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How Monster Trucks Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant over there. Jerry's hanging
0:17
Speaker 1: out in the ether again. Um, and this is stuff
0:21
Speaker 1: you should know on a Sunday, Sunday Sunday. But it's not.
0:29
Speaker 1: This will be out on a Thursday. That's true, true. True.
0:35
Speaker 1: Is that guy I don't know, but he is an
0:39
Speaker 1: American icon for those of you who live outside of
0:42
Speaker 1: the United States and use the metric system. Um, there's
0:48
Speaker 1: an announcer that is no one knows his name. He
0:52
Speaker 1: may be living or dead. I'm not sure a lot
0:54
Speaker 1: of people know his name, but we don't know his name. Well, yeah,
0:58
Speaker 1: I'm just generalizing, but from my own experience, uh and
1:02
Speaker 1: then uh, but he is a he's like a Monster
1:06
Speaker 1: Truck ad announcer, guy who's always getting you hyped up
1:10
Speaker 1: to want to go to a seat the Monster Truck rally. Yeah.
1:13
Speaker 1: I think he is second. I mean, there have been
1:16
Speaker 1: some great announcers in the history of this country. I
1:18
Speaker 1: would put him up there with uh, Michael Buffer, So
1:24
Speaker 1: let's get ready to rumble guy. Yeah, I put Triple
1:28
Speaker 1: Sunday Man way ahead of him and Don Pardo to me,
1:32
Speaker 1: is my all time favorite. Yeah, that's Sarah Live announcer. Yeah,
1:36
Speaker 1: featuring Josh Clark. Oh, I've been waiting so long. And
1:42
Speaker 1: musical guests, Chipo, boy, that'd be a double bill. Who
1:49
Speaker 1: would be your favorite musical guest if you were the host? Oh, Boyton,
1:55
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Sure. I was gonna say Gandhi
1:58
Speaker 1: or Jesus Christ or something like that, but I got
2:00
Speaker 1: my my fantasies confused. You know, our buddy Scott Ackerman
2:03
Speaker 1: does a great Don Pardo. No, I didn't know that. Yeah,
2:07
Speaker 1: he's he's good at that stuff. He is a brilliant comedian,
2:11
Speaker 1: he is. It's great. I've been listening to his new
2:14
Speaker 1: new Ish show with Lauren lap Kiss and Paula Tompkins
2:17
Speaker 1: our other friend, uh called Freedom, and it's hysterical and great. Yeah, good,
2:24
Speaker 1: nice plug, Chuck. Everything Ackerman does turns to gold. Can
2:28
Speaker 1: I give you my brief rundown with off Roading as
2:32
Speaker 1: we get into the Monster Truck episode. Yeah, I predicted
2:36
Speaker 1: Dad's story coming. Yeah. Yeah, when I was and I
2:40
Speaker 1: think we talked about this a little bit and when
2:42
Speaker 1: we talked at some point about CB radios. But when
2:45
Speaker 1: we were kids, you and I in the seventies and eighties,
2:48
Speaker 1: CBS we're a big deal, the whole culture around it,
2:53
Speaker 1: and it's hard to explain, but it's interesting. And my
2:56
Speaker 1: dad got a CBE and he and one of his
2:59
Speaker 1: better friends, Charlie, had a They both had jeeps. My
3:03
Speaker 1: dad had a brown, uh brown Jeep Renegade and Charlie
3:08
Speaker 1: had a green one, and we would go off roading.
3:10
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid, so we would go
3:12
Speaker 1: up into the mountains and literally cut roads where there
3:15
Speaker 1: were no roads, and my dad was the mud slinger
3:21
Speaker 1: that was a seat hand. Yeah, I don't remember what
3:24
Speaker 1: Charlie's was, but we did quite a bit of it,
3:25
Speaker 1: including a fully four wheels off the ground jump at
3:29
Speaker 1: one point on this dirt road where they had been
3:32
Speaker 1: I think they're going to pave the road. So they
3:34
Speaker 1: had um bulldozed basically a ramp out of dirt and
3:39
Speaker 1: rocks and left it there to come back the next
3:41
Speaker 1: day to probably remove it. And my dad and Charlie
3:44
Speaker 1: heard about it and they're like, let's go jump the jeeps.
3:47
Speaker 1: And my dad jumped a jeep with my brother and
3:49
Speaker 1: I en it. No seatbelts of course, oh my god,
3:52
Speaker 1: of course not. I don't think jeeps had back seat
3:54
Speaker 1: belts back then. And uh I remember hitting the ground
3:58
Speaker 1: and then bumping up been smashing my head on the
4:01
Speaker 1: roll bar. I dude, I can imagine, and you still
4:05
Speaker 1: have that divid Yeah, but it was the seventies, so
4:07
Speaker 1: I don't even think he said, is everyone okay? I
4:09
Speaker 1: think we just kept on trucking. He's like, take a
4:12
Speaker 1: salt tablet. Yeah, exactly. That's a great story, man. I
4:15
Speaker 1: had no idea that you've done any off roading. I've
4:18
Speaker 1: done exactly zero off roading in my life. Um. I
4:22
Speaker 1: do have a deeper appreciation for it after researching all
4:25
Speaker 1: this stuff. But I have never been into monster trucks
4:28
Speaker 1: and never gone to one of those, although I will
4:31
Speaker 1: say the thought of you and uh Emily and me
4:35
Speaker 1: and you me going to one of these had a
4:38
Speaker 1: lot of appeal for some reason. Yeah. Well, I'll tell
4:41
Speaker 1: you what. Out of the four people you just listed,
4:43
Speaker 1: as far as I know, you mean's the only one
4:44
Speaker 1: who's been to a I totally believe it. Yeah. Yeah,
4:49
Speaker 1: she was into um Power Motorsports for a little while there,
4:53
Speaker 1: that's great. And the one she said, it's really loud,
4:57
Speaker 1: and it's pretty great, except she said, breathing all of
5:00
Speaker 1: like the gas fumes, exhaust fumes is not super fun.
5:03
Speaker 1: You need to get one of those stadium ones outdoors. Yeah,
5:06
Speaker 1: I saw. I saw a footage of one at the
5:09
Speaker 1: in Anaheim where the Angels play. I'm like, oh, yeah,
5:11
Speaker 1: that's an outdoor baseball stadium. That's that's the place to
5:13
Speaker 1: go see a monster truck rally for sure, not like
5:16
Speaker 1: enclosed sports arena hockey rink and I've heard of the
5:20
Speaker 1: noise is really I've been to one drag race and
5:23
Speaker 1: the noise was really bad there, so I can't imagine
5:26
Speaker 1: what it's like for a monster truck jam. Yes, but
5:29
Speaker 1: there's something about it, like even just watching like clips
5:32
Speaker 1: on YouTube like I've done the last few days, it's
5:36
Speaker 1: like I saw a couple of things that I'm going
5:39
Speaker 1: to admit gave me goose bumps a little bit. I was.
5:43
Speaker 1: I was that impressed with it. But part of it
5:45
Speaker 1: was the noise from the engine, but also the noise
5:49
Speaker 1: of like twenty five year old guys screaming like little
5:53
Speaker 1: boys because somebody like did a wheelie, like a giant
5:58
Speaker 1: monster truck that fully adds to the sound as well,
6:01
Speaker 1: and little boys and girls screaming like grown men. Right exactly,
6:06
Speaker 1: it's weird. It's a weird scene. It's a big crisscross.
