Jammin' On The One

Upon stumbling into the Izod Center (formerly Brendan Byrne Arena) for Monster Jam, I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting into. Sure, I had grown up on commercials telling me that on "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday" there would be "mud, sweat and gears" at some local arena, but I had never heeded those words. And though I knew there would be monster trucks driving over beat-up old cars, I didn't really understand the machinations of a monster truck rally. In order to find some answers (and get some beer), my companions and I decided to chat up a beer vendor.

"Well, it's pretty much like the WWE in that it's all fixed," he said. "And I'll tell you this much, you won't find any of these guys on Jeopardy."

If that's not a great sales pitch, than I don't know what is.

If you've never been to a monster truck rally, here's a brief rundown. There are four mediums, wheelies, sprint, doughnuts and freestlye.

The wheelie competition is judged, and it seems as though you are rewarded for getting as close as possible to a 90-degree angle. The three judges were sitting about three rows behind us, and they each had 10 pieces of paper numbered 1-10. When each contestant had performed, they held up their score. It was pretty sophisticated.

The sprint was pretty objective. Two cars lined up alongside one another and raced across rows of adjacent cars to a finish line about 25 yards away. Like the wheelie competition, it was over in about four seconds.

Doughnuts were probably the most amusing event, as each truck tried to generate enough speed to spin around in circles as quickly and tightly as possible. The one downfall of this event was that it was loud. In fact, the whole thing is pretty fucking loud. I wasn't prepared for it, but when I noticed that the family sitting next to us were all wearing those noise-canceling headphones you see people wearing at gun ranges, I knew we were in trouble. I really can't say enough about how loud a monster truck rally is, and the doughnuts are the loudest part. Like the wheelies, this is event judged.

The last event is the freestyle, which is simply 60 seconds for each driver to show off all his best tricks. In reality, it's just a repeat of what we've just seen in the previous three events. I got the feeling that the executives of the Monster Truck Association of America (I made that name up) decided that people needed a little more for their money, so they created the freestyle. It seemed unnecessary, but Gravedigger, which I gather is the Hulk Hogan of monster trucks, put on quite a show in the freestyle. So I guess that made it worthwhile.

I've mentioned this experience to a few people over the past week, and the most common question seems to be, "what was the demographic at the show?" It appeared to be mostly families with young sons, and the headphone family next to us appeared to be experts. Whenever I needed a question answered about the "sport," their eight-year-old son was more than happy to fill me in. That was nice. There was also a pair of girls who appeared to be in their early 20s sitting in front of us. My friends and I asked them if they were regulars at monster truck rallies, and one of them said, "not really. I'm a big WWE fan, and she loves NASCAR. So we figured we would check this out." These are definitely not the kind of girls I met at a small private college in Maine.

I wouldn't say that "attend a Monster Truck rally" was on my bucket list, but it certainly satisfied a lifelong curiosity of what one would be like. Not sure how much fun it would be sober, but it definitely passed the "fun while drunk" test. But then again, what doesn't?