Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant over there. Jerry's hanging
Speaker 1: out in the ether again. Um, and this is stuff
Speaker 1: you should know on a Sunday, Sunday Sunday. But it's not.
Speaker 1: This will be out on a Thursday. That's true, true. True.
Speaker 1: Is that guy I don't know, but he is an
Speaker 1: American icon for those of you who live outside of
Speaker 1: the United States and use the metric system. Um, there's
Speaker 1: an announcer that is no one knows his name. He
Speaker 1: may be living or dead. I'm not sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people know his name, but we don't know his name. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just generalizing, but from my own experience, uh and
Speaker 1: then uh, but he is a he's like a Monster
Speaker 1: Truck ad announcer, guy who's always getting you hyped up
Speaker 1: to want to go to a seat the Monster Truck rally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think he is second. I mean, there have been
Speaker 1: some great announcers in the history of this country. I
Speaker 1: would put him up there with uh, Michael Buffer, So
Speaker 1: let's get ready to rumble guy. Yeah, I put Triple
Speaker 1: Sunday Man way ahead of him and Don Pardo to me,
Speaker 1: is my all time favorite. Yeah, that's Sarah Live announcer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: featuring Josh Clark. Oh, I've been waiting so long. And
Speaker 1: musical guests, Chipo, boy, that'd be a double bill. Who
Speaker 1: would be your favorite musical guest if you were the host? Oh, Boyton,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Sure. I was gonna say Gandhi
Speaker 1: or Jesus Christ or something like that, but I got
Speaker 1: my my fantasies confused. You know, our buddy Scott Ackerman
Speaker 1: does a great Don Pardo. No, I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's good at that stuff. He is a brilliant comedian,
Speaker 1: he is. It's great. I've been listening to his new
Speaker 1: new Ish show with Lauren lap Kiss and Paula Tompkins
Speaker 1: our other friend, uh called Freedom, and it's hysterical and great. Yeah, good,
Speaker 1: nice plug, Chuck. Everything Ackerman does turns to gold. Can
Speaker 1: I give you my brief rundown with off Roading as
Speaker 1: we get into the Monster Truck episode. Yeah, I predicted
Speaker 1: Dad's story coming. Yeah. Yeah, when I was and I
Speaker 1: think we talked about this a little bit and when
Speaker 1: we talked at some point about CB radios. But when
Speaker 1: we were kids, you and I in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: CBS we're a big deal, the whole culture around it,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to explain, but it's interesting. And my
Speaker 1: dad got a CBE and he and one of his
Speaker 1: better friends, Charlie, had a They both had jeeps. My
Speaker 1: dad had a brown, uh brown Jeep Renegade and Charlie
Speaker 1: had a green one, and we would go off roading.
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid, so we would go
Speaker 1: up into the mountains and literally cut roads where there
Speaker 1: were no roads, and my dad was the mud slinger
Speaker 1: that was a seat hand. Yeah, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: Charlie's was, but we did quite a bit of it,
Speaker 1: including a fully four wheels off the ground jump at
Speaker 1: one point on this dirt road where they had been
Speaker 1: I think they're going to pave the road. So they
Speaker 1: had um bulldozed basically a ramp out of dirt and
Speaker 1: rocks and left it there to come back the next
Speaker 1: day to probably remove it. And my dad and Charlie
Speaker 1: heard about it and they're like, let's go jump the jeeps.
Speaker 1: And my dad jumped a jeep with my brother and
Speaker 1: I en it. No seatbelts of course, oh my god,
Speaker 1: of course not. I don't think jeeps had back seat
Speaker 1: belts back then. And uh I remember hitting the ground
Speaker 1: and then bumping up been smashing my head on the
Speaker 1: roll bar. I dude, I can imagine, and you still
Speaker 1: have that divid Yeah, but it was the seventies, so
Speaker 1: I don't even think he said, is everyone okay? I
Speaker 1: think we just kept on trucking. He's like, take a
Speaker 1: salt tablet. Yeah, exactly. That's a great story, man. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that you've done any off roading. I've
Speaker 1: done exactly zero off roading in my life. Um. I
Speaker 1: do have a deeper appreciation for it after researching all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But I have never been into monster trucks
Speaker 1: and never gone to one of those, although I will
Speaker 1: say the thought of you and uh Emily and me
Speaker 1: and you me going to one of these had a
Speaker 1: lot of appeal for some reason. Yeah. Well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what. Out of the four people you just listed,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, you mean's the only one
Speaker 1: who's been to a I totally believe it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was into um Power Motorsports for a little while there,
Speaker 1: that's great. And the one she said, it's really loud,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty great, except she said, breathing all of
Speaker 1: like the gas fumes, exhaust fumes is not super fun.
Speaker 1: You need to get one of those stadium ones outdoors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw. I saw a footage of one at the
Speaker 1: in Anaheim where the Angels play. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an outdoor baseball stadium. That's that's the place to
Speaker 1: go see a monster truck rally for sure, not like
Speaker 1: enclosed sports arena hockey rink and I've heard of the
Speaker 1: noise is really I've been to one drag race and
Speaker 1: the noise was really bad there, so I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what it's like for a monster truck jam. Yes, but
Speaker 1: there's something about it, like even just watching like clips
Speaker 1: on YouTube like I've done the last few days, it's
Speaker 1: like I saw a couple of things that I'm going
Speaker 1: to admit gave me goose bumps a little bit. I was.
Speaker 1: I was that impressed with it. But part of it
Speaker 1: was the noise from the engine, but also the noise
Speaker 1: of like twenty five year old guys screaming like little
Speaker 1: boys because somebody like did a wheelie, like a giant
Speaker 1: monster truck that fully adds to the sound as well,
Speaker 1: and little boys and girls screaming like grown men. Right exactly,
Speaker 1: it's weird. It's a weird scene. It's a big crisscross.