6:10
Speaker 1: So so yes, I think it's good that we fessed
6:12
Speaker 1: up out of the gate that we're we We have
6:15
Speaker 1: not been to a monster truck rally, um, and we're
6:18
Speaker 1: not huge as far as our understanding of say, like
6:23
Speaker 1: motorized engines go that kind of thing. I feel like
6:27
Speaker 1: we could still do one on this like pretty well, um,
6:31
Speaker 1: because there's just so much to it. There's a lot
6:33
Speaker 1: of really interesting stuff to it. You don't actually have
6:36
Speaker 1: to have gone to see a monster truck rally to
6:38
Speaker 1: appreciate it, especially if you watch some clips on YouTube. Yeah,
6:42
Speaker 1: and you know the reason I mentioned the off roading
6:44
Speaker 1: is because that is where monster truck rallies is that
6:48
Speaker 1: what they're still called munster truck jams. They're called monster
6:52
Speaker 1: jam but that's like a specific uh a specific brand
6:56
Speaker 1: of of show that you go to. Well, the monster
6:59
Speaker 1: jam wrecked I'm calling them rallies. I'm gonna call the
7:03
Speaker 1: monster truck promenades. Okay, so the prom I love it.
7:12
Speaker 1: The cotillion started with off roading in with people like
7:15
Speaker 1: my dad in the seventies and eighties getting off road,
7:18
Speaker 1: and you know before that, even uh off roading in
7:21
Speaker 1: these pickup trucks that eventually we're like, hey, let's get
7:25
Speaker 1: some bigger tires, let's lift it up a little bit,
7:28
Speaker 1: let's get some more ground clearance. And before you know it,
7:32
Speaker 1: trucks are just a little bit bigger and taller than
7:35
Speaker 1: they were before. And a man named Bob Chandler said
7:39
Speaker 1: from St. Louis, said, I've got a great idea. Too
7:43
Speaker 1: bad he didn't like have some sort of I P
7:45
Speaker 1: around this, but he did come up with a great idea,
7:48
Speaker 1: which was the very first big Foot. Yeah yeah, he
7:51
Speaker 1: he's very widely credited as basically the inventor of monster
7:56
Speaker 1: trucks just just from it was basically born out of necessity,
8:00
Speaker 1: like he drove his car really hard. The reason his first, uh,
8:04
Speaker 1: the first monster truck was named Bigfoot was because that
8:07
Speaker 1: was his nickname. He was well known as a very
8:09
Speaker 1: aggressive off roading driver. Um. But because of that, he
8:13
Speaker 1: would break axels, he would get stuck in the mud, um,
8:17
Speaker 1: he would find himself in his truck more importantly in
8:19
Speaker 1: places that your average truck driver would not would not
8:23
Speaker 1: find themselves, so um, to kind of get out of
8:26
Speaker 1: those sticky situations or never get into him in the
8:28
Speaker 1: first place, he started to try to upgrade his truck
8:31
Speaker 1: well beyond anything you would buy from like a dealership. Uh.
8:36
Speaker 1: And he was a tinkerer, uh so much so, and
8:39
Speaker 1: he got like so into it. He actually opened his
8:41
Speaker 1: own four by four parts store. Um. In part I
8:45
Speaker 1: get the very strong impression to probably get a discount
8:48
Speaker 1: on the parts that he was needing to use on
8:50
Speaker 1: his own truck that he was breaking with regularity. Yeah. Yeah.
8:54
Speaker 1: It was called the Midwest Four Wheel Drive Center h.
8:56
Speaker 1: And the initial truck was a F to f fifty
9:02
Speaker 1: and he dressed it all up and he got those
9:05
Speaker 1: bigger axles and bigger tires and uh, he actually did
9:09
Speaker 1: invent a technology, um, which was I'm not sure if
9:14
Speaker 1: he completely invented this, but he at least installed four
9:17
Speaker 1: wheel steering on his truck, which is when the back
9:21
Speaker 1: wheels turn and the front wheels turn so you can
9:23
Speaker 1: turn tighter. This was I don't know about a rage,
9:26
Speaker 1: but this was a thing for a while because my
9:30
Speaker 1: good buddy and your pal John Findell from New Jersey.
9:34
Speaker 1: He had one of those four wheels steering Honda Preludes
9:38
Speaker 1: that he just it was like his baby. He loved
9:40
Speaker 1: this car more than anything. I remember that. They were
9:42
Speaker 1: always like, you can get in and out of a
9:44
Speaker 1: parking spot at the grocery store like you would not believe. Yeah,
9:47
Speaker 1: you should have seen him park at the grocery store.
9:50
Speaker 1: I forgot about the effortless. But yeah, so that makes
9:53
Speaker 1: you know, and especially in a big monster truck when
9:56
Speaker 1: you're gonna need that turning radius. Uh. And the tires
10:00
Speaker 1: got bigger and bigger. I think he landed at forty
10:02
Speaker 1: four inches, which was like a tractor tire. Yeah, initially,
10:06
Speaker 1: and that was in nineteen seventy nine, and that was
10:09
Speaker 1: sort of the very first monster truck. Yeah. And nowadays,
10:13
Speaker 1: if you were riding around on forty four inch tires,
10:17
Speaker 1: other monster truck enthusiasts would be like, what's wrong with
10:19
Speaker 1: your tires? But at the time you could you could,
10:24
Speaker 1: like people would ask you to pull over so they
10:26
Speaker 1: could talk to you about your car when you were
10:28
Speaker 1: driving down the road with tires like that. And he
10:31
Speaker 1: actually used it to great effect. He he advertised um
10:35
Speaker 1: his businesses parts but four by four parts business on
10:38
Speaker 1: the car um when he was driving around town, and
10:42
Speaker 1: he ended up adding the word Bigfoot, the name Bigfoot
10:45
Speaker 1: onto it. And again, at first, I believe he was
10:48
Speaker 1: basically saying, you know, like a long haul trucker will
10:51
Speaker 1: put their name or nickname or CB handle on their
10:53
Speaker 1: on their rig, That's what he was doing. But in
10:56
Speaker 1: very short order that became the name of the car
10:59
Speaker 1: or the truck, and then in in Um and the
11:03
Speaker 1: successive trucks that came after that, there's I think iterations
11:08
Speaker 1: of Bigfoot or some offshoot of Bigfoot. Now, yeah, he
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, he made one very famous initial video, uh,
11:17
Speaker 1: sort of as a promotion like a local TV commercial
11:21
Speaker 1: basically for his business of Bigfoot riding over some other cars.
11:26
Speaker 1: And that was it. Man. After that, people went berserk. Uh.
