Posts Tagged ‘donut’
Video highlight from St. John’s. NL
Posted by admin | Filed under Live Blog
Victoria Day means Victory Day for Bounty Hunter
Posted by admin | Filed under Live Blog
By Doug de Nance
Monster Spectacular provided twice the excitement for east coast monster truck fans in St. John’s, Newfoundland by doubling up shows in one action filled day. Canada’s Victoria Day holiday long weekend became Victory Day for Bounty Hunter as it was victory after victory in stereo for the 2005 World Freestyle champion, Jimmy Creten.
From all over North American, four of the biggest, baddest monsters on the planet converged on the ferry and floated across to the island, then had to drive 11 more hours to arrive at Mile One Stadium for the Saturday series of shows. In addition to Bounty Hunter, the Sudden Impact Racing Team sent Amsoil Shock Therapy and Excalibur. Adding the international component to the competitive mix was the Canadian Champion Red Baron truck.
As always, the Monster Spectacular Cross Canada Tour 2011 points were on the line with a bonus element of competition. In addition to monster truck racing, monster truck freestyle and the crowd awarded monster truck wheelie competition – Chris Arel took advantage of the huge floor space inside Mile One Stadium by adding a monster truck donut contest to kick things off. No wonder the catch line for the show intro was “Are you ready to get loud!!!”
The savvy crowd knew to watch for donut variations such as the “hurricane”, the “cyclone” and the “transition” donut. And they saw all three in spades in each version of the monster truck donut competition. Chris Lagana, the 18 year drag racing veteran, put all three years of his monster truck driving experience to work for him inside Amsoil Shock Therapy – attempting a cyclone donut each time by lifting the inside front wheel off of the ground. But his tires were more suited to racing and the added traction slowed his rotations down. Chris Ryan, the 270 pound teddy bear they call “Panda”, put his weight behind his Rookie of the year nomination, pulling out massive hurricane donuts and spinning in place so fast that Excalibur became but a blur to the thousands of screaming fans. The mysterious Red Baron peeked out from behind his mask with a grin that could only belong to Ben “BoBo” Winslow as he sent the Canadian Champion monster truck into a transition donut with a cyclone. But it was jimmy Creten that won it all both times – including fending off a cheer off challenge form Excalibur, with his roaring rapid transition donuts, spinning as fast as Excalibur but pirouetting across the floor to stop just in front of the car stack.
However, Jimmy had a bit of trouble stopping in front of the car stack when he was pulling donuts that were not part of the donut competition. During the second show introductions, Creten roared out from the pits and turned so hard into a donut that he slammed Bounty Hunter into the racing cars stake, scattering the cars like so much paper. The track officials had some work to do before racing could begin. Then after his racing victory, Creten pulled a victory donut and clipped the opposite car stack, send shrapnel for the crush cars across the arena floor.
When it came to competition, there were no mistakes on the part of Bounty Hunter. Creten won the wheelie contests, but he had to have all his skills in place to do so. Lagana sent Shock Therapy skyward vertically and landed a pogo wheelie, burying the trucks wheelie bar in the fourth car of the five car stack. Excalibur hit a smaller pogo, then Chris Ryan seemed to hold the truck vertical for an eternity as he let it fall in a slow motion “timber” wheelie. Red Baron managed to hit a slap wheelie by clearing the car stack. But Creten’s slap wheelie followed the biggest air of the day and he rode that slapper all the way across the floor to a win.
Creten rode another slap wheelie off the start of his freestyle run, but he had a different reason for that second one. Lagana had tapped Creten’s front wheel as he back into the pit earlier in the day. So Creten rode his freestyle slap wheelie straight into the front tire of Amsoil Shock Therapy as a bit of payback. Just touching tires caused no damage, but the bit of revenge was a source of delight for the crowd.
Chris Ryan tearing the driver side rear wheel off of Excalibur was also a delight for the crowd, as Panda was on his last maneuver in a great freestyle run. After flying over the van stack, Ryan slammed all 10,000 pounds of Excalibur down onto the tire, snapping the wheel off at the axle. Thankfully the tire tether slowed the wheel up enough that when it snapped, the 600 pound tire and rim rolled over and stopped. Once again, the first priority of Chris Arel Motorsports is safety and the tire tether is a great example of that mandate.
Monster truck racing saw a dream final on the line two times in a row, as both Red Baron and Bounty Hunter had to race their way through the brackets to get there. The first time, it was Bounty Hunter by no more than the width of a lug on a monster truck tire with both trucks staged exactly the same on the starting line. The second race saw a little different start. While it seemed Creten was trying to tap the card tighter by bumping them with his front tires, the track officials saw it differently. On Creten’s second tap, he hit the cars a little hard, spreading them out rather than tightening them up. The track official felt Jimmy was trying to delay the start and penalized him 5 feet. Even with Bounty hunter starting from a handicapped position, Creten still managed to defeat Red Baron for his second racing win of the day.
Bounty Hunter headed off into the sunset (actually the sunrise of the next day) as the Monster Spectacular points leader. While his next stop is Mexico, Monster Spectacular’s next stop is Montreal this fall, when a new Monster Spectacular champion will be crowned.
