There are certain moments in a man’s life that he experiences once and then they stay with him all the way to the grave. Such is the video you are going to watch below that displays the most awesome and appropriate crash in monster truck racing history. What is so good about it? Firstly it came at a time when trucks were morphing from the lumbering giants that they first showed up as into more specialized racing vehicles. They were making this transition mostly based on the balls of the driver because the suspensions were still rock hard and rudimentary. Those suspension shortcomings led directly to the epic carnage shown in the video. It is important to note, as always, that the driver was A-OK and you’ll see plenty of footage of him being interviewed moments after his truck jumped a wall, killed an iconic 76 sign, and flopped over onto a pair of parked police cars and then burst into flames. The sequence of events in the crash is straight out of an episode of The Simpsons.
Steve Cain was the driver of King Kong and before he dropped the hammer on his big block Chevy powered truck, things were going OK. He was in the second round of the big monster truck event in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, he was facing Gary Porter in the legendary Carolina Crusher (which was a bit long in the tooth even at this point in the sport’s history) and he had a shot to move onto the next round. Amazingly, the commentator for the race says, “Cain told us that the left lane was going away earlier today,” Cain is in the left land when the dookie hits the monster truck sized fan.
The stoutly sprung truck gets to the finish line first, takes and odd bounce and Cain does with every monster truck driver is supposed to do, he lays on the throttle. Drivers of these trucks even today are taught that the throttle is their friend. In this situation though, it made a bad situation worse and rather than settling Cain’s truck it sent it hurtling toward the inner pit road wall. The truck leaps the wall, wiping out the 76 sign like it is made of tin foil. Still trying to gain control of the beast he gives the truck full left rudder, which slows it but then pitches King Kong up on the right side tires and flops it over, directly on top of two relatively new looking local police cruisers. There didn’t appear to be a scratch on them before a monster truck used ’em as a landing mat. A brief fire erupts, possibly from oil or gasoline leaking out. Cain beats feet and escapes from the truck in a big cloud of smoke.
What happens next makes the whole scene. Clearly not really prepared to cover a budding disaster, the TNN cameramen start running to the scene with their camera and in the process capture the bedlam that broke out around this deal. Dozens of men women and children appear to have vaulted from the stands and began sprinting down the front straight. Cain looks like he just got whacked with a mallet and then he sees the crowd coming and scampers away. Other people swarm around the truck and finally Army Armstrong, one of the great “voices” of monster truck racing wrangles Cain and conducts and amazingly cool interview before either of them have really had time to process the whole scene. Listen for the insane laughter Cain emits when Armstrong asks if he’ll be racing next week. He sounds like a mental patient and we don’t blame him one bit.
This is the most insanely awesome crash in the history of monster truck racing, bar none end of story.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE STEVE CAIN WRECK HIS TRUCK, SIGNS, AND COP CARS!
FAST FORWARD THE VIDEO TO 1:50 TO START IT WHERE THE FUN BEGINS!