11:32
Speaker 1: There is one sort of I don't know if it's apocryphal,
11:35
Speaker 1: but at least we can't find the original source, but
11:38
Speaker 1: that he did get pulled over once in Bigfoot and
11:41
Speaker 1: because he would drive this thing on the road, it
11:43
Speaker 1: was just crazy, and he was ticketed because the only
11:47
Speaker 1: violation that they found was the headlights were too high
11:49
Speaker 1: off the ground. Yeah, which I mean, like I was
11:52
Speaker 1: looking at what makes monster trucks not street legal, and
11:56
Speaker 1: that's definitely one of them. But some other ones are,
11:58
Speaker 1: like you know, usually they don't have winchaw wipers or
12:01
Speaker 1: horns or things like that. Um, it's not stuff you
12:04
Speaker 1: would think of. Another one, though, is like that, the
12:06
Speaker 1: tires can't be like too wide beyond the body, and
12:11
Speaker 1: if they do, you have to have mud flaps to
12:13
Speaker 1: cover it up. Um. There's a lot of different like
12:17
Speaker 1: laws state by state, but for the most part, yeah,
12:19
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to drive those things on the road
12:21
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. But yes, the height of
12:23
Speaker 1: the headlights is definitely one of them. So he takes
12:27
Speaker 1: off around the country and starts doing some promotional events.
12:32
Speaker 1: He would go to exhibitions, he would drive over a
12:35
Speaker 1: car or pull a weighted sled that looks like a
12:38
Speaker 1: giant six pack of Budweiser. Did you see some of
12:41
Speaker 1: the early Bigfoot videos, the very first one and a
12:45
Speaker 1: lot of them after that. Yeah, yeah, they were like
12:48
Speaker 1: slow motion. They weren't like hyped up. It was just
12:52
Speaker 1: basically like, Okay, for my next trick, I'm going to
12:55
Speaker 1: start in about ninety or a hundred and twenty seconds.
12:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna roll over this one are very slowly. Yeah,
13:01
Speaker 1: it wasn't that's what it was like. It wasn't like, yes,
13:05
Speaker 1: but no one had seen anything like it though, you
13:07
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Which so at the time what
13:09
Speaker 1: seemed boring to us now was like just mind blowing
13:12
Speaker 1: to the people. Oh yeah, So he was he was
13:15
Speaker 1: doing pretty well, especially as far as business promotion goes,
13:19
Speaker 1: and realized that he needed a second Bigfoot because people
13:23
Speaker 1: wanted him in movies and they wanted him at their
13:25
Speaker 1: county fair. And so in eight two, Bigfoot two debut
13:29
Speaker 1: at the Pontiac's Silver Dome, this time with sixty six
13:33
Speaker 1: inch tires, which kind of ended up being the industry norm. Yes,
13:39
Speaker 1: apparently they get um or they started out with agricultural tires,
13:43
Speaker 1: the kind of tires that you put on tractors, are
13:46
Speaker 1: huge combines, like just giant tires. And then to save
13:50
Speaker 1: some of the weight, because these tires can be eight
13:54
Speaker 1: hundred plus pounds each fully inflated like mounted to wheels,
13:58
Speaker 1: they'll actually shave all a lot of the tread, real
14:02
Speaker 1: deep tread, the lugs I think they're called um they'll
14:06
Speaker 1: shave off a substantial portion, so they still have lots
14:08
Speaker 1: of traction because you know, at these monster truck cotillions,
14:12
Speaker 1: they're driving over like mud and dirt and everything. I
14:15
Speaker 1: don't think those are lugs, are they? I saw somewhere
14:19
Speaker 1: somebody referred to him as lugs huge treads. I thought
14:22
Speaker 1: the lug was the thing that came out that you
14:25
Speaker 1: put the lug nut on when you change a tire.
14:28
Speaker 1: I they may have. I mean, this is a very
14:30
Speaker 1: confusing world we live in. It's it's possible that they're
14:33
Speaker 1: both called lugs. There's a lot of people laughing in
14:35
Speaker 1: us right now, which is fine. They're gonna pat us
14:38
Speaker 1: on our heads when they will probably be nicer than
14:40
Speaker 1: soccer and chess enthusiasts. I certainly hope so, because I've
14:44
Speaker 1: seen these people get up and yell, and I don't
14:46
Speaker 1: want to be yelled at by a monster truck enthusiasts.
14:48
Speaker 1: Should we take a break and look up what a
14:52
Speaker 1: lug is and come back? Sure, Chuck, So, Chuck, where
15:16
Speaker 1: we left off? Bigfoot had really kind of established this
15:18
Speaker 1: whole thing um in the very early eighties. It appeared
15:22
Speaker 1: in Take This Job and Shove It. Did you ever
15:27
Speaker 1: see that movie? I'm sure your dad probably made you
15:29
Speaker 1: watch it like all the time. That was an HBO
15:31
Speaker 1: special for sure. Okay, I never saw it, and I
15:34
Speaker 1: was very surprised to learn that Robert Hayes, the um,
15:38
Speaker 1: the guy from Airplane was in it, like the main guy.
15:42
Speaker 1: I would not have cast him. I'm surprised no one
15:44
Speaker 1: has reinvigorated his career, you know, like Tarantino style. Sure,
15:52
Speaker 1: sure come back, he really did. But so it was
15:57
Speaker 1: in that it was in Police Academy to six. It
16:01
Speaker 1: just it was part of like the pop culture zeitgeist
16:03
Speaker 1: for sure. But at the same time, um, it's success
16:07
Speaker 1: and like it's popularity spawned imitators is not the right word.
16:12
Speaker 1: Um uhi mates, Yeah, fellow cotillion go or something like that.
16:18
Speaker 1: Like other people are like, yes, this is what we
16:21
Speaker 1: should be doing with our lives. And they actually, um
16:24
Speaker 1: were able to make a livelihood by appearing at some
16:26
Speaker 1: of those early like hot rod shows or um like
16:30
Speaker 1: car exhibitions or um you know, like a drag races
16:34
Speaker 1: things like that. They would just be there to entertain
16:36
Speaker 1: the crowds, and then all of a sudden they're like,
16:37
Speaker 1: well maybe we should you know, match these things against
16:41
Speaker 1: one another, and so from that monster truck rally started
16:44
Speaker 1: to grow on their own. Yeah, I get the feeling.
16:47
Speaker 1: It was kind of like the Rodeo clown for a
16:49
Speaker 1: little while. Like you said, there would be drag races,
16:53
Speaker 1: and they said, and now you know, Bigfoot will make
16:55
Speaker 1: it a special appearance. And it's interesting in that it's
16:59
Speaker 1: sort of started it. It kind of followed NASCAR's footprint
17:02
Speaker 1: a little bit, or stock car racing in general, because
17:05
Speaker 1: the name is right there stock cars. Like initially those
17:09
Speaker 1: cars were just juiced up cars that they would race.
17:13
Speaker 1: And initially these trucks were we're four f two fifties
17:17
Speaker 1: and Chevrolets, and they were just trucks that people built
17:20
Speaker 1: bigger and heavier and more rugged and just made them huge. Uh.
17:26
Speaker 1: They got to a point though, where they were, like,
17:30
Speaker 1: you know, they were using military axles and stuff like
17:32
Speaker 1: that on their their big equipment because everything was breaking.