Speaker 1: So so yes, I think it's good that we fessed
Speaker 1: up out of the gate that we're we We have
Speaker 1: not been to a monster truck rally, um, and we're
Speaker 1: not huge as far as our understanding of say, like
Speaker 1: motorized engines go that kind of thing. I feel like
Speaker 1: we could still do one on this like pretty well, um,
Speaker 1: because there's just so much to it. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of really interesting stuff to it. You don't actually have
Speaker 1: to have gone to see a monster truck rally to
Speaker 1: appreciate it, especially if you watch some clips on YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know the reason I mentioned the off roading
Speaker 1: is because that is where monster truck rallies is that
Speaker 1: what they're still called munster truck jams. They're called monster
Speaker 1: jam but that's like a specific uh a specific brand
Speaker 1: of of show that you go to. Well, the monster
Speaker 1: jam wrecked I'm calling them rallies. I'm gonna call the
Speaker 1: monster truck promenades. Okay, so the prom I love it.
Speaker 1: The cotillion started with off roading in with people like
Speaker 1: my dad in the seventies and eighties getting off road,
Speaker 1: and you know before that, even uh off roading in
Speaker 1: these pickup trucks that eventually we're like, hey, let's get
Speaker 1: some bigger tires, let's lift it up a little bit,
Speaker 1: let's get some more ground clearance. And before you know it,
Speaker 1: trucks are just a little bit bigger and taller than
Speaker 1: they were before. And a man named Bob Chandler said
Speaker 1: from St. Louis, said, I've got a great idea. Too
Speaker 1: bad he didn't like have some sort of I P
Speaker 1: around this, but he did come up with a great idea,
Speaker 1: which was the very first big Foot. Yeah yeah, he
Speaker 1: he's very widely credited as basically the inventor of monster
Speaker 1: trucks just just from it was basically born out of necessity,
Speaker 1: like he drove his car really hard. The reason his first, uh,
Speaker 1: the first monster truck was named Bigfoot was because that
Speaker 1: was his nickname. He was well known as a very
Speaker 1: aggressive off roading driver. Um. But because of that, he
Speaker 1: would break axels, he would get stuck in the mud, um,
Speaker 1: he would find himself in his truck more importantly in
Speaker 1: places that your average truck driver would not would not
Speaker 1: find themselves, so um, to kind of get out of
Speaker 1: those sticky situations or never get into him in the
Speaker 1: first place, he started to try to upgrade his truck
Speaker 1: well beyond anything you would buy from like a dealership. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he was a tinkerer, uh so much so, and
Speaker 1: he got like so into it. He actually opened his
Speaker 1: own four by four parts store. Um. In part I
Speaker 1: get the very strong impression to probably get a discount
Speaker 1: on the parts that he was needing to use on
Speaker 1: his own truck that he was breaking with regularity. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was called the Midwest Four Wheel Drive Center h.
Speaker 1: And the initial truck was a F to f fifty
Speaker 1: and he dressed it all up and he got those
Speaker 1: bigger axles and bigger tires and uh, he actually did
Speaker 1: invent a technology, um, which was I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: he completely invented this, but he at least installed four
Speaker 1: wheel steering on his truck, which is when the back
Speaker 1: wheels turn and the front wheels turn so you can
Speaker 1: turn tighter. This was I don't know about a rage,
Speaker 1: but this was a thing for a while because my
Speaker 1: good buddy and your pal John Findell from New Jersey.
Speaker 1: He had one of those four wheels steering Honda Preludes
Speaker 1: that he just it was like his baby. He loved
Speaker 1: this car more than anything. I remember that. They were
Speaker 1: always like, you can get in and out of a
Speaker 1: parking spot at the grocery store like you would not believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should have seen him park at the grocery store.
Speaker 1: I forgot about the effortless. But yeah, so that makes
Speaker 1: you know, and especially in a big monster truck when
Speaker 1: you're gonna need that turning radius. Uh. And the tires
Speaker 1: got bigger and bigger. I think he landed at forty
Speaker 1: four inches, which was like a tractor tire. Yeah, initially,
Speaker 1: and that was in nineteen seventy nine, and that was
Speaker 1: sort of the very first monster truck. Yeah. And nowadays,
Speaker 1: if you were riding around on forty four inch tires,
Speaker 1: other monster truck enthusiasts would be like, what's wrong with
Speaker 1: your tires? But at the time you could you could,
Speaker 1: like people would ask you to pull over so they
Speaker 1: could talk to you about your car when you were
Speaker 1: driving down the road with tires like that. And he
Speaker 1: actually used it to great effect. He he advertised um
Speaker 1: his businesses parts but four by four parts business on
Speaker 1: the car um when he was driving around town, and
Speaker 1: he ended up adding the word Bigfoot, the name Bigfoot
Speaker 1: onto it. And again, at first, I believe he was
Speaker 1: basically saying, you know, like a long haul trucker will
Speaker 1: put their name or nickname or CB handle on their
Speaker 1: on their rig, That's what he was doing. But in
Speaker 1: very short order that became the name of the car
Speaker 1: or the truck, and then in in Um and the
Speaker 1: successive trucks that came after that, there's I think iterations
Speaker 1: of Bigfoot or some offshoot of Bigfoot. Now, yeah, he
Speaker 1: you know, he made one very famous initial video, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of as a promotion like a local TV commercial
Speaker 1: basically for his business of Bigfoot riding over some other cars.
