After the superstars of the Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam tour battled in an amazing night of racing and freestyles a couple of weeks ago in Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field fans were burning up the online universe with their praise of that new mega event. Whether on Facebook or on sites created for the sport’s fans I’ve seen so many comments from fans who were in Philly raving about that special night of thrills. “The best event I’ve ever seen”, “A World Finals caliber freestyle”, and “I can’t wait to go back there again next year” are just a few samples of the excitement that event generated among the sport’s huge fan base. Guess what? As great as that Philadelphia event was, it is now creating even more buzz for the next new major stadium contest on the schedule, the upcoming debut of Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam in Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium on July 10^th. 

There is simply no question about the fact that the expansion of Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam into huge, big market venues at a time of the year when there aren’t many other high profile events is focusing even more attention onto these new venues. The Cincinnati show figures to be just as spectacular as Philadelphia was, and is an event that every fan of the sport, especially those in the Midwest and specifically in the Ohio Valley, should be getting their tickets for and making their plans to attend soon. It’s another edition of must-see live event Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam, that’s for sure. 

Along with bringing the popular big stadium format to new markets in the spring and summer, these new events benefit by allowing the schedule makers to book the biggest names in the sport without concerns of having to balance the line-ups at multiple events on the same weekend. So, like Philly, Cincy gets an incredible array of the best in the business. What has become tougher to schedule in recent winters, head-to-head matchups between Dennis Anderson and Tom Meents, fits right into these new spring and summer opportunities, so the fans heading to the home of the NFL Bengals will get to see the next story written in the greatest rivalry in motorsports. Anderson’s Grave Digger and Meents’ Maximum Destruction not only will be throwing down against each other, but against another loaded roster that features some faces that were not in Philadelphia as well as a few who turned in fantastic performances in Lincoln Financial Field like Lupe Soza in the Advance Auto Parts Grinder and Adam Anderson in Taz, both of whom finished one point short of Meents’ winning freestyle score in Philadelphia. 

Joining the holdovers from Philly when the new stadium run heads to the Ohio River city, among others, will be a pair of top superstars who will be seeing their first stadium opportunities since the NGK Spark Plugs World Finals XI last March in Las Vegas: David Smith driving King Krunch and Steve Sims behind the wheel of Stone Crusher. I’m sure both of those top tier teams are already pumped out about getting their state of the art pieces back on a huge floor with the chance to go fast and fly high. I expect both of them to lead the charge in pushing the Philly holdovers just as hard as Jeremy Slifko did when he set the bar so high at the start of the Pennsylvania freestyle with his still being talked about performance in Backdraft. 

Since personally I live only an hour and a half away from Paul Brown Stadium I can tell you first hand that fans are excited in this part of the country, not just in Ohio but in Kentucky and Indiana as well. There are so many great fans in this area who will get to see the Anderson vs. Meents saga unfold live for the first time in a decade, since the pair was on the figure-8 track at the now defunct Louisville Speedway. I’m not sure if Anderson or Meents have ever had the chance to compete in the city of Cincinnati, but if they have it was many, many years ago, and again let me state that the two of them have not battled each other anywhere in this region over the last several years. There are many, many reasons to be excited about heading to Cincinnati for the July 10 event, but for fans in what is called the “Tri-State” area that covers southwest Ohio, southeast Indiana, and part of Kentucky, as well as for those in Kentucky’s “triangle” of Louisville, Lexington, and northern Kentucky it’s this rare opportunity to watch the two biggest names in Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam history in action live that tops the list.