17:35
Speaker 1: But they found that those were even breaking, and as
17:39
Speaker 1: they got bigger and bigger, they said, you know what,
17:42
Speaker 1: we need to start over everybody. This is a real
17:45
Speaker 1: thing and we can't just modify these pickup trucks. We
17:48
Speaker 1: gotta build these things from the ground up. Like NASCAR
17:52
Speaker 1: eventually ended up doing that. Yeah, and that's exactly what
17:55
Speaker 1: they did. And apparently Bob Chandler led the the the
17:58
Speaker 1: way on that as well, really tinkered around with UM
18:02
Speaker 1: CAD designs, computer assisted designs UM and one of the
18:06
Speaker 1: things he came up with. And it wasn't him specific,
18:10
Speaker 1: or it wasn't just him. They were like a group
18:12
Speaker 1: of people working on this by this time. This is
18:13
Speaker 1: the I believe the late eighties so so, like monster
18:18
Speaker 1: trucks were a thing by now, UM, but they revolutionized
18:22
Speaker 1: it by basically saying, how about instead of these like
18:25
Speaker 1: super heavy, brittle things where the truck itself weighs a
18:29
Speaker 1: total of like fifteen thousand pounds UM and we break
18:33
Speaker 1: axles because you know they're really strong, but they're really
18:36
Speaker 1: brittle too, Let's start using tubes instead. And they created
18:40
Speaker 1: a revolution by by by creating and welding these cages
18:45
Speaker 1: these frames out of very strong but very lightweight tubes.
18:50
Speaker 1: And you're never going to guess one of the components
18:53
Speaker 1: that they use that they make these tubes out of molybdenum.
18:59
Speaker 1: No way, way. It's funny. We heard from people about
19:03
Speaker 1: to pronounce that and someone said, every I don't know
19:06
Speaker 1: if you saw this, and they said, in the industry,
19:08
Speaker 1: we just call it molly. Yes, I saw that too. Yeah, Yeah,
19:11
Speaker 1: there's a They use a chromium malebdumum molebden um alloy
19:16
Speaker 1: and they call it chrome molly. Wow. Yeah. So that's
19:21
Speaker 1: that's what your average monster truck is made out of.
19:23
Speaker 1: And you don't need like a like a the same
19:27
Speaker 1: amount of stuff that like a passenger vehicle needs. You
19:30
Speaker 1: need just the bare minimum amount of stuff that's gonna
19:33
Speaker 1: make this thing wrong, keep it together, and then most importantly,
19:36
Speaker 1: protect the driver inside. Because when you strip everything away
19:40
Speaker 1: from the monster truck of today that Bob Chandler and
19:43
Speaker 1: his friends revolutionized in the late eighties, you basically have
19:47
Speaker 1: a roll cage, is what you're what you're dealing with,
19:51
Speaker 1: a giant tubular roll cage. That's what a monster truck
19:54
Speaker 1: is at its core. Yeah. And one of the other
19:56
Speaker 1: big improvements and advancements they made was moving the engine
20:00
Speaker 1: behind the driver, so it's a mid engine layout. Uh
20:04
Speaker 1: no more, you know what's in front of you under
20:06
Speaker 1: the hood. Uh. The bodies of these things now and
20:10
Speaker 1: since the you know, late eighties, early nineties or fiberglass
20:14
Speaker 1: and they're just I mean, if you watch any videos
20:18
Speaker 1: of this stuff online of like current Monster Truck Rally
20:21
Speaker 1: or contillions, excuse me, Um, these fiberglass bodies are just
20:28
Speaker 1: they're just show pieces. They're made to just tear apart
20:31
Speaker 1: and break away. Like very few of them end up
20:34
Speaker 1: end up in one piece at the end of these Yes, um,
20:38
Speaker 1: but they still cost like ten thousand dollars apiece. But
20:42
Speaker 1: they're super modular, super interchangeable, so that you might see
20:46
Speaker 1: the same truck a couple of times during a rally.
20:48
Speaker 1: But they just oh, sorry forget what I just said
20:52
Speaker 1: for another twenty minutes. No, I mean spoil it for
20:55
Speaker 1: the people that think they're watching different trucks. So I
20:59
Speaker 1: am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But
21:01
Speaker 1: there are more bodies than there are actual trucks at
21:05
Speaker 1: any given Monster Truck Contillion. They're just swapping out the
21:10
Speaker 1: actual shells the fibery last body. Um, there's a crew there.
21:13
Speaker 1: I was reading about them. They're the unsung heroes of
21:16
Speaker 1: any cotillion where in between you know, um, appearances in
21:22
Speaker 1: between shows. Like a lot of times those Monster Truck
21:25
Speaker 1: jams will be you know, a couple of shows a
21:28
Speaker 1: day on a Sunday in a certain city. Um, they're
21:31
Speaker 1: working feverishly to fix everything that's gone wrong from the
21:35
Speaker 1: abuse that that core truck took, you know, for the
21:39
Speaker 1: last couple of hours and during the show. But one
21:41
Speaker 1: of the things they do is switch out the bodies
21:43
Speaker 1: real quick so that you have you have to transport
21:46
Speaker 1: far fewer trucks. It's a lot easier to transport a lighter,
21:49
Speaker 1: fiberglass body than a big, heavy truck. Yeah. I thought
21:52
Speaker 1: it was funny. Ed the grabster help us put this together.
21:55
Speaker 1: And at one point when he was talking about switching
21:58
Speaker 1: out the shells, he said, you know, this kind of
22:00
Speaker 1: started because multiple big foots would show up at an event,
22:04
Speaker 1: and you can't have a big foot racing a big foot.
22:06
Speaker 1: I was just like, I bet you no one would care.
22:10
Speaker 1: They probably just think it was some twelve year old
22:13
Speaker 1: boy would be like that, that ain't right right, keep
22:15
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. Something's been violated here. Uh.
22:20
Speaker 1: I don't know who knows, um, but they did. Uh uh.
22:24
Speaker 1: They did start switching them out with regularity, and like
22:26
Speaker 1: I said, they just tear apart. If you watch any video,
22:29
Speaker 1: these drums are pretty insane. I mean they're doing like
22:33
Speaker 1: double backflips. Now, I know it's crazy, so you have
22:37
Speaker 1: to make a distinction whether you're talking about the double
22:40
Speaker 1: backflip where the truck just follow us everybody, a giant
22:44
Speaker 1: monster truck hits a ramp and does a backflip, and
22:48
Speaker 1: then before it touches the ground, it does another backflip
22:52
Speaker 1: in mid air. It looks hard to do. I didn't
22:54
Speaker 1: see a lot of successful ones. You could also be
22:57
Speaker 1: talking about a consecutive backflip where the U does a backflip,
23:01
Speaker 1: lands and does another immediately does goes into another backflip.
23:05
Speaker 1: Both are equally impressive, but this, the single double backflip,
23:10
Speaker 1: is the harder of the two to do. Um and
23:12
Speaker 1: it's fun to watch people try and fail at but
23:14
Speaker 1: it's also pretty great to see somebody land. Yeah, And
23:17
Speaker 1: speaking of trying and failing, we should talk a little
23:20
Speaker 1: bit about the Anderson family, another first family of monster trucks.
