Weekend Race Recap
Saturday 1:00 p.m. - Chad Fortune earned the biggest racing victory of his Monster Jam career when he drove Superman to victory in the Championship Race, then Tom Meents and his crew repaired a broken drive line that knocked Maximum Destruction out of the race bracket in time for the seven-time World Champion to win a wild freestyle event Saturday afternoon in front of a roaring capcity crowd at the Gelredome in Arnhem, Holland.
Meents opened Monster Jam's return to the Netherlands for the fourth consecutive year by setting the fastest qualifying time and won his first two rounds of racing but was unable to make it to the starting line for the semifinals due to the truck damage. Fortune continued to roll through his half of the bracket, powereing Superman to wins over Jetix, El Toro Loco, and Monster Mutt on the big head-to-hear race course. Damon Bradshaw would use the fast loser rule to get back into the semifinals and eliminated Swedish truck Thor to make it into the Championship Race. In the finals it was Fortune outrunning the former Supercross star to give Fortune the high profile domed stadium racing triumph.
Freestyle had the fans going crazy all afternoon with Bobby Parr in War Wizard and Dan Evans in Jetix bringing the crowd to it's feet with wild landings, Parr breaking a wheel off War Wizard and Evans rolling Jetiv over, but it was Fortune who took the early lead with a powerful run that also ended with the truck on its roof. Fortune was bumped from the top spot by Frank Kreml who nailed the days biggest air in Donkey Kong. Charlie Pauken then attacked the massive obstacles on the Gelredome floor in typcial all-out Grave Digger style to take the lead, but then Meents had just a little more as the truck was able to get back on the floor, Tom filling the regulation and bonus time with true Maximum Destruction to take the freestyle victory in the first of three stadium events this weekend in Arnhem.
RACING RESULTS
Fast qualifier - Maximum Destruction
1st round - Maximum Destruction def Swamp Thing; Thor def Donkey King; Grave Digger def Taz; Monster Mutt def War Wizard; Superman def Jetix; El Toro Loco def Jurassic Attack
2nd round - Maximum Destruction def Thor; Monster Mutt def Grave Digger; Superman def El Toro Loco (El Toro Loco advanced to semifinals as fast loser - Thor advanced to semifinals due to Maximum Destruction's broken drive line)
Semifinals - El Toro Loco def Thor; Superman def Monster Mutt
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - SUPERMAN DEFEATED EL TORO LOCO
FREESTYLE RESULTS
MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION 40
Grave Digger 39
Donkey Kong 37
Superman 36
El Toro Loco 36
Jurassic Attack 35
Jetix 31
Monster Mutt 30
Thor 28
War Wizard 26
Swamp Thing 21
Taz 13
Saturday 8:00 p.m. - Charlie Pauken won the latest chapter of the Grave Digger-Maximum Destruction rivalry, Grave Digger winning the event racing finals, then Meents and his crew put Max-D back together yet again and the seven-time World Champion won his second freestyle competition of the day Saturday night at the Gelredome.
With every person in the Dutch crowd standing for the highly anticipated Championship Race Pauken and Meents put on a great battle on the lengthy race course, with Grave Digger taking a slight lead into the final turn. At that point Maximum Destruction flipped over violently and ripped off a wheel as a pumped up Pauken roared across the finish line victoriously.
While Meents and his crew worked fevoriously to make it back out the freestyle competition began, and Bobby Parr set the bar high, coming out first with a wild run that ended with the funny car body destroyed and the truck upside down. That proved to be a wild trend that had the fans screaming in delight throughout the night, with several more trucks rolling over at the end of their runs. World Champion Adam Anderson came back from an afternoon where his truck shut down early, but the time Taz held together the entire time, plus a 30 second bonus period, leaving Adam in first place when Meents shocked the crowd by rolling Max-D back on to the track, the wheel fixed and Meents went ballistic to claim another Arnhem freestyle victory.
RACING RESULTS
Fast qualifier - Maximum Destruction
1st round - Maximum Destruction def Swamp Thing; Superman def Monster Mutt; Thor def Jetix; El Toro Loco def Jurassic Attack; Grave Digger def Donkey Kong; Taz def War Wizard
2nd round - Maximum Destruction def Superman; El Toro Loco def Thor; Grave Digger def Taz (Taz advanced to semifinals as fast loser)
Semifinals - Maximum Destruction def Taz; Grave Digger def El Toro Loco
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - GRAVE DIGGER DEFEATED MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION
FREESTYLE RESULTS
MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION 40
Taz 39
Grave Digger 38
Monster Mutt 34
Donkey Kong 31
Superman 28
Jetix 28
Thor 27
El Toro Loco 27
Swamp Thing 24
War Wizard 22
Jurassic Attack 14
Sunday 1:00 p.m. - Tom Meents capped off what may well go down as the greatest weekend of action ever in Europe with an amazing, refuse to quit freestyle performance that made a winner out of Maximum Destruction for the third straight time after Chad Fortune continued his greatest racing weekend ever driving Superman to his second racing championship round win of the weekend Sunday afternoon in Arnhem.