Speaker 1: And that was it. Man. After that, people went berserk. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is one sort of I don't know if it's apocryphal,
Speaker 1: but at least we can't find the original source, but
Speaker 1: that he did get pulled over once in Bigfoot and
Speaker 1: because he would drive this thing on the road, it
Speaker 1: was just crazy, and he was ticketed because the only
Speaker 1: violation that they found was the headlights were too high
Speaker 1: off the ground. Yeah, which I mean, like I was
Speaker 1: looking at what makes monster trucks not street legal, and
Speaker 1: that's definitely one of them. But some other ones are,
Speaker 1: like you know, usually they don't have winchaw wipers or
Speaker 1: horns or things like that. Um, it's not stuff you
Speaker 1: would think of. Another one, though, is like that, the
Speaker 1: tires can't be like too wide beyond the body, and
Speaker 1: if they do, you have to have mud flaps to
Speaker 1: cover it up. Um. There's a lot of different like
Speaker 1: laws state by state, but for the most part, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to drive those things on the road
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. But yes, the height of
Speaker 1: the headlights is definitely one of them. So he takes
Speaker 1: off around the country and starts doing some promotional events.
Speaker 1: He would go to exhibitions, he would drive over a
Speaker 1: car or pull a weighted sled that looks like a
Speaker 1: giant six pack of Budweiser. Did you see some of
Speaker 1: the early Bigfoot videos, the very first one and a
Speaker 1: lot of them after that. Yeah, yeah, they were like
Speaker 1: slow motion. They weren't like hyped up. It was just
Speaker 1: basically like, Okay, for my next trick, I'm going to
Speaker 1: start in about ninety or a hundred and twenty seconds.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna roll over this one are very slowly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that's what it was like. It wasn't like, yes,
Speaker 1: but no one had seen anything like it though, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Which so at the time what
Speaker 1: seemed boring to us now was like just mind blowing
Speaker 1: to the people. Oh yeah, So he was he was
Speaker 1: doing pretty well, especially as far as business promotion goes,
Speaker 1: and realized that he needed a second Bigfoot because people
Speaker 1: wanted him in movies and they wanted him at their
Speaker 1: county fair. And so in eight two, Bigfoot two debut
Speaker 1: at the Pontiac's Silver Dome, this time with sixty six
Speaker 1: inch tires, which kind of ended up being the industry norm. Yes,
Speaker 1: apparently they get um or they started out with agricultural tires,
Speaker 1: the kind of tires that you put on tractors, are
Speaker 1: huge combines, like just giant tires. And then to save
Speaker 1: some of the weight, because these tires can be eight
Speaker 1: hundred plus pounds each fully inflated like mounted to wheels,
Speaker 1: they'll actually shave all a lot of the tread, real
Speaker 1: deep tread, the lugs I think they're called um they'll
Speaker 1: shave off a substantial portion, so they still have lots
Speaker 1: of traction because you know, at these monster truck cotillions,
Speaker 1: they're driving over like mud and dirt and everything. I
Speaker 1: don't think those are lugs, are they? I saw somewhere
Speaker 1: somebody referred to him as lugs huge treads. I thought
Speaker 1: the lug was the thing that came out that you
Speaker 1: put the lug nut on when you change a tire.
Speaker 1: I they may have. I mean, this is a very
Speaker 1: confusing world we live in. It's it's possible that they're
Speaker 1: both called lugs. There's a lot of people laughing in
Speaker 1: us right now, which is fine. They're gonna pat us
Speaker 1: on our heads when they will probably be nicer than
Speaker 1: soccer and chess enthusiasts. I certainly hope so, because I've
Speaker 1: seen these people get up and yell, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be yelled at by a monster truck enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break and look up what a
Speaker 1: lug is and come back? Sure, Chuck, So, Chuck, where
Speaker 1: we left off? Bigfoot had really kind of established this
Speaker 1: whole thing um in the very early eighties. It appeared
Speaker 1: in Take This Job and Shove It. Did you ever
Speaker 1: see that movie? I'm sure your dad probably made you
Speaker 1: watch it like all the time. That was an HBO
Speaker 1: special for sure. Okay, I never saw it, and I
Speaker 1: was very surprised to learn that Robert Hayes, the um,
Speaker 1: the guy from Airplane was in it, like the main guy.
Speaker 1: I would not have cast him. I'm surprised no one
Speaker 1: has reinvigorated his career, you know, like Tarantino style. Sure,
Speaker 1: sure come back, he really did. But so it was
Speaker 1: in that it was in Police Academy to six. It
Speaker 1: just it was part of like the pop culture zeitgeist
Speaker 1: for sure. But at the same time, um, it's success
Speaker 1: and like it's popularity spawned imitators is not the right word.
Speaker 1: Um uhi mates, Yeah, fellow cotillion go or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like other people are like, yes, this is what we
Speaker 1: should be doing with our lives. And they actually, um
Speaker 1: were able to make a livelihood by appearing at some
Speaker 1: of those early like hot rod shows or um like
Speaker 1: car exhibitions or um you know, like a drag races
Speaker 1: things like that. They would just be there to entertain
Speaker 1: the crowds, and then all of a sudden they're like,
Speaker 1: well maybe we should you know, match these things against
Speaker 1: one another, and so from that monster truck rally started
Speaker 1: to grow on their own. Yeah, I get the feeling.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like the Rodeo clown for a
Speaker 1: little while. Like you said, there would be drag races,
Speaker 1: and they said, and now you know, Bigfoot will make
Speaker 1: it a special appearance. And it's interesting in that it's
Speaker 1: sort of started it. It kind of followed NASCAR's footprint
Speaker 1: a little bit, or stock car racing in general, because
Speaker 1: the name is right there stock cars. Like initially those
Speaker 1: cars were just juiced up cars that they would race.
Speaker 1: And initially these trucks were we're four f two fifties
Speaker 1: and Chevrolets, and they were just trucks that people built
Speaker 1: bigger and heavier and more rugged and just made them huge. Uh.
Speaker 1: They got to a point though, where they were, like,
Speaker 1: you know, they were using military axles and stuff like
Speaker 1: that on their their big equipment because everything was breaking.
Speaker 1: But they found that those were even breaking, and as
Speaker 1: they got bigger and bigger, they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: we need to start over everybody. This is a real
Speaker 1: thing and we can't just modify these pickup trucks. We
Speaker 1: gotta build these things from the ground up. Like NASCAR
Speaker 1: eventually ended up doing that. Yeah, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: they did. And apparently Bob Chandler led the the the
Speaker 1: way on that as well, really tinkered around with UM
Speaker 1: CAD designs, computer assisted designs UM and one of the
Speaker 1: things he came up with. And it wasn't him specific,
Speaker 1: or it wasn't just him. They were like a group
Speaker 1: of people working on this by this time. This is
Speaker 1: the I believe the late eighties so so, like monster
Speaker 1: trucks were a thing by now, UM, but they revolutionized
Speaker 1: it by basically saying, how about instead of these like
Speaker 1: super heavy, brittle things where the truck itself weighs a
Speaker 1: total of like fifteen thousand pounds UM and we break
Speaker 1: axles because you know they're really strong, but they're really
Speaker 1: brittle too, Let's start using tubes instead. And they created
Speaker 1: a revolution by by by creating and welding these cages
Speaker 1: these frames out of very strong but very lightweight tubes.
Speaker 1: And you're never going to guess one of the components
Speaker 1: that they use that they make these tubes out of molybdenum.
Speaker 1: No way, way. It's funny. We heard from people about
Speaker 1: to pronounce that and someone said, every I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw this, and they said, in the industry,
Speaker 1: we just call it molly. Yes, I saw that too. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a They use a chromium malebdumum molebden um alloy
Speaker 1: and they call it chrome molly. Wow. Yeah. So that's
Speaker 1: that's what your average monster truck is made out of.
Speaker 1: And you don't need like a like a the same
Speaker 1: amount of stuff that like a passenger vehicle needs. You
Speaker 1: need just the bare minimum amount of stuff that's gonna
Speaker 1: make this thing wrong, keep it together, and then most importantly,
Speaker 1: protect the driver inside. Because when you strip everything away
Speaker 1: from the monster truck of today that Bob Chandler and
Speaker 1: his friends revolutionized in the late eighties, you basically have
Speaker 1: a roll cage, is what you're what you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: a giant tubular roll cage. That's what a monster truck
Speaker 1: is at its core. Yeah. And one of the other
Speaker 1: big improvements and advancements they made was moving the engine
Speaker 1: behind the driver, so it's a mid engine layout. Uh
Speaker 1: no more, you know what's in front of you under
Speaker 1: the hood. Uh. The bodies of these things now and
Speaker 1: since the you know, late eighties, early nineties or fiberglass
Speaker 1: and they're just I mean, if you watch any videos
Speaker 1: of this stuff online of like current Monster Truck Rally
Speaker 1: or contillions, excuse me, Um, these fiberglass bodies are just
Speaker 1: they're just show pieces. They're made to just tear apart
Speaker 1: and break away. Like very few of them end up
Speaker 1: end up in one piece at the end of these Yes, um,
Speaker 1: but they still cost like ten thousand dollars apiece. But
Speaker 1: they're super modular, super interchangeable, so that you might see
Speaker 1: the same truck a couple of times during a rally.
Speaker 1: But they just oh, sorry forget what I just said
Speaker 1: for another twenty minutes. No, I mean spoil it for
Speaker 1: the people that think they're watching different trucks. So I
Speaker 1: am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But
Speaker 1: there are more bodies than there are actual trucks at
Speaker 1: any given Monster Truck Contillion. They're just swapping out the
Speaker 1: actual shells the fibery last body. Um, there's a crew there.
Speaker 1: I was reading about them. They're the unsung heroes of
Speaker 1: any cotillion where in between you know, um, appearances in
Speaker 1: between shows. Like a lot of times those Monster Truck
Speaker 1: jams will be you know, a couple of shows a
Speaker 1: day on a Sunday in a certain city. Um, they're
Speaker 1: working feverishly to fix everything that's gone wrong from the
Speaker 1: abuse that that core truck took, you know, for the
Speaker 1: last couple of hours and during the show. But one
Speaker 1: of the things they do is switch out the bodies
Speaker 1: real quick so that you have you have to transport
Speaker 1: far fewer trucks. It's a lot easier to transport a lighter,
Speaker 1: fiberglass body than a big, heavy truck. Yeah. I thought
Speaker 1: it was funny. Ed the grabster help us put this together.
Speaker 1: And at one point when he was talking about switching
Speaker 1: out the shells, he said, you know, this kind of
Speaker 1: started because multiple big foots would show up at an event,
Speaker 1: and you can't have a big foot racing a big foot.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I bet you no one would care.
Speaker 1: They probably just think it was some twelve year old
Speaker 1: boy would be like that, that ain't right right, keep
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. Something's been violated here. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know who knows, um, but they did. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: They did start switching them out with regularity, and like
Speaker 1: I said, they just tear apart. If you watch any video,
Speaker 1: these drums are pretty insane. I mean they're doing like
Speaker 1: double backflips. Now, I know it's crazy, so you have
Speaker 1: to make a distinction whether you're talking about the double
Speaker 1: backflip where the truck just follow us everybody, a giant
Speaker 1: monster truck hits a ramp and does a backflip, and
Speaker 1: then before it touches the ground, it does another backflip
Speaker 1: in mid air. It looks hard to do. I didn't
Speaker 1: see a lot of successful ones. You could also be
Speaker 1: talking about a consecutive backflip where the U does a backflip,
Speaker 1: lands and does another immediately does goes into another backflip.
Speaker 1: Both are equally impressive, but this, the single double backflip,
Speaker 1: is the harder of the two to do. Um and
Speaker 1: it's fun to watch people try and fail at but
Speaker 1: it's also pretty great to see somebody land. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: speaking of trying and failing, we should talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the Anderson family, another first family of monster trucks.
