Weekend Race Recap

Second round of Monster Jam in less than three weeks here in Anaheim survived Mother Nature and the mud. The rain came down for a day and a Half in a place where they don’t see much of it. The Dirt crews and track officials worked fast with the amount of time they had before thousands of screaming fans filled the stadium and it worked. The track was as good as it could get and it made for some great racing and freestyle.

      The night started off with qualifying and Grave Digger was clearly the fastest with a time of 20.31 sec. which was 1.28 seconds faster than Air Force After Burner who was second with 21.59. The rest of the times were close as well as the racing. The Surprise came when Shock Therapy and Shocker made it to the finals by upsetting the entire field with the likes of Grave Digger, Taz , Air Force, and Donkey Kong. Jon Zimmer took the finals victory over Shocker by less than a truck length to take his first ever stadium racing win.

      Freestyle had its moments as the Monters tried to keep it on the track and hit all of the huge obstacles set up by the USHRA officials. Again Shock Therapy was in the hunt for the double down trophy and Donkey Kong was also looking for his first win as a Monster Jam NGK Spark Plugs World Finals Qualifyer. The two drivers tied for first and a crowd cheeroff determined Donkey Kong the winner with a high score of 26. Grave Digger was unable to get it going in freestyle as Charlie Paulken rolled with in the first 15 seconds of his run. The Black and Green Wrecking machine hit the first large stack of double cars and cleared it so big time that the truck rebounded so high it bit in the mud and rolled brakeing a four link bar.

      Other highlights were Obsession filling the clock with some good air Taz looking to take the lead or the win but got hunge up on an obstacle and had to shut off. Air Force after burner had a great run going but was shut down after he broke a sway bar.

      Round one racing; Digger bye; Shocker def. The Patriot; Shock Therapy def. Tropical thunder; Donkey Kong def. Arachnaphobia; Taz def. Excaliber; and Air Force def. Obsession

      Round two; Shocker def. Grave Digger; Shock Therapy def. Donkey Kong; Air Force def. Taz

      Semi Finals; Shocker def Taz (fast looser) and Shock Therapy def. Air Foprce.

      Finals; Shock Therapy def. Shocker.

Freestyle

The Patriot     18

 Tropical Thunder      17 + 1   = 18

Excaliber      18 + 2   =20

Arachnaphobia      18 + 2  = 20

Shattered       14

Shocker      15 + 2  = 17

Shock Therapy    23 + 3  =26

Obsession    20 + 2  =22

Donkey Kong   22 + 4=26 (winner crowd cheer off)

Air Force   25

Digger    3

Taz    21 + 1  =22