Monster Jam: Cardiff 2019

I vaguely re-call seeing on TV at some point in time, humongous trucks with immense wheels, rolling around, jumping over crushed cars and even getting wrecked. I thought to myself then, 'people watch this?'. Fast forward to today - yep, I do now.

Monster Jam is a pretty famous live motorsport event that features a whole variety of monster trucks that are typically 12 feet tall, approximately 12 feet wide and weigh around 6 tonnes (that's 6000kg!). It's predominantly held in various locations around the US, but has made its way to Europe as well and is broadcasted all over the world.

I went to the one in Cardiff on 18/5/19 at the Principality Stadium, with additional access to the pre-show pit party.

To be honest, I expected the crowd to be filled with drunk red-necks, rowdy hill-billies and the likes, but in reality, it was a super family-friendly event, with a very pleasant atmosphere of excited kids and friendly enthusiasts from all walks of life. Welsh people are actually very warm, humble and down-to-earth, even though they do look like they could crush you to bits.

Pit Party

The pit party is an event before the show which gives fans the opportunity to meet, take photos and get autographs of their favourite drivers and trucks. It was pretty cool to be so close to these massive vehicles, that were all decorated to the nines to give each and everyone one them of their 'unique personalities'. They had pretty nifty names too.

I was in quite a cheerful mood, running around trying to get a glimpse of all the vehicles and being in absolute awe at these majestic pieces of machinery.

Monster Energy

 Me with Monster Energy

Earthshaker

 Me with Earthshaker

Zombie

 Megalodon

Me with Megalodon

 Scooby-doo

Wonderwoman

 Maximum Destruction

Grave Digger

Pirate's Curse

My personal favourite vehicle was monster energy, not only cause it represented such a bad-ass drink, it was simple and to the point as well, which was really more my style. Gravedigger, Megalodon, Maximum Destruction and El Toro Loco seemed to be very popular.

Wasn't really too inclined to join the long queue lines to meet the drivers, simply cause I didn't really follow the scene and am just here for the experience. Hopefully I don't regret not getting their authographs sometime in the future.

Main Show

How the show works is that all trucks are competing amongst each other across 3 different events. They include a 1-on-1 race, 2 wheel stunt and a freestyle show (with the audience rating the latter two in real-time through some online web-app). The higher you rank on each event, the more points you accumulate.

As the trucks all entered the arena, I must say - these things are LOUD. I was quite taken aback at first, but you eventually get used to it. Alternatively, its pretty common as well for people to wear some ear plugs/headphones to deal with it. You could also smell the fuel burning all the way from the stands.


Race

It's one lap race around 2 seperate loops each of the vehicles had in front of them. I was really rooting for monster energy on this one. There were also a couple of crashes where the frames literally started to peel off and I got a little worried for the driver(s) at first, but everything turned out fine in the end.

Monster Energy vs Gravedigger

Wipeout!

Monster Energy vs El Toro Loco (finals)

In hindsight, I probably spent more time filming than actually enjoying the show itself, which was a slight regret for me. Looking at the video, it's also probably a lot harder than it looks for the drivers to speed on such a big chunk of machinery - kudos to them for that really.

2 Wheeled Challenge

I believe that that the second challenges of monster jam shows are quite random and could be anything from spinning, jumping the highest or in this case, performing feats on 2 wheels.

 Pirate's Curse stylin'

Max D balancing

It was quite amusing to watch as it seemed to take a lot of precision from the drivers to even get into a wheelie position, even though you expect these machines to be rather scrappy.

Freestyle

Definitely the flashiest part of the show, as drivers now have full reign to do whatever they want to impress the crowds. Some of them seemed to be playing it safe with a couple of simple jumps here and there, but for those who absolutely took it to the limits -  it was responded accordingly with huge roars from the crowd.

Scooby-doo flyin'

Wonderwoman side-spinning

Gravedigger's winning performance!

Seeing some airtime from the trucks and even back-flips just goes to show that there are no limits to what people and machine are capable of. In fact, the more we cheered, the flashier the moves got.

Overall, it was a very fun and pleasant event. It's gave me some perspective as well when I see kids decked out in all their merch, looking so happy. It goes to remind me that we shouldn't try to grow-up too fast and should find the time to relish in moments a little more.