23:25
Speaker 1: So the father, the elder statesman of the Anderson family,
23:28
Speaker 1: was in it way early alongside Chandler and they His
23:33
Speaker 1: family truck was the grave Digger. Eventually he passed down
23:37
Speaker 1: to his son, and then another son, and then eventually
23:40
Speaker 1: his daughter, Kristen Uh is now the driver of the
23:43
Speaker 1: Grave Digger and she set the Guinness record for altitude
23:48
Speaker 1: for the highest jump I think just last year, right, yeah,
23:51
Speaker 1: in June and beautiful Bradent in Florida. She landed a
23:56
Speaker 1: thirty three uh foot nine inch uh jump off of
24:01
Speaker 1: a truck ramp and you know, it's pretty impressive and
24:05
Speaker 1: she uh I think it was her dad. The reason
24:07
Speaker 1: I mentioned the trying and failing thing was her dad
24:11
Speaker 1: was the first person who said, you know what, these
24:14
Speaker 1: races are fine, racing, these things are good, but what people.
24:18
Speaker 1: He was the one that said, hey, after the race,
24:20
Speaker 1: why don't the drivers just come out and do some
24:22
Speaker 1: tricks and stuff. He realized, like people like that more
24:25
Speaker 1: than the races. And although they still do race now,
24:29
Speaker 1: freestyle competition was born out of that notion, and that's
24:33
Speaker 1: sort of where the crowd pleasing entertainment comes from. Are
24:37
Speaker 1: the drivers that are doing these jumps and the driving
24:40
Speaker 1: on two wheels and jumping over things and through things,
24:43
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's all right there on that
24:47
Speaker 1: big dirt pit and you can I mean Dennis Anderson
24:51
Speaker 1: definitely was the one to be credited with creating that,
24:54
Speaker 1: and it went from you know, just the existence of
24:58
Speaker 1: of monster trucks to monster trucks, do you know, slowly
25:01
Speaker 1: driving over a couple of cars, to them racing. Apparently
25:05
Speaker 1: in the nineties they raced them. They got them as
25:08
Speaker 1: light as like nine thousand pounds, which is about twice
25:11
Speaker 1: as heavy as say, like a normal midsized truck today.
25:16
Speaker 1: UM they which is really light for uh, a monster truck,
25:21
Speaker 1: considering that you know, all four tires and wheels combined
25:26
Speaker 1: maybe make up two thousand of those pounds. That's really light.
25:30
Speaker 1: And they wanted them light so they could raise them
25:32
Speaker 1: and get them really fast. And then they said, you
25:34
Speaker 1: know what people want to see. What Dennis Anderson was saying,
25:37
Speaker 1: is all the tricks, but you still need to be
25:38
Speaker 1: able to go fast. So another about twelve thousand pounds
25:41
Speaker 1: is what they clock in it. They're durable, but they're
25:44
Speaker 1: also light enough to be fast and too to hit
25:47
Speaker 1: thirty three ft high jumps when they hit a ramp. Yeah,
25:51
Speaker 1: and they can do this thanks to a um A
25:55
Speaker 1: massive supercharged methanol powered engine UH five cubic inch motors
26:03
Speaker 1: and you've only got two speeds though it's got a
26:05
Speaker 1: very low geared transmission system and I think first gear
26:08
Speaker 1: is sort of like on an eighteen wheeler like that,
26:11
Speaker 1: just sort of get your wheels rolling and then you
26:14
Speaker 1: immediately pop into that second gear and that's all there is,
26:17
Speaker 1: because all you need is torque and acceleration, so you
26:20
Speaker 1: can go super fast in a very shortspan, so you
26:24
Speaker 1: can hit those ramps and do whatever trick that you
26:28
Speaker 1: have up your sleeve. Yeah, and I was like, what's
26:30
Speaker 1: the what's the point of using methanol? These engines are
26:34
Speaker 1: called blown alcohol engines are in the industry, they call
26:37
Speaker 1: them alky's al k y and UM. It turns out
26:41
Speaker 1: that methanol actually is less energy dense than gasoline, but
26:46
Speaker 1: you can cram more of it into a gaseous state
26:50
Speaker 1: than you can gas. So if you have a supercharger
26:53
Speaker 1: and air compressor that's compressing a whole bunch of blown
26:56
Speaker 1: alcohol vapors into your engine, you can actually more power,
27:00
Speaker 1: more energy out of it. So that's the reason that
27:03
Speaker 1: they all run on like pure methanol, no gasoline. Not
27:07
Speaker 1: to drop a gasoline goes anywhere near these things. Um,
27:10
Speaker 1: and they're the engines are extremely big, and they're also
27:13
Speaker 1: extraordinarily inefficient fuel wise. Um, there's a there's one very
27:19
Speaker 1: famous monster truck called the Raminader, and it clocked in
27:24
Speaker 1: as the fastest. It was the fastest um uh monster
27:28
Speaker 1: truck on the planet. It did zero to sixty in
27:31
Speaker 1: three seconds, which is faster than a ferrari Enzo at
27:35
Speaker 1: the time or at least, but it got um two
27:40
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four feet to the gallon and then awesome.
27:49
Speaker 1: That's I was trying to figure out before he said
27:52
Speaker 1: to the gallons, like, where's this going? Right? Wow, that's
27:55
Speaker 1: that's really funny. Yeah, they're not worried about fuel consumption. Uh,
27:58
Speaker 1: they're worried about making that big engine go boom because
28:01
Speaker 1: people love that sound. It's hysterical. Ed put in here
28:04
Speaker 1: that they have attempted electric powered monster trucks, but they
28:07
Speaker 1: were not popular with the vans. They want to hear
28:10
Speaker 1: that engine going. It's part of the allure. I think.
28:13
Speaker 1: I think more than anything, they don't want to hear themselves.
28:18
Speaker 1: Oh I doubt that. Um. They also have You know,
28:21
Speaker 1: if you talk about shocks, when you see these things today,
28:24
Speaker 1: it's crazy how uh they will do something where and
28:29
Speaker 1: I encourage you to go check out videos if you've
28:31
Speaker 1: never seen this stuff. Um, photos. But yeah, definitely video,
28:35
Speaker 1: No watch a video, because they can contort themselves and
28:39
Speaker 1: go back upright uh way more often than you would think,
28:43
Speaker 1: like about eighty percent of the time. I'm like, well
28:45
Speaker 1: that thing is is on its back or it's done
28:48
Speaker 1: for the day, and it manages to just flop back over.
28:52
Speaker 1: And those wheels look like they're all independent of one another.
28:54
Speaker 1: They have for nitrogen charge shocks on every single wheel,
28:58
Speaker 1: on all four wheels. Ye uh and it's it's pretty
29:02
Speaker 1: pretty cool looking. And those those shocks are not like
29:05
Speaker 1: normal shocks either. Your average shock has what's called a
29:08
Speaker 1: range of travel, which is the amount of basically give
29:11
Speaker 1: that it has um of about four to six inches.