As it has been all weekend, the pit crews were superstars as well as the drivers, and despite working overnight to repair trucks from Saturday night to have them ready for Sunday's battles they came through again with amazing thrashes Sunday afternoon and again every truck on hand was able to thrill the crowd with a freestyle run.
The afternoon began with Fortune again showing his racing strength in front of yet another capacity crowd in Holland, this time posting the fastest qualifying time to take the number one seed in the racing bracket. The other big story in time trials was that Grave Digger broke its transmission, but again the Monster Jam Europe mechanics on hand would be up to the challenge and have Charlie Pauken's transmission changed in time for Grave Digger to freestyle.
Back to racing, Fortune's big weekend denied history being made, but just barely. Sweden's Anders Florgard was bidding to become the first European driver to win a Monster Jam event racing championship as his Thor truck, which was fast all weekend, was it's strongest Sunday afternoon and Florgard made it all the way into the Championship Race, defeating Meents straight up in the semifinal round. Thor gave Superman a huge challenge in the final round but Fortune was not to be denied another triumph and powered Superman to a one-length win over Thor.
With props again going out to the pit crews it's worth noting that on Sunday all 12 trucks competed and were at or near 100% for the freestyle competition, and the Dutch fans were treated to one of the year's best start-to-finsh freestyle battles seen anywhere on either side of the ocean. Again Bobby Parr set the bar incredibly high with an outstanding performance the ended with the War Wizard body torn off (again) and the truck rolling over coming off the huge FMX landing ramp. That was only the beginning.
Dan Evans flip in Jetix had the crowd screaming and they were really on fire when Alex Blackwell capped a wild Monster Mutt freestyle by rolling the chop top Merc over backwards falling from the top of that FMX dirt mountain. Frank Krmel had Donkey Kong on a big time run when his machine got stuck inside a bus, part of a three bus obstacle that had been beaten down over the trio of events. Krmel refused to let that be the end and in an amazing show of strength and horsepower he somehow roared the truck back out of the bus to finish his run and score among the leaders. It was Damon Bradshaw in El Toro Loco, though, who had the lead late after his run was full of the afternoon's biggest air, Bradshaw scoring 37 out of a possible 40 from the judges for his regulation :90 seconds plus two points for his bonus time action. Taz tried to unseat El Toro, but reigning World Freestyle Champion Adam Anderson broke off a shock early and gave the crowd what he could, blasting the truck over the dirt until he flipped Taz at the halfway point of regulation time.
Then the crowd was standing again as Grave Digger came back into the stadium with the new transmission in place and Pauken grabbed the lead with a ragged edge Digger freestyle, tons of momentum and juge slap wheelies highlighting his run. Pauken's score of 40 (38 plus 2 for bonus time) edged El Toro Loco for the lead with only Meents left to perform. Meents went huge from the start in typical Max-D fashion but after getting some massive air the front of the truck broke on a landing, laying a front wheel on its side. Even though the wheel was still lodged under the truck sideways Meents continued into bonus time running over and through everything that he could get to, and as a deafening standing overtion continued the judges all scored Meents with a perfect 10, and the four bonus points that he earned gave Maximum Destruction the clean sweep of all three freestyles in the Gelredome.
RACING RESULTS
Fast qualifier - Superman
1st round - Superman def Swamp Thing; Monster Mutt def El Toro Loco; Thor def War Wizard; Jetix bye run due to Grave Digger's broken transmission; Maximum Destruction def Taz; Donkey Kong def Jurassic Attack;
2nd round - Superman def Monster Mutt; Thor def Jetix; Maximum Destruction def Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong advanced to semifinals as fast loser)
Semifinals - Superman def Donkey Kong; Thor def Maximum Destruction
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - SUPERMAN DEFEATED THOR
FREESTYLE RESULTS
MAXIMUM DESTRUCTION 44
Grave Digger 40
El Toro Loco 39
Monster Mutt 37
Superman 37
Jetix 36
Jurassic Attack 34
Donkey Kong 34
Swamp Thing 29
Taz 29
Thor 28
War Wizard 24
