Good ol’ Santa Claus dropped the Lohnes boys tickets for the Manchester, New Hampshire Monster Jam show so we loaded up and headed north to enjoy a day of supercharged automotive destruction inside the comfy confines of a hockey rink. Manchester’s Verizon Wireless Center is a small venue but it was a great place for my sons to experience their first live monster truck show. Like lots of people we watch the Monster Jam shows on television (now seen on Fox Sports1) and my kids have several of the diecast trucks to play with.

The show was great fun, nicely produced, and was lots different than my first time watching monster trucks in person back in the late 1980s at the Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts. At that time, the trucks were still leaf sprung and bouncy as all get out. It was cool to hear them roar, what them pull the wheels up when hitting cars, and crab around with their four wheel steering. In today’s monster truck world, a small arena show is way more entertaining because the trucks are so capable of flight and “soft” landings that the drivers can be way more aggressive. There was a wheelstand contest, three rounds of short side by side racing, a donut contest, and freestyle which was the most fun to watch. The “Man of Steel” dominated the day show winning three of the four events and looking the best of the bunch, even with the mighty Grave Digger in attendance.

A good time was had by all and my kids loved it, which was the point of the exercise. Now we’ll have to step up the program and find a stadium event to show them what these big guys are really all about when they can get some big speed up and run on a longer course.

HIT THE LINK BELOW TO CHECK OUT OUR GALLERY FROM THE MONSTER JAM EVENT IN MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE