Monster Trucks 1.23.10

Is it wrong to invest such emotion in a team that you actually lose sleep over it?  Let's not even go there...

Before the football season ended on Sunday, the weekend was full of Monster Trucks!  I'd never been to a monster truck show and every time I'd hear they were in town, I'd have plans and never be able to make it.  Well Saturday I had plans to knit in the morning/afternoon, so I did that, but left with enough time to make it to the Monster Truck Pit Party.  The Pit Party itself was kind of lame... just a bunch of big trucks on the floor of the Dome, with their drivers standing around signing autographs for the kiddies.  You've also got a bunch of derby cars for flipping, racing, and destroying.

Apparently the little ones are quite into the monster trucks; I never was when I was a kid, but who am I to judge?  I never realized there was such a following of this sport (can it be called a sport?), but the fans are pretty into it and dedicated!  That was neat to watch.

Our seats were assigned on the upper level but we didn't like them very much, so we moved around a bit, staying on the upper level as the lower bowl was sold out (!).  I figured this would be a good time to slap on my zoom lens and try my hand at it.  I actually got some neat pictures.  It started with the roll competition; they set up a ramp and cars drive up one side of it at full speed in attempt to roll it as many times as possible.  It was pretty sweet:

As it turns out, there is an actual point to monster trucks... it's a competition.  The trucks make a full lap, which includes 3 jumps, and the fastest time moves on to the next round.  That part was pretty boring.  I tried to get into it more as it went on.. but my heart just wasn't in it.  Somewheres along the lines I  stopped taking pictures; my big lens is manual focus and pretty heavy, so my arm was pretty tired and my pictures started to lack a bit, cause in all honesty, how many pictures can you have of a monster truck jumping over the same jump?  Answer: you can have WAY too many.

They had some trailer racing in between the monster truck events and that was pretty funny... derby cars pulling trailers with something on them.  One trailer had a couch, one had a snowmobile, one car was pulling an actual pop-up trailer... it was hilarious.  It got super messy as cars were driving over each others trailers, things were falling off around corners... oh man, it was great, this is how it all ended:

As the night went on, they opened up the floor to freestyle driving.  That started out lame as all the drivers were being pretty cautious with their trucks... until the end when the big dogs hit the floor.  Part of me wishes I would have grabbed my camera back out, but I'm glad I didn't because I tend to enjoy things less and miss out on more when I'm living through my cameras eye.  The monster trucks were rolling, flipping, falling apart... it was absolutely amazing, and thrilling!  I was so excited and fully enjoyed watching the last 20-30 minutes of the show.

Would I go again?  Well... we paid $20/ticket,  so that's not that bad, but I wouldn't pay that again to be there the whole time, specifically not the pit party, but I'd maybe think about arriving a bit later and watching some of the stuff.  It was definitely an interesting experience, and I'm glad I went!