29:16
Speaker 1: These usually have about twenty four inch range of travel,
29:19
Speaker 1: And like you said, there's four on each wheel. So
29:23
Speaker 1: on the one hand, that keeps the driver's spine from
29:25
Speaker 1: compressing every time they you know, land after a huge jump,
29:30
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, it also pushes the truck
29:33
Speaker 1: off of objects, objects and obstacles. Um. And I don't
29:37
Speaker 1: know if we said those huge giant tires. You know,
29:40
Speaker 1: in a normal car, you're you've probably got about thirty
29:43
Speaker 1: three pounds per square inch inflation in them. Uh, these
29:47
Speaker 1: have maybe eight to ten so there's a lot of
29:49
Speaker 1: bounce in the tire. There's a huge amount of range
29:52
Speaker 1: of travel in the shocks. When you put it all together,
29:54
Speaker 1: they can pop up on their back wheels, they can
29:57
Speaker 1: pop up on their front wheels. They can just do
29:59
Speaker 1: tumbles and somersaults and all sorts of crazy stuff because
30:02
Speaker 1: of those shocks and that that virtually deflated tires that
30:06
Speaker 1: are basically like giant balloons. Yeah, they bounce. They need
30:09
Speaker 1: more cushion for the pushing. They bounce around quite a bit.
30:14
Speaker 1: I think, you know, safety is an important thing, and
30:17
Speaker 1: like NASCAR, again, they sort of followed that model of
30:21
Speaker 1: in the early days. I would be surprised that Bob
30:24
Speaker 1: Chandler even use a seat belt. He seems kind of
30:26
Speaker 1: like a wild card to me. But like I said,
30:28
Speaker 1: along with NASCAR, they started improving, um the safety over
30:32
Speaker 1: the years. There are still things like back injuries. UM.
30:35
Speaker 1: Fire is another thing that's it's obviously um because you
30:39
Speaker 1: know when you flip these things over and you're bouncing around.
30:42
Speaker 1: They those fuel it's not just like a regular gas
30:45
Speaker 1: tank or oil reservoir. They're like super modified and there
30:49
Speaker 1: are backup systems and redundancies to make sure they're not
30:53
Speaker 1: throwing flaming gas all over people. Uh, they're automatic fire
30:57
Speaker 1: extinguishers like in NASCAR. They're wearing those fire suits and gloves. Yeah,
31:01
Speaker 1: I think they even. Um, I'm not sure if it's
31:06
Speaker 1: the exact Hans device, but the device that I think
31:09
Speaker 1: after I might be wrong. I'm just going from memory,
31:11
Speaker 1: but I think after Dale Earnhardt died is when they
31:14
Speaker 1: brought in that device basically that straps a NASCAR driver's
31:18
Speaker 1: head completely stationary. Yes, and I think that's what they're
31:24
Speaker 1: using in monster trucks as well. Yeah. So I was
31:26
Speaker 1: reading a guy who went to Monster Truck University in
31:29
Speaker 1: Illinois or Monster jam University and got to test out
31:33
Speaker 1: driving a monster truck. And he said, you're your field
31:36
Speaker 1: of vision or your feel. Yeah, it is basically relegated
31:39
Speaker 1: to how how much you can move your eyeballs in
31:42
Speaker 1: their sockets. Yeah, your head is not moving at all.
31:46
Speaker 1: And um, and not only is your head to mobilize,
31:48
Speaker 1: your your body is basically too, except for your arms.
31:52
Speaker 1: And you're strapped in with a five point seat belt
31:55
Speaker 1: that's actually ratcheted in. It's not some buckle like they
31:58
Speaker 1: use ratchets to to to screw them in so you
32:02
Speaker 1: are in that thing. And then also, if you're an
32:04
Speaker 1: actual professional monster truck driver, the seat that you're sitting
32:08
Speaker 1: in has actually been molded to your body, so you
32:12
Speaker 1: um do you bumby can't fluctuate and wait too much
32:15
Speaker 1: if you're on the monster truck circuit or else, You're
32:17
Speaker 1: not going to fit into your own seat, you know. Yeah,
32:19
Speaker 1: you gotta watch your weight. I imagine, uh, And you know,
32:21
Speaker 1: the whole debate about whether race car drivers or athletes
32:25
Speaker 1: is uh, there of course are athletes, and I would
32:29
Speaker 1: imagine a monster truck driver. It takes a lot of
32:31
Speaker 1: tool in the body and they have to be in
32:33
Speaker 1: pretty decent shape as well. Sure. Also, like whoever, whoever
32:38
Speaker 1: you are listening, you couldn't do this totally. It's not
32:42
Speaker 1: something like driving one of these things is not intuitive.
32:46
Speaker 1: It's not like, not only do you have to learn it.
32:48
Speaker 1: I get the impression that you have to be basically
32:50
Speaker 1: naturally talented to start with to even get good at
32:54
Speaker 1: it at all. Too. Yeah, I mean, should we talk
32:56
Speaker 1: a little bit about driving. I think one thing we
32:58
Speaker 1: did mention, which is pretty coolol, is that the driver
33:01
Speaker 1: sits in the middle. It's not mounted on the left
33:04
Speaker 1: side like we drive here in the United States. It's
33:06
Speaker 1: in the center because for a very good reason, so
33:09
Speaker 1: so your arm doesn't fly out the window and get crunched.
33:13
Speaker 1: That's a big one. And I actually have seen a
33:15
Speaker 1: picture of um Bob Chandler driving Bigfoot. Yes, he's leaning
33:23
Speaker 1: out the window looking at the ground, like checking his clearance,
33:26
Speaker 1: but he's like he might as well be going ten
33:28
Speaker 1: miles an hour down a country road for the way
33:31
Speaker 1: that he's sitting in this car. I'm like, especially now
33:35
Speaker 1: knowing that they they're like strapped in and in the
33:38
Speaker 1: center of the car, it's just hilarious to see. I
33:42
Speaker 1: can't believe the guy is still alive. Yeah, I mean,
33:46
Speaker 1: is he still a lot today? Is still yes? Um?
33:49
Speaker 1: He uh? Like we said, there are only those two gears,
33:52
Speaker 1: and there's also still that rear wheel steering that Chandler
33:57
Speaker 1: came up with, and I don't think we mentioned he
33:58
Speaker 1: called it a four by four by four because four
34:01
Speaker 1: by four obviously for four wheel drive, and then that
34:03
Speaker 1: four wheel steering. But you now can turn those on
34:06
Speaker 1: and off the four wheel steering feature with the toggle switch.
