cam McQueen pulled it off.

Lee O'Donnell's Mad Scientist landed which stunt for the first time in scored competition in 2017?

A front flip by Tom Meents two years earlier had missed the Guinness record because his leading tires never touched down after the rotation.

In 2005 Tom Meents jumped Maximum Destruction over which building before wrecking it with the truck?

His old house made a fitting victim for a driver known for full-throttle runs, roof walks and handing his helmet to a fan after freestyle.

Which Monster Jam truck, created in 2001, can snort smoke from its nose at the push of a button?

El Toro Loco, Spanish for the crazy bull, began as a spin-off of the Bulldozer body and grew popular enough to become that design's main truck.

Which outcome of the 2004 Monster Jam World Finals freestyle contest led to a change in the rules?

A three-way tie made three drivers co-champions, something the tiebreaking procedures brought in afterwards were designed to prevent.

Which company published Monster Truck Madness, the 1996 PC game starring Bigfoot and Grave Digger?

Microsoft made it the first of its Madness racing line, later joined by Motocross Madness and Midtown Madness.

Bigfoot trucks appear in the second and sixth films of which long-running 1980s cop comedy series?

Police Academy 2 used Bigfoot 3 and Police Academy 6 used Bigfoot 6, part of a list of screen credits that also includes Tango & Cash.

Which 1981 comedy, named after a Johnny Paycheck hit, gave monster trucks their big-screen debut?

Take This Job and Shove It cast Bigfoot as a character's everyday pickup, and the truck's builder appears on screen as the flagman who starts a race.

Bear Foot, long Bigfoot's chief rival, appears in the 1985 Sleeping Bag video by which rock band?

ZZ Top used the truck in the same video that retired the red Eliminator hot rod, the star of the band's earlier clips.

Bigfoot 9 never came home from a 1998 tour after customs officials seized it in which country?

Brazil's customs service impounded the truck, a veteran that had debuted in Dayton, Ohio, in 1990, and the team has never got it back.

In Blaze and the Monster Machines, what is the name of the cheating truck Crusher's goofy sidekick?

Pickle is the voice of reason the blue tractor-trailer keeps ignoring, which is why so many of his schemes ended in mishaps over the show's nine seasons.

In the 2016 film Monster Trucks, what does Creech, the creature hiding in Tripp's pickup, feed on?

Oil is his diet because Creech comes from deep underground, where a drilling company's fracking set him loose; inside the pickup he works as a living engine.

The 66-inch terra tires on monster trucks are a type normally used on what kind of machinery?

Farm equipment tires of this size stand 43 inches wide on 25-inch rims, and Bigfoot 2 was the first monster truck to wear them, in 1982.

Where do most monster trucks carry the engine, unlike Maximum Destruction, which kept it up front?

Behind the driver is the usual spot, and trucks carry power cutoffs in the cab and at the tail so everything can be shut down after a rollover.

A monster truck's steering wheel turns only the front tires, so what steers the rear pair?

A toggle switch works the hydraulic rear steering, a four-wheel setup that Bigfoot was already showing off to crowds in 1979.

Grave Digger got its name after rivals mocked Dennis Anderson's truck for being built from what?

Salvaged parts, an old pickup body among them, drew the teasing, and Anderson's comeback about burying his rivals with that junk gave the truck its name.

Whose names are written on the tombstones in the graveyard scene painted on Grave Digger?

Its competitors each get a grave in a mural that also shows a haunted mansion, a full moon and a skull-shaped ghost, barely changed since 1986.

When the Monster Jam World Finals first changed venue in 2019, which Florida city hosted them?

Orlando's Camping World Stadium got the event after the first choice, MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, fell through over scheduling problems.

In the 2018 film Ready Player One, which character drives a virtual Bigfoot inside the OASIS?

Aech, played by Lena Waithe, works as a mechanic inside the game, which suits an avatar who gets around in a famous monster truck.

In 1985 Bigfoot 2 raced which kind of vessel on Georgia's Chattahoochee River?

A paddle steamer was the opponent for the truck that had introduced 66-inch tires, the size the whole sport then adopted as standard.

Bigfoot's first stadium car crush, staged by the USHRA in 1982, took place under which dome?

Pontiac Silverdome, then home of the NFL's Detroit Lions, drew 72,000 fans to a single monster truck show the following March.

The first side-by-side monster truck race, run in 1983, was filmed for which ABC show?

That's Incredible!, a reality series of stunts so risky that it carried an on-screen warning, showed the August 1983 duel between two pioneering trucks.

Which truck, named after a Chevy ad campaign, beat Bigfoot to the first monster truck racing title?

USA-1 clinched the TNT Motorsports series by beating Bigfoot in a semifinal in Louisville, rolling over in the process with rookie Rod Litzau at the wheel.

Which company, the longtime producer of Disney on Ice, bought the Monster Jam tour in 2008?

Feld Entertainment, built on the Ringling circus, took over Supercross and several of the trucks themselves in the same deal with Live Nation.

Bigfoot 8, briefly banned in 1990 as too advanced, had a chassis developed with the help of what?

Computer-aided design helped give the truck a tubular frame and a nitrogen-charged suspension with four times the travel of earlier trucks, a design its builder patented.

In the 1985 cartoon Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, a stolen map leads to which legendary place?

The Fountain of Youth turns out to be in Florida, and the heroes end up destroying it with their trucks after the villain drinks from it.

The first monster trucks rode on which simple suspension, carried over from stock pickups?

Leaf springs lasted until the late 1980s, when racing pushed builders toward coil springs and then the long-travel four-link designs used ever since.

Which storm name do drivers give to top-speed monster truck donuts, a Tom Meents signature move?

Cyclone spins sit beside sky wheelies among the moves a driver may choose in Monster Jam's two-wheel skills contest.

What do monster truck drivers call a side wheelie, balanced on the two tires of one side?

A bicycle held for almost 892 feet earned Ryan Anderson, a son of Grave Digger's creator, a world record in 2020.

In 1991 Bigfoot 4 became the first monster truck with a 3-D body when restyled as which alter ego?

Snake Bite came with a masked driver billed as Colt Cobra of the fictional Cobra Creek, Colorado, so one team could field two trucks at a show.