January 26th, 2015 by Stinkhead
Monster Jam came back to the Washington Region this weekend. We had a blast watching Grave Digger, Stinger, Backwards Bob, Crushstation, Krazy Train, Spike, Megabite, and Aftershock tearing up the dirt in the Verizon Center. The format was a bit different this year, but we enjoyed it. New memories, and a whole batch of photos were gained. Click below for more.
It was great seeing Stinger in the arena setting with favorites such as Crushstation and Grave Digger. We’ve seen Stinger quite a few times at our county fair’s monster truck exhibitions. Stinger was in great form and took to the obstacle course with ease. As you can see in the gallery, he even landed perfectly on his backside, completely vertical. With a little assistance he was back on all fours and running around.
We had heard of Backwards Bob for years, but never saw him live in action. Such an easy trick, yet so effective. Basically they mounted the chassis on the frame backwards, so that it appears the Backwards Bob is always driving in reverse. It’s pretty funny, and I’m glad we finally had that experience live. He’s one of our big favorites now.
However we were most excited to welcome back Crushstation. We’d seen the Monstah Lobstah a few times, and were glad he came back to rock Washington. We’re used to a bracket-style racing competition followed by car-crushing freestyle. This time the show was a bit different. There was no head-to-head racing. Instead they had several judged competitions utilizing the volcano inspired obstacle mound in the middle of the arena. They started with a Wheelie competition, followed by donuts, and capped off with freestyle.
I’ve said many, many times that my favorite aspect of all the Feld productions (Ringling Bros, Disney on Ice, Marvel Universe Live, Monster Jam) that I always felt like I was getting more than I expected. Every time you thought they’d reached the top, they’d surprise you with even more. But I can’t overlook the lack of cars at today’s event. During the event, there was only car for all of the trucks to crush. One. Sometimes we even witness additional cars being carted out at half time because the initial ones had been crushed too much. I’m not sure if it was due to the logistics of the obstacle mound, or financial, but everyone noticed that you can’t do a monster truck rally with one car to run over. The boys we brought (aged 7 and 4) had a blast, but even they said they were disappointed with the lack of cars. We kept telling them that they’d be carting them out later for the freestyle, but we were wrong. I hope this is simply a “growing pain” of trying out the new format, and the next time will have a lot more cars to crush. I heard some of the subsequent shows had no cars at all.
We enjoyed the secondary entertainment from the stunt bikes and XPOGO. One of my shining moments of my life was when the ornery Philly Quad Racer team captain noticed me and my son booing him vigorously and started gesturing at us on subsequent passes. That was a thrill.
Check out MonsterJam.com to see how you can get in on the Monster Jam action in your town. And be sure to attend the Party in the Pits, it’s great to walk around to see the trucks up close and meet the drivers.
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Posted in 3&up, article, Boys, Girls, gripe, kids, Monster Trucks, review | Comments Off on 2015 Monster Jam at the Verizon Center