Speaker 1: So the father, the elder statesman of the Anderson family,
Speaker 1: was in it way early alongside Chandler and they His
Speaker 1: family truck was the grave Digger. Eventually he passed down
Speaker 1: to his son, and then another son, and then eventually
Speaker 1: his daughter, Kristen Uh is now the driver of the
Speaker 1: Grave Digger and she set the Guinness record for altitude
Speaker 1: for the highest jump I think just last year, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: in June and beautiful Bradent in Florida. She landed a
Speaker 1: thirty three uh foot nine inch uh jump off of
Speaker 1: a truck ramp and you know, it's pretty impressive and
Speaker 1: she uh I think it was her dad. The reason
Speaker 1: I mentioned the trying and failing thing was her dad
Speaker 1: was the first person who said, you know what, these
Speaker 1: races are fine, racing, these things are good, but what people.
Speaker 1: He was the one that said, hey, after the race,
Speaker 1: why don't the drivers just come out and do some
Speaker 1: tricks and stuff. He realized, like people like that more
Speaker 1: than the races. And although they still do race now,
Speaker 1: freestyle competition was born out of that notion, and that's
Speaker 1: sort of where the crowd pleasing entertainment comes from. Are
Speaker 1: the drivers that are doing these jumps and the driving
Speaker 1: on two wheels and jumping over things and through things,
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's all right there on that
Speaker 1: big dirt pit and you can I mean Dennis Anderson
Speaker 1: definitely was the one to be credited with creating that,
Speaker 1: and it went from you know, just the existence of
Speaker 1: of monster trucks to monster trucks, do you know, slowly
Speaker 1: driving over a couple of cars, to them racing. Apparently
Speaker 1: in the nineties they raced them. They got them as
Speaker 1: light as like nine thousand pounds, which is about twice
Speaker 1: as heavy as say, like a normal midsized truck today.
Speaker 1: UM they which is really light for uh, a monster truck,
Speaker 1: considering that you know, all four tires and wheels combined
Speaker 1: maybe make up two thousand of those pounds. That's really light.
Speaker 1: And they wanted them light so they could raise them
Speaker 1: and get them really fast. And then they said, you
Speaker 1: know what people want to see. What Dennis Anderson was saying,
Speaker 1: is all the tricks, but you still need to be
Speaker 1: able to go fast. So another about twelve thousand pounds
Speaker 1: is what they clock in it. They're durable, but they're
Speaker 1: also light enough to be fast and too to hit
Speaker 1: thirty three ft high jumps when they hit a ramp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they can do this thanks to a um A
Speaker 1: massive supercharged methanol powered engine UH five cubic inch motors
Speaker 1: and you've only got two speeds though it's got a
Speaker 1: very low geared transmission system and I think first gear
Speaker 1: is sort of like on an eighteen wheeler like that,
Speaker 1: just sort of get your wheels rolling and then you
Speaker 1: immediately pop into that second gear and that's all there is,
Speaker 1: because all you need is torque and acceleration, so you
Speaker 1: can go super fast in a very shortspan, so you
Speaker 1: can hit those ramps and do whatever trick that you
Speaker 1: have up your sleeve. Yeah, and I was like, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the point of using methanol? These engines are
Speaker 1: called blown alcohol engines are in the industry, they call
Speaker 1: them alky's al k y and UM. It turns out
Speaker 1: that methanol actually is less energy dense than gasoline, but
Speaker 1: you can cram more of it into a gaseous state
Speaker 1: than you can gas. So if you have a supercharger
Speaker 1: and air compressor that's compressing a whole bunch of blown
Speaker 1: alcohol vapors into your engine, you can actually more power,
Speaker 1: more energy out of it. So that's the reason that
Speaker 1: they all run on like pure methanol, no gasoline. Not
Speaker 1: to drop a gasoline goes anywhere near these things. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're the engines are extremely big, and they're also
Speaker 1: extraordinarily inefficient fuel wise. Um, there's a there's one very
Speaker 1: famous monster truck called the Raminader, and it clocked in
Speaker 1: as the fastest. It was the fastest um uh monster
Speaker 1: truck on the planet. It did zero to sixty in
Speaker 1: three seconds, which is faster than a ferrari Enzo at
Speaker 1: the time or at least, but it got um two
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four feet to the gallon and then awesome.
Speaker 1: That's I was trying to figure out before he said
Speaker 1: to the gallons, like, where's this going? Right? Wow, that's
Speaker 1: that's really funny. Yeah, they're not worried about fuel consumption. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're worried about making that big engine go boom because
Speaker 1: people love that sound. It's hysterical. Ed put in here
Speaker 1: that they have attempted electric powered monster trucks, but they
Speaker 1: were not popular with the vans. They want to hear
Speaker 1: that engine going. It's part of the allure. I think.
Speaker 1: I think more than anything, they don't want to hear themselves.
Speaker 1: Oh I doubt that. Um. They also have You know,
Speaker 1: if you talk about shocks, when you see these things today,
Speaker 1: it's crazy how uh they will do something where and
Speaker 1: I encourage you to go check out videos if you've
Speaker 1: never seen this stuff. Um, photos. But yeah, definitely video,
Speaker 1: No watch a video, because they can contort themselves and
Speaker 1: go back upright uh way more often than you would think,
Speaker 1: like about eighty percent of the time. I'm like, well
Speaker 1: that thing is is on its back or it's done
Speaker 1: for the day, and it manages to just flop back over.
Speaker 1: And those wheels look like they're all independent of one another.
Speaker 1: They have for nitrogen charge shocks on every single wheel,
Speaker 1: on all four wheels. Ye uh and it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty cool looking. And those those shocks are not like
Speaker 1: normal shocks either. Your average shock has what's called a
Speaker 1: range of travel, which is the amount of basically give
Speaker 1: that it has um of about four to six inches.