34:10
Speaker 1: That's how it. Yeah, so like flipping that switch on
34:14
Speaker 1: and off and steering and you know, hitting the gas
34:17
Speaker 1: where you're and I don't think we got to that
34:20
Speaker 1: part yet, but you're it's actually attached via a toe
34:23
Speaker 1: loop to the accelerator throttle because they would have problems
34:28
Speaker 1: with sticking accelerators and that is not good in a
34:31
Speaker 1: monster truck that can go that fast. So now you
34:32
Speaker 1: can pull back on the accelerator. But all of this
34:35
Speaker 1: stuff takes a lot of practice, and that's why you
34:37
Speaker 1: would go to the Monster Truck University, yes, and have
34:41
Speaker 1: to be naturally talented to UM. And then there's also
34:45
Speaker 1: safety issues chuck that they've come up with because there
34:48
Speaker 1: have been a lot of tragedies. Apparently no no monster
34:53
Speaker 1: truck drivers ever died driving a monster truck, but plenty
34:56
Speaker 1: of spectators have been killed because of things like and
35:00
Speaker 1: you crush a car, debris can fly everywhere, um, parts
35:05
Speaker 1: of the monster truck itself can come off, and they're
35:08
Speaker 1: um usually moving pretty fast and are pretty heavy um
35:12
Speaker 1: when they're flying through the air. And then sometimes monster
35:15
Speaker 1: trucks can just like drive into crowds. So if you
35:19
Speaker 1: go to a monster truck rally or Cotillion, whatever your
35:22
Speaker 1: your preferences. Um, you will see that the lower seats
35:25
Speaker 1: are just totally you can't go down there because these
35:29
Speaker 1: things are so unpredictable and can so easily spin out
35:32
Speaker 1: of control that that it's just not safe to be
35:35
Speaker 1: anywhere near ground level when one of them is driving around. Yeah,
35:38
Speaker 1: and I think after they implemented that, there were incidences
35:41
Speaker 1: where the trucks did go up into those empty seats
35:44
Speaker 1: where where and everyone involved looked around and just sort
35:48
Speaker 1: of nodded like, yeah, we did it. Yeah, just save
35:51
Speaker 1: some lives. And then also there's another thing too where
35:54
Speaker 1: if you go to one of these shows, you'll find
35:57
Speaker 1: that there's four people standing around each corn or of
36:00
Speaker 1: the hockey rink or the baseball diamond or whatever. Um,
36:05
Speaker 1: that they have little remote controls that in each one
36:08
Speaker 1: of them is capable of completely shutting off the engine
36:10
Speaker 1: in the fuel immediately with the press of a button,
36:13
Speaker 1: And they do that in case the driver is knocked unconscious,
36:16
Speaker 1: but the the throttle is still down in the cars
36:18
Speaker 1: there the truck still running around. Yes, you don't want
36:21
Speaker 1: a ghost driven monster truck inside of a stadium full
36:24
Speaker 1: of people. I mean, do you know then that just
36:27
Speaker 1: shout how dangerous this is that there's people standing by
36:30
Speaker 1: with remote controls that turn the thing off if you're
36:32
Speaker 1: knocked unconscious while you're doing your job. Yeah, and you know,
36:35
Speaker 1: maybe we won't go over all these, but there have
36:37
Speaker 1: been fatalities multiple times through the years at monster truck rallies,
36:42
Speaker 1: including small children getting getting killed in the audience, and um,
36:48
Speaker 1: you know this was mainly in the nineties, but there
36:51
Speaker 1: was one in Mexico and there was something else in
36:54
Speaker 1: So Yeah, which is I don't know, why is that
36:59
Speaker 1: surprising to me? The Netherlands has monster truck rallies. But
37:02
Speaker 1: I mean these people, they were just standing around like
37:04
Speaker 1: they were watching I don't know, a couple of dogs
37:07
Speaker 1: do it or something like that, just in a circle,
37:09
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the monster truck loses
37:12
Speaker 1: control and just plows into the crowd. I think it
37:14
Speaker 1: killed like three or four people. Yeah, like they're watching
37:18
Speaker 1: Disney on Ice basically, break yeah with that one for sure.
37:23
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll take a break and we'll come back
37:25
Speaker 1: and reveal why I mentioned Disney on Ice right after
37:28
Speaker 1: this to Chuck. All right, so you mentioned there were
37:51
Speaker 1: at least twenty five different big bigfoots over the years.
37:55
Speaker 1: Bigfoot is you know, it's part of popular culture and
38:00
Speaker 1: on the nomenclature. Like Emily Will if she sees a
38:04
Speaker 1: big truck in our neighborhood, will be like, you know,
38:07
Speaker 1: look at that bigfoot, get out of the way, or
38:09
Speaker 1: some big foot. I mean, let me just rephrase restate
38:12
Speaker 1: what I said. It was in Police Academy too and six.
38:17
Speaker 1: You had two different times. I'm sure when they got
38:20
Speaker 1: to six they're like, who should we bring back there? Like,
38:23
Speaker 1: definitely the guy that makes the noises Robert Hayes. No, no, no,
38:27
Speaker 1: no not phrase. Yeah, let's get big Foot back in here.
38:30
Speaker 1: They were gonna he came that close to having his
38:32
Speaker 1: career advised by Police Academy six, but they skipped him
38:35
Speaker 1: over for big So Bigfoot fourteen jumped to seven, seven
38:39
Speaker 1: and nine, and then big Foot five. If you look
38:44
Speaker 1: this thing up, it's it's pretty ridiculous. Um it's the
38:48
Speaker 1: biggest one of all. They built big Foot five with
38:51
Speaker 1: UH tires that are ten ft tall that were used
38:56
Speaker 1: on the VC twenty two snow freighter land train, which
39:00
Speaker 1: was this. I mean it's a train, it's really a
39:03
Speaker 1: vehicle connected to other vehicles. It's more like a big
39:06
Speaker 1: shipping bus, but it's a trackless freight train basically that
39:10
Speaker 1: they shuttled supplies uh between Cold War early warning outposts
39:15
Speaker 1: between Alaska and Canada in the fifties. And if you
39:19
Speaker 1: look up big Foot, uh, which one was at fourteen,
39:23
Speaker 1: just just take a look at those ridiculous tires. It
39:25
Speaker 1: doesn't look as fun or as nimble because they're just
39:28
Speaker 1: super tall and not as wide. Uh. But yeah, it was,
39:33
Speaker 1: it was. It was a stunt. It's ostentatious, even for
39:37
Speaker 1: a monster truck. I think so, And it just doesn't
39:40
Speaker 1: look as nimble and as fun. Um. For those of
39:43
Speaker 1: you who were raised in the nineties rather than the eighties,
39:47
Speaker 1: Grave Diggers probably even more familiar than Bigfoot. And like
39:52
Speaker 1: we said, Dennis Anderson, the original creator of Grave Digger
39:56
Speaker 1: and whose family keeps driving for him, um, was the
39:59
Speaker 1: guy who basically came up with freestyle monster trucking. Yeah,
40:03
Speaker 1: hats off to him. I think his daughter Kristen is
40:06
Speaker 1: the the only first and only full time monster truck
40:11
Speaker 1: driver who's a woman. Oh yeah, hats off to her
40:14
Speaker 1: as well, and also in the Guinness World Record Holder too,
40:17
Speaker 1: which is nothing to sneeze an that's right. There's also um,
40:22
Speaker 1: you know, since we were talking about fiberglass bodies are
40:24
Speaker 1: super removable. Since you're no longer having to kind of
40:28
Speaker 1: work with anything that was originally a car or a truck,
40:31
Speaker 1: you can kind of do whatever you want. And some
40:33
Speaker 1: people model like the Grave Digger is modeled after a
40:36
Speaker 1: fifties Chevy panel van Um. There's one that's uh that
40:41
Speaker 1: called the Big Cahuna that looks like a Woody from
40:44
Speaker 1: the sixties that you know, go surfing in um. And
40:48
Speaker 1: then there's some that don't look like cars at all,
40:50
Speaker 1: or they look like cars that are hybridized with like animals,
40:54
Speaker 1: like El Toro Loco is a bull with horns. My
40:58
Speaker 1: personal favorite is golow Down Giant Shark. There's higher ed
41:05
Speaker 1: as a yellow school bus. UM. There's one called the
41:08
Speaker 1: Zombie Chuck that has arms sticking and tattered, tattered rags
41:15
Speaker 1: coming off of it like a zombie. And then one
41:19
Speaker 1: of the best ever, the Mohawk Warrior with a giant
41:23
Speaker 1: mohawk sponsored by Great Clips Is it really, which really
41:28
Speaker 1: kind of reveals like the state of monster truck contillions today.
