During the 1980s when the monster truck craze was exploding all across the country, a few trucks began to establish themselves as the premier machines in the genre. Bob Chandler’s Bigfoot and Everett Jasmer’s USA-1 were the two most well known trucks in the country. Jasmer, a former drag racer, wanted to steer the movement away from promoter driven shows to more formalized racing. In this interview, you’ll see how he did that and how it ended up costing him everything in the end.
Jasmer got what he had wished for, which was a dedicated racing series for points that was not decided in a scripted, professional wrestling manner, but instead it was settled by who was the best at driving their truck around the course. Jasmer holds the title as the first ever monster truck world champion becuase USA-1, then driven by Rod Litzau beat out Bigfoot for the championship. Shortly thereafter things went off course for Jasmer.
Simply put, the technology advanced quicker and fast than he could keep pace with and his sponsorship agreements dried up, leaving him to watch from the sidelines as the “pure racing” movement morphed back into the more cartoonish promoter-driven state the monster truck world exists in today. Jasmer is apparently doing some religious outreach work with one of his old trucks now and when you read the interview you can definitely hear the sadness in his words about being on the outside of the sport looking in, even though he is not too enthusuastic about where it all went.
If you are a fan of old school monster truckin’, this is a must read.
Source — BleacherReport.com — Everett Jasmer and USA-1: The First Monster Truck Champion