Speaker 1: These usually have about twenty four inch range of travel,
Speaker 1: And like you said, there's four on each wheel. So
Speaker 1: on the one hand, that keeps the driver's spine from
Speaker 1: compressing every time they you know, land after a huge jump,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, it also pushes the truck
Speaker 1: off of objects, objects and obstacles. Um. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if we said those huge giant tires. You know,
Speaker 1: in a normal car, you're you've probably got about thirty
Speaker 1: three pounds per square inch inflation in them. Uh, these
Speaker 1: have maybe eight to ten so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: bounce in the tire. There's a huge amount of range
Speaker 1: of travel in the shocks. When you put it all together,
Speaker 1: they can pop up on their back wheels, they can
Speaker 1: pop up on their front wheels. They can just do
Speaker 1: tumbles and somersaults and all sorts of crazy stuff because
Speaker 1: of those shocks and that that virtually deflated tires that
Speaker 1: are basically like giant balloons. Yeah, they bounce. They need
Speaker 1: more cushion for the pushing. They bounce around quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, safety is an important thing, and
Speaker 1: like NASCAR, again, they sort of followed that model of
Speaker 1: in the early days. I would be surprised that Bob
Speaker 1: Chandler even use a seat belt. He seems kind of
Speaker 1: like a wild card to me. But like I said,
Speaker 1: along with NASCAR, they started improving, um the safety over
Speaker 1: the years. There are still things like back injuries. UM.
Speaker 1: Fire is another thing that's it's obviously um because you
Speaker 1: know when you flip these things over and you're bouncing around.
Speaker 1: They those fuel it's not just like a regular gas
Speaker 1: tank or oil reservoir. They're like super modified and there
Speaker 1: are backup systems and redundancies to make sure they're not
Speaker 1: throwing flaming gas all over people. Uh, they're automatic fire
Speaker 1: extinguishers like in NASCAR. They're wearing those fire suits and gloves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they even. Um, I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: the exact Hans device, but the device that I think
Speaker 1: after I might be wrong. I'm just going from memory,
Speaker 1: but I think after Dale Earnhardt died is when they
Speaker 1: brought in that device basically that straps a NASCAR driver's
Speaker 1: head completely stationary. Yes, and I think that's what they're
Speaker 1: using in monster trucks as well. Yeah. So I was
Speaker 1: reading a guy who went to Monster Truck University in
Speaker 1: Illinois or Monster jam University and got to test out
Speaker 1: driving a monster truck. And he said, you're your field
Speaker 1: of vision or your feel. Yeah, it is basically relegated
Speaker 1: to how how much you can move your eyeballs in
Speaker 1: their sockets. Yeah, your head is not moving at all.
Speaker 1: And um, and not only is your head to mobilize,
Speaker 1: your your body is basically too, except for your arms.
Speaker 1: And you're strapped in with a five point seat belt
Speaker 1: that's actually ratcheted in. It's not some buckle like they
Speaker 1: use ratchets to to to screw them in so you
Speaker 1: are in that thing. And then also, if you're an
Speaker 1: actual professional monster truck driver, the seat that you're sitting
Speaker 1: in has actually been molded to your body, so you
Speaker 1: um do you bumby can't fluctuate and wait too much
Speaker 1: if you're on the monster truck circuit or else, You're
Speaker 1: not going to fit into your own seat, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch your weight. I imagine, uh, And you know,
Speaker 1: the whole debate about whether race car drivers or athletes
Speaker 1: is uh, there of course are athletes, and I would
Speaker 1: imagine a monster truck driver. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: tool in the body and they have to be in
Speaker 1: pretty decent shape as well. Sure. Also, like whoever, whoever
Speaker 1: you are listening, you couldn't do this totally. It's not
Speaker 1: something like driving one of these things is not intuitive.
Speaker 1: It's not like, not only do you have to learn it.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that you have to be basically
Speaker 1: naturally talented to start with to even get good at
Speaker 1: it at all. Too. Yeah, I mean, should we talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about driving. I think one thing we
Speaker 1: did mention, which is pretty coolol, is that the driver
Speaker 1: sits in the middle. It's not mounted on the left
Speaker 1: side like we drive here in the United States. It's
Speaker 1: in the center because for a very good reason, so
Speaker 1: so your arm doesn't fly out the window and get crunched.
Speaker 1: That's a big one. And I actually have seen a
Speaker 1: picture of um Bob Chandler driving Bigfoot. Yes, he's leaning
Speaker 1: out the window looking at the ground, like checking his clearance,
Speaker 1: but he's like he might as well be going ten
Speaker 1: miles an hour down a country road for the way
Speaker 1: that he's sitting in this car. I'm like, especially now
Speaker 1: knowing that they they're like strapped in and in the
Speaker 1: center of the car, it's just hilarious to see. I
Speaker 1: can't believe the guy is still alive. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: is he still a lot today? Is still yes? Um?
Speaker 1: He uh? Like we said, there are only those two gears,
Speaker 1: and there's also still that rear wheel steering that Chandler
Speaker 1: came up with, and I don't think we mentioned he
Speaker 1: called it a four by four by four because four
Speaker 1: by four obviously for four wheel drive, and then that
Speaker 1: four wheel steering. But you now can turn those on
Speaker 1: and off the four wheel steering feature with the toggle switch.
