(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – Here is another installment of the series showcasing photos I took when my years were much less. I am going to guess the year was either 1983 or 1984. Monster truck racing was still VERY new and the machines mostly lumbered along, but us fans ate it up. Time has been good to some of the photos and not so much to others. The standard-grade photo papers used by most photomats back then weren’t known for their archival properties. Still, the action is there and it brings back memories to many.
The rigs featured in here include Bob Chandler’s 10ft-tire Bigfoot (version 1) and Jim Oldaker’s Dodge van ‘Rolling Thunder’ diesel-powered behemoth. When that van came off the cars it made a serious THUD that shook the stadium. HEAVY. Jeff Dane’s Original King-Kong Ford had everyone gathered around and Scott Stephens ‘King Krunch III’ Blazer almost looked more show than go. Mike Welch brought out his 1960 Ford ‘Monster Mash’ to put on a show until a steering link failed. The FSJ ‘High risk’ of Stuart Landwehr was doing well in its mud racing retirement. It was once known as ‘Love, Sweat, and Tears’ and there will be more photos of it later. Finally there were the pair of trucks out of the Cliff Starbird stable, Monster Vette and Frankenstein. Both of these were icons of the early days and we have more photos of them crushing cars in a later installment.
(Editor’s note: Anyone who has ever watched the VHS tape “Battle of the Monster Trucks” will know immediately what this event was because it was featured in the video! The photos of Rollin’ Thunder sitting atop the cars was taken just after an “escape artist” made a break for it before the big van squashed him inside the car. Doug’s mention of Mike Welch’s steering failure above is spot on. He was hammering his truck hard when he blew the front end apart in the finals. This is awesome stuff!)
Enjoy this step back 30 years into the evolving monster truck craze –
Very cool memories from back in the day. As an update on a couple of these vehicles. FRANKENSTIEN and the MONSTER VETTE have both been sitting outside and being used as lawn ornaments since their last showing in the 90’s. They are both at The Darryl Starbird museum in Afton Oklahoma. There is also a Fox Body Mustang monster car sitting at the entrance of the museum. If I get the chance I will drive the 40 miles to the museum and get updated photos and post them here if I can.
The Mustang ‘vert was also Cliff’s and I only saw it perform once – in San Antonio. The Monster Vette’s paint has faded badly. They all sit on stands so the tires appear full of air outside Daryl Starbird’s museum near Tulsa. It would be nice to see them restored and out making rounds again.
http://www.darrylstarbird.com/museum_tour.htm. Frakenstien looks pretty haggard, but he has a 4×4 pacer on display.
what about Godzilla?
I think that was at Oklahoma city. I may have been there!!! My uncle was crew on the High Risk truck. On an interesting side note, my uncle tells the story of working with the crew of a movie from the 90’s called “Twister” with Hellen Hunt and Bill Paxton. It was about tornadoes and they needed some damage done to a lot of big stuff to make it look like it had been through a storm. My uncle said they hired them with that truck to demolish the items. Said it was one of the best times he had……