Held on custom courses that take over 20 hours to build from a very specific grade of dirt, Monster Jam consists of two race 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 jump, doughnut and backflip their way across the track in an attempt to accrue the most points from the fans. Indeed, those sitting in the stands can use their smartphones to score each competitor.
Though each one of the eight competing monster trucks has a unique fibreglass body and an identity all their own, mechanically speaking they are all more or less the same. This means a custom-made steel chassis and an ultra heavy-duty suspension system specially designed to deal with their immense curb weight (a staggering 4,500kg). Power comes courtesy of 8.8l supercharged V8 engines that run on pure methanol and can develop over 1,100kW — enough to help these megaliths jump as far as 40 metres. Don't expect stellar fuel economy though as these motors use 17 litres of juice to go a single kilometre.
Monster Jam to thrill capacity crowd in Joburg this weekend
Image: Feld Media
After a sell-out show in Cape Town on April 22. Monster Jam is heading to Johannesburg's FNB Stadium this weekend for what promises to be another epic display of monster truck madness. Event organisers on Wednesday day confirmed that the eight-strong field is expected to play out to a capacity crowd of 65,000 — 3,000 more than Monster Jam's first Jozi showing in 2019.
Louder and arguably more dramatic than a field of Formula 1 cars, this year's mob of monster trucks consists of 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). Lady racers Myranda Cozad and Chelsea VanCleave will be looking to upstage the guys in Monster Mutt Dalmatian and Zombie respectively.
Image: Feld Media
Held on custom courses that take over 20 hours to build from a very specific grade of dirt, Monster Jam consists of two race 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 jump, doughnut and backflip their way across the track in an attempt to accrue the most points from the fans. Indeed, those sitting in the stands can use their smartphones to score each competitor.
Though each one of the eight competing monster trucks has a unique fibreglass body and an identity all their own, mechanically speaking they are all more or less the same. This means a custom-made steel chassis and an ultra heavy-duty suspension system specially designed to deal with their immense curb weight (a staggering 4,500kg). Power comes courtesy of 8.8l supercharged V8 engines that run on pure methanol and can develop over 1,100kW — enough to help these megaliths jump as far as 40 metres. Don't expect stellar fuel economy though as these motors use 17 litres of juice to go a single kilometre.
Image: Feld Media
Tyres? Weighing 300kg, each measures 1.7 metres in height, 1.1 metres in width and sports a tread pattern that takes 50 hours to carve. Teams will go through about eight every year.
The Johannesburg leg of Monster Jam fires to life on Saturday at 6pm. For more information about the event, click on www.monsterjam.com or www.showtime.co.za.
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