Speaker 1: That's how it. Yeah, so like flipping that switch on
Speaker 1: and off and steering and you know, hitting the gas
Speaker 1: where you're and I don't think we got to that
Speaker 1: part yet, but you're it's actually attached via a toe
Speaker 1: loop to the accelerator throttle because they would have problems
Speaker 1: with sticking accelerators and that is not good in a
Speaker 1: monster truck that can go that fast. So now you
Speaker 1: can pull back on the accelerator. But all of this
Speaker 1: stuff takes a lot of practice, and that's why you
Speaker 1: would go to the Monster Truck University, yes, and have
Speaker 1: to be naturally talented to UM. And then there's also
Speaker 1: safety issues chuck that they've come up with because there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of tragedies. Apparently no no monster
Speaker 1: truck drivers ever died driving a monster truck, but plenty
Speaker 1: of spectators have been killed because of things like and
Speaker 1: you crush a car, debris can fly everywhere, um, parts
Speaker 1: of the monster truck itself can come off, and they're
Speaker 1: um usually moving pretty fast and are pretty heavy um
Speaker 1: when they're flying through the air. And then sometimes monster
Speaker 1: trucks can just like drive into crowds. So if you
Speaker 1: go to a monster truck rally or Cotillion, whatever your
Speaker 1: your preferences. Um, you will see that the lower seats
Speaker 1: are just totally you can't go down there because these
Speaker 1: things are so unpredictable and can so easily spin out
Speaker 1: of control that that it's just not safe to be
Speaker 1: anywhere near ground level when one of them is driving around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think after they implemented that, there were incidences
Speaker 1: where the trucks did go up into those empty seats
Speaker 1: where where and everyone involved looked around and just sort
Speaker 1: of nodded like, yeah, we did it. Yeah, just save
Speaker 1: some lives. And then also there's another thing too where
Speaker 1: if you go to one of these shows, you'll find
Speaker 1: that there's four people standing around each corn or of
Speaker 1: the hockey rink or the baseball diamond or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: that they have little remote controls that in each one
Speaker 1: of them is capable of completely shutting off the engine
Speaker 1: in the fuel immediately with the press of a button,
Speaker 1: And they do that in case the driver is knocked unconscious,
Speaker 1: but the the throttle is still down in the cars
Speaker 1: there the truck still running around. Yes, you don't want
Speaker 1: a ghost driven monster truck inside of a stadium full
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, do you know then that just
Speaker 1: shout how dangerous this is that there's people standing by
Speaker 1: with remote controls that turn the thing off if you're
Speaker 1: knocked unconscious while you're doing your job. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we won't go over all these, but there have
Speaker 1: been fatalities multiple times through the years at monster truck rallies,
Speaker 1: including small children getting getting killed in the audience, and um,
Speaker 1: you know this was mainly in the nineties, but there
Speaker 1: was one in Mexico and there was something else in
Speaker 1: So Yeah, which is I don't know, why is that
Speaker 1: surprising to me? The Netherlands has monster truck rallies. But
Speaker 1: I mean these people, they were just standing around like
Speaker 1: they were watching I don't know, a couple of dogs
Speaker 1: do it or something like that, just in a circle,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the monster truck loses
Speaker 1: control and just plows into the crowd. I think it
Speaker 1: killed like three or four people. Yeah, like they're watching
Speaker 1: Disney on Ice basically, break yeah with that one for sure.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll take a break and we'll come back
Speaker 1: and reveal why I mentioned Disney on Ice right after
Speaker 1: this to Chuck. All right, so you mentioned there were
Speaker 1: at least twenty five different big bigfoots over the years.
Speaker 1: Bigfoot is you know, it's part of popular culture and
Speaker 1: on the nomenclature. Like Emily Will if she sees a
Speaker 1: big truck in our neighborhood, will be like, you know,
Speaker 1: look at that bigfoot, get out of the way, or
Speaker 1: some big foot. I mean, let me just rephrase restate
Speaker 1: what I said. It was in Police Academy too and six.
Speaker 1: You had two different times. I'm sure when they got
Speaker 1: to six they're like, who should we bring back there? Like,
Speaker 1: definitely the guy that makes the noises Robert Hayes. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no not phrase. Yeah, let's get big Foot back in here.
Speaker 1: They were gonna he came that close to having his
Speaker 1: career advised by Police Academy six, but they skipped him
Speaker 1: over for big So Bigfoot fourteen jumped to seven, seven
Speaker 1: and nine, and then big Foot five. If you look
Speaker 1: this thing up, it's it's pretty ridiculous. Um it's the
Speaker 1: biggest one of all. They built big Foot five with
Speaker 1: UH tires that are ten ft tall that were used
Speaker 1: on the VC twenty two snow freighter land train, which
Speaker 1: was this. I mean it's a train, it's really a
Speaker 1: vehicle connected to other vehicles. It's more like a big
Speaker 1: shipping bus, but it's a trackless freight train basically that
Speaker 1: they shuttled supplies uh between Cold War early warning outposts
Speaker 1: between Alaska and Canada in the fifties. And if you
Speaker 1: look up big Foot, uh, which one was at fourteen,
Speaker 1: just just take a look at those ridiculous tires. It
Speaker 1: doesn't look as fun or as nimble because they're just
Speaker 1: super tall and not as wide. Uh. But yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a stunt. It's ostentatious, even for
Speaker 1: a monster truck. I think so, And it just doesn't
Speaker 1: look as nimble and as fun. Um. For those of
Speaker 1: you who were raised in the nineties rather than the eighties,
Speaker 1: Grave Diggers probably even more familiar than Bigfoot. And like
Speaker 1: we said, Dennis Anderson, the original creator of Grave Digger
Speaker 1: and whose family keeps driving for him, um, was the
Speaker 1: guy who basically came up with freestyle monster trucking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hats off to him. I think his daughter Kristen is
Speaker 1: the the only first and only full time monster truck
Speaker 1: driver who's a woman. Oh yeah, hats off to her
Speaker 1: as well, and also in the Guinness World Record Holder too,
Speaker 1: which is nothing to sneeze an that's right. There's also um,
Speaker 1: you know, since we were talking about fiberglass bodies are
Speaker 1: super removable. Since you're no longer having to kind of
Speaker 1: work with anything that was originally a car or a truck,
Speaker 1: you can kind of do whatever you want. And some
Speaker 1: people model like the Grave Digger is modeled after a
Speaker 1: fifties Chevy panel van Um. There's one that's uh that
Speaker 1: called the Big Cahuna that looks like a Woody from
Speaker 1: the sixties that you know, go surfing in um. And
Speaker 1: then there's some that don't look like cars at all,
Speaker 1: or they look like cars that are hybridized with like animals,
Speaker 1: like El Toro Loco is a bull with horns. My
Speaker 1: personal favorite is golow Down Giant Shark. There's higher ed
Speaker 1: as a yellow school bus. UM. There's one called the
Speaker 1: Zombie Chuck that has arms sticking and tattered, tattered rags
Speaker 1: coming off of it like a zombie. And then one
Speaker 1: of the best ever, the Mohawk Warrior with a giant
Speaker 1: mohawk sponsored by Great Clips Is it really, which really
Speaker 1: kind of reveals like the state of monster truck contillions today.