41:33
Speaker 1: It is super commercialized and the main reason why it's
41:37
Speaker 1: super commercialized because Monster Jam, which started out from you know,
41:41
Speaker 1: the hot Rod Racing community UM, was bought by Feld Entertainment,
41:46
Speaker 1: which has a lot of different live touring acts and
41:49
Speaker 1: one of them is Monster Jam. Yeah, and that was
41:52
Speaker 1: not without some controversy. UM, you know, prior to the
41:56
Speaker 1: big corporate takeover that was it was people like Bob
41:59
Speaker 1: chand Or. It was it was these people that would
42:01
Speaker 1: get together, maybe get a sponsorship and raise some money
42:05
Speaker 1: because they're very expensive to build. Obviously, it's not like
42:07
Speaker 1: they were all just like rich guys doing this stuff.
42:10
Speaker 1: So you get a sponsor, you'd build out a monster
42:12
Speaker 1: truck team and your truck you'd be paid money to
42:15
Speaker 1: show up at an event, and if your truck gets
42:17
Speaker 1: some notoriety, you get more money. And I think in
42:21
Speaker 1: eighty five is when the United States hot Rod Association
42:25
Speaker 1: UM started having these races where there were actually rules
42:29
Speaker 1: in a point system, and then these other point series
42:31
Speaker 1: started up, and eventually that culminated in eight when a
42:35
Speaker 1: bunch of the drivers got together informed UH the m
42:39
Speaker 1: t r A, the Monster Truck Racing Association, where you
42:43
Speaker 1: finally had some like real safety rules and UM, everything
42:47
Speaker 1: was just sort of codified. Uh. But then you know
42:50
Speaker 1: that's when the sort of corporate takeover thing started coming
42:53
Speaker 1: in and there was a lot of controversy with Feld
42:56
Speaker 1: Entertainment coming in there, and they're like, it's sort of
42:58
Speaker 1: lost a bit of its soul. Uh. In the Monster
43:00
Speaker 1: Truck world, and half the trucks that you see at
43:03
Speaker 1: any given rally will be felled trucks, and and they're
43:07
Speaker 1: and they're rigging it, so they're the felled trucks are winning,
43:10
Speaker 1: which is you know, some people say some people might
43:13
Speaker 1: get worked up about that, and others might say it's
43:15
Speaker 1: just about the entertainment. Who really cares about the competition, right,
43:18
Speaker 1: And it's very much the same as like getting worked
43:21
Speaker 1: up about you know, pro wrestling being rigged, where it's like, yes,
43:25
Speaker 1: it is, it's for entertainment purposes. Is this isn't a sport,
43:30
Speaker 1: but it's it's still very athletic. What you're seeing is
43:33
Speaker 1: really hard to do. Um, it's really impressive. It takes
43:38
Speaker 1: a lot of work to make that happen. Um. So yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: it's for entertainment, but it's still legitimate and all these
43:44
Speaker 1: other ways, and just just stop being upset and kick
43:48
Speaker 1: back and enjoy it, yeah, or don't and don't go
43:51
Speaker 1: and just shut up about it. Well that's what Bob
43:53
Speaker 1: Chandler did with Bigfoot. He's Bigfoot is is conspicuously absent
43:58
Speaker 1: from all of the Monster Jam series because he didn't
44:00
Speaker 1: like Feld entertainment. And apparently he since said, you know,
44:04
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have maybe not done that,
44:07
Speaker 1: because I think my life would be a lot easier.
44:08
Speaker 1: I'd probably be fifty times richer. But um, you know,
44:11
Speaker 1: it is what it is. And so Bigfoot is still
44:14
Speaker 1: its own thing, on its own, just being Bigfoot. It's
44:17
Speaker 1: going to a big Foot. You got anything else, I've
44:19
Speaker 1: got nothing else. This is interesting. I gotta say I
44:22
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching those YouTube beds. Same here. Uh, I'm still
44:26
Speaker 1: not interested in going to one unless the four of
44:28
Speaker 1: us go together. All right, Well, we'll make it happen
44:31
Speaker 1: once this pandemic passes. We're going. But it can't be
44:35
Speaker 1: the first live event I go to that. Okay, fair enough,
44:37
Speaker 1: but we will go. We will go. We'll go to
44:40
Speaker 1: the KFC Yum Center in Lexington, Kentucky to see it. Um.
44:45
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, everybody, if you were at all
44:49
Speaker 1: entertained by this episode. Go check out some Monster Truck
44:52
Speaker 1: clips and specifically look up moonwalking. It's one of the
44:56
Speaker 1: most amazing things you will ever see in your life. So,
45:00
Speaker 1: as I said, it's one of the most amazing things
45:01
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in your life. Obviously, it's time for
45:04
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this a correction email. We
45:12
Speaker 1: like to read corrections when we get stuff wrong. It's
45:15
Speaker 1: been a hallmark of the show, and I'm gonna read
45:17
Speaker 1: one right now from Mike. Hey, guys, I was listening
45:20
Speaker 1: to the Uranium Mining podcast today, which was great and
45:23
Speaker 1: super interesting. However, I just want to let you know,
45:26
Speaker 1: and I expect I'm not the only person who emailed,
45:28
Speaker 1: but you are, Mike, that uranium is categorically not from
45:31
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. During Big Bang nucleosynthesis, hydrogen, helium, lithium,
45:37
Speaker 1: and beryllium were produced, including various isotopes and basically nothing else.
45:42
Speaker 1: Uranium is produced from supernovae exploding stars. During the final
45:47
Speaker 1: seconds of a life star, something called the r process ocres,
45:51
Speaker 1: where dozens of neutrons can rapidly be added to the
45:54
Speaker 1: existing atom at nuclei. Some of these neutrons will subsequently
45:57
Speaker 1: decay into protons and electrons until the stay will or
46:00
Speaker 1: at least quasi stable isotope has reached such as uranium. Uh, cheers,
46:06
Speaker 1: thanks for all the great podcasts. That's from Mike. Cheers
46:08
Speaker 1: any kind of abruptly there, but man, thanks for this
46:11
Speaker 1: school in Mike. Who knew? Mike? I I definitely did
46:15
Speaker 1: not know, and I like to think that I know
46:17
Speaker 1: basically everything there is to know about the Big Bang.
46:20
Speaker 1: There you have it, no uranium, Thanks Mike. UM, if
46:24
Speaker 1: you want a school, it's like Mike did. We are
46:26
Speaker 1: always willing to sit in awe of someone else's giant brain. UM.
46:30
Speaker 1: So you can email us. That's the best way to
46:32
Speaker 1: get in touch these days. Wrap it up and send
46:35
Speaker 1: it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
46:41
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
46:44
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart
46:46
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
46:49
Speaker 1: favorite shows.