Monster Jam confirms local truck and driver line-up

South African motorsport fans are counting down the days until another and long-awaited local edition of Monster Jam explodes to life at major cities around the country.

Kicking off in Cape Town at the DHL Stadium on April 22, this larger-than-life monster truck extravaganza will then rumble its way to Johannesburg's FNB Stadium on April 29 and conclude with an earth-shaking finale at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on May 6.

US-based Feld Entertainment's Monster Jam first visited our sunny South African shores in 2019 when it proved to be an astonishing success, selling out at all three cities and setting a new international sales record with 63,000 tickets sold in Johannesburg alone.

This year's Monster Jam line-up consists of no less than eight super-sized trucks that will battle for supremacy across specially prepared dirt playgrounds that take about 20 hours to construct using a specialised group of people known as the Dirt Crew.

The dirt in question — approximately 40 tons of clay/sand mix that gets compressed down onto the field of each stadium — is crucial to the success of every Monster Jam event and as such a whole lot of planning and science gets thrown at it to make sure it's 100% up to scratch. 

Putting these gnarly courses to the test will be the legendary Grave Digger (driven by Matt Cody), Max-D (Blake Granger), El Toro Loco (Brandon Arthur), Earth Shaker (Tony Ochs), Blue Thunder (Camden Murphy) and Megalodon (Charlie Pauken). Representing the fairer sex will be Myranda Cozad in Monster Mutt Dalmatian and Chelsea VanCleave in Zombie. 

The competition part of Monster Jam is split into two formats. The first is side-by-side racing, which sees two trucks out at the same time. Lasting roughly 20 seconds, this is traditional bracket racing where the first truck to cross the finish line with the least amount of penalties is declared the winner.

In the freestyle section, each driver gets two minutes to bump, jump, doughnut and backflip their way across the course in an attempt to squeeze the most points from the fans — those in the stands and watching online. 

The trucks are really something to behold: 4.5-ton behemoths taller than a single-storey building and fitted with gigantic 1.7m wheels that will crush almost anything in their path.

Power comes courtesy methanol-chugging, supercharged V8 engines that produce over 1,100kW and make F1 cars sound tamer than your grandma's Yaris. Seriously, the noise these things make is something everybody needs to experience at least once in their lives.

The popularity of Monster Jam in South Africa has resulted in Pit Party tickets (where fans can get up close to their favourite trucks and drivers before the main event) being sold out across all three cities. Fortunately event tickets are still on sale from www.showtime.co.za or www.ticketmaster.co.za. But hurry, get into gear, as remaining seats are selling fast.

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