Speaker 1: It is super commercialized and the main reason why it's
Speaker 1: super commercialized because Monster Jam, which started out from you know,
Speaker 1: the hot Rod Racing community UM, was bought by Feld Entertainment,
Speaker 1: which has a lot of different live touring acts and
Speaker 1: one of them is Monster Jam. Yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: not without some controversy. UM, you know, prior to the
Speaker 1: big corporate takeover that was it was people like Bob
Speaker 1: chand Or. It was it was these people that would
Speaker 1: get together, maybe get a sponsorship and raise some money
Speaker 1: because they're very expensive to build. Obviously, it's not like
Speaker 1: they were all just like rich guys doing this stuff.
Speaker 1: So you get a sponsor, you'd build out a monster
Speaker 1: truck team and your truck you'd be paid money to
Speaker 1: show up at an event, and if your truck gets
Speaker 1: some notoriety, you get more money. And I think in
Speaker 1: eighty five is when the United States hot Rod Association
Speaker 1: UM started having these races where there were actually rules
Speaker 1: in a point system, and then these other point series
Speaker 1: started up, and eventually that culminated in eight when a
Speaker 1: bunch of the drivers got together informed UH the m
Speaker 1: t r A, the Monster Truck Racing Association, where you
Speaker 1: finally had some like real safety rules and UM, everything
Speaker 1: was just sort of codified. Uh. But then you know
Speaker 1: that's when the sort of corporate takeover thing started coming
Speaker 1: in and there was a lot of controversy with Feld
Speaker 1: Entertainment coming in there, and they're like, it's sort of
Speaker 1: lost a bit of its soul. Uh. In the Monster
Speaker 1: Truck world, and half the trucks that you see at
Speaker 1: any given rally will be felled trucks, and and they're
Speaker 1: and they're rigging it, so they're the felled trucks are winning,
Speaker 1: which is you know, some people say some people might
Speaker 1: get worked up about that, and others might say it's
Speaker 1: just about the entertainment. Who really cares about the competition, right,
Speaker 1: And it's very much the same as like getting worked
Speaker 1: up about you know, pro wrestling being rigged, where it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is, it's for entertainment purposes. Is this isn't a sport,
Speaker 1: but it's it's still very athletic. What you're seeing is
Speaker 1: really hard to do. Um, it's really impressive. It takes
Speaker 1: a lot of work to make that happen. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's for entertainment, but it's still legitimate and all these
Speaker 1: other ways, and just just stop being upset and kick
Speaker 1: back and enjoy it, yeah, or don't and don't go
Speaker 1: and just shut up about it. Well that's what Bob
Speaker 1: Chandler did with Bigfoot. He's Bigfoot is is conspicuously absent
Speaker 1: from all of the Monster Jam series because he didn't
Speaker 1: like Feld entertainment. And apparently he since said, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have maybe not done that,
Speaker 1: because I think my life would be a lot easier.
Speaker 1: I'd probably be fifty times richer. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. And so Bigfoot is still
Speaker 1: its own thing, on its own, just being Bigfoot. It's
Speaker 1: going to a big Foot. You got anything else, I've
Speaker 1: got nothing else. This is interesting. I gotta say I
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching those YouTube beds. Same here. Uh, I'm still
Speaker 1: not interested in going to one unless the four of
Speaker 1: us go together. All right, Well, we'll make it happen
Speaker 1: once this pandemic passes. We're going. But it can't be
Speaker 1: the first live event I go to that. Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: but we will go. We will go. We'll go to
Speaker 1: the KFC Yum Center in Lexington, Kentucky to see it. Um.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, everybody, if you were at all
Speaker 1: entertained by this episode. Go check out some Monster Truck
Speaker 1: clips and specifically look up moonwalking. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most amazing things you will ever see in your life. So,
Speaker 1: as I said, it's one of the most amazing things
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in your life. Obviously, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this a correction email. We
Speaker 1: like to read corrections when we get stuff wrong. It's
Speaker 1: been a hallmark of the show, and I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: one right now from Mike. Hey, guys, I was listening
Speaker 1: to the Uranium Mining podcast today, which was great and
Speaker 1: super interesting. However, I just want to let you know,
Speaker 1: and I expect I'm not the only person who emailed,
Speaker 1: but you are, Mike, that uranium is categorically not from
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. During Big Bang nucleosynthesis, hydrogen, helium, lithium,
Speaker 1: and beryllium were produced, including various isotopes and basically nothing else.
Speaker 1: Uranium is produced from supernovae exploding stars. During the final
Speaker 1: seconds of a life star, something called the r process ocres,
Speaker 1: where dozens of neutrons can rapidly be added to the
Speaker 1: existing atom at nuclei. Some of these neutrons will subsequently
Speaker 1: decay into protons and electrons until the stay will or
Speaker 1: at least quasi stable isotope has reached such as uranium. Uh, cheers,
Speaker 1: thanks for all the great podcasts. That's from Mike. Cheers
Speaker 1: any kind of abruptly there, but man, thanks for this
Speaker 1: school in Mike. Who knew? Mike? I I definitely did
Speaker 1: not know, and I like to think that I know
Speaker 1: basically everything there is to know about the Big Bang.
Speaker 1: There you have it, no uranium, Thanks Mike. UM, if
Speaker 1: you want a school, it's like Mike did. We are
Speaker 1: always willing to sit in awe of someone else's giant brain. UM.
Speaker 1: So you can email us. That's the best way to
Speaker 1: get in touch these days. Wrap it up and send
Speaker 1: it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
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