At a recent Monster Jam event at the Prudential Center in Newark, as monster trucks with shark fins, dog ears, and zombie legs sped across an arena floor covered in tough, cinnamon-brown dirt, I remembered my first pseudo-sentence. “A big truck is passing by.” Young children squirmed around the stands with their mouths open and their ears covered with muffs or their parents' palms.
Big trucks were passing noisily.
They also went up into the air. They recently fell to the ground while digging into a storage facility near MetLife Stadium. They were high again. That is, if you were lucky enough to land on the 66-inch tires and not the roof.
But before they did that, they stood still and posed around the space like sleeping beasts for a popular appetizer event called the Pit Party. Pit parties paid about $40 per person and gave attendees access to the arena floor for an hour and a half. Half of that morning. There, fans lined up to meet drivers like 21-year-old Weston Anderson, who drives the 37th edition of the Tour's most famous truck, Grave Digger.
Tall, blond and scruffy, Mr. Anderson comes from a monster truck dynasty from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. His father, Dennis Anderson, created the original Grave Digger in 1982, and two of his siblings drive different versions of the eerie purple car. Other Monster Jam tours feature green giant monsters, while other contestants compete in spin-off trucks.
“It’s like driving on marshmallows,” Mr. Anderson said of the soggy Prudential Center dirt. “Some trucks will go up and flip over. Some won’t.”
Monster Jam is Mr. It has grown significantly and tremendously since its founding in 1992, a decade before Anderson was born. The company currently operates six series (five in the U.S. and one overseas) and sells millions of tickets each year between indoor arena extravaganzas and massive arena blowouts.
Monster Jam seems to have become a trend among Gen Z and Millennials. “Ironically, there were a lot of people in their 20s going with their friends,” 23-year-old artist Eli Hauser said of last month’s Monster Jam event in San Francisco. Mr. Hauser posted that the irony had turned into real passion. But while the majority of the Prudential Center audience on the afternoon of January 27 consisted of Gen truck.
Self-proclaimed superfan Mark Galloway, 26, strutted around the pit party with a custom-made wrestling-style championship belt slung over his shoulder and pictured with Jamie Sullivan, who drives a truck called the Monster Mutt Dalmatian. I took a picture. Mr. Galloway, who attended Monster Jam for the first time in 2003, said he drove the monster truck twice during training camp. “It was scary and surreal, but you could feel it,” he said.
Collin Groom, a high school student from Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey, said he toddled to Monster Jam for the first time at age 2 and never looked back. “You can’t sleep at events like this.” added the groom, who is now 16 years old and wearing a baseball cap with the driver's autograph on it.
Around the pit, children played with toy monster trucks in the sandbox. The adults bought beer and merchandise. (A collectible Grave Digger mug filled with syrup-soaked shaved ice costs $15.) It smells like moist dirt and popcorn mixed with ambient exhaust and soap, probably coming from a freshly washed truck.
By noon, the pit party was winding down, the crowd had found their seats, and by 1 p.m., the 12,000-pound monsters were cheering. Grave Digger and his seven competitors (Zombie, Dalmatian, Megalodon, El Toro Loco, etc.) raced around the course, parked, and set up for a series of brief head-to-head races.
Beginners may assume that cars are still regularly put under their wheels at these events, which primarily feature aerial acrobatics and tricks. The winner, determined by watching fans who use their phones to score their non-racing performances on a scale of 1 to 10, earns bragging rights but no money. So it makes sense that Monster Jam is a business that puts attractions first. Two drivers hitting 1,500 horsepower each for 30 seconds sounds like 10 cars backfiring on your eardrums. It's shocking and ecstatically loud. That's the point.
Mr. Anderson shot Grave Digger to take the final victory in the race, earning him eight points. He climbed atop his truck for a heart-pounding celebration, touchdown-style.
Next was the two-wheeler competition. The truck had two chances to climb the dirt mound in the center of the pit and land on its front or rear tires. Announcers walked everyone through the finer points of wheelies, poppers and other tricks while the crowd whipped out their phones to judge. Mr. Anderson took another first place after stopping the nose of his truck, backing up and doing a wheelie.
At about 1:45 p.m., the Prudential Center smelled like exhaust. Cindy Castillo, who brought her daughter Jaylyn and her son Izaya for her seventh birthday, said that after about four years of attending his meetings, his family has become accustomed to the smell.
“When I first came, the smoke was rising and it stung my eyes.” she said “But now we are immune to it.”
While many parents have made trips to Newark at their children's request, some have taken the initiative themselves. Champagne Pedro, a sneakerhead who runs an ice cream business, came from Middletown, New York, because she wanted to “feel like a kid again” for her 52nd birthday. “Who doesn’t love monster trucks?” he asked.
Pedro, wearing a fur-trimmed coat and oversized glasses, was delighted that three of the drivers, along with his two children and a sneakerhead, were women. “Nothing is impossible,” he said.
During halftime and other free times, interviews with drivers were broadcast on the Jumbotron. A dance cam scanned the crowd. Drivers played games like rock, paper, scissors with the tykes, and the tykes won toys for their efforts. As halftime ended, motocross bikers jumped up a thin ramp and performed aerial stunts. Then the truck came back, but things didn't last long.
Monster truck rips off doors and hood. El Toro Loco's hood was crumpled and torn during the competition. “Every part except the chassis is likely to be replaced once, if not 100 times,” Mr. Anderson said.
Sometimes trucks simply fail. In the second half, the Caterpillar vehicle dragged the zombies, now more dead than undead, off the course. Grave Digger risked a similar fate when Mr Anderson flipped his vehicle onto its roof during a round of “Sky Wheelie”. (This wouldn't be the first time Mr. Anderson's truck died. He had Grave Digger No. 33 in his first year of driving.)
Will Grave Digger return to freestyle events? “We’re not sure if Weston will come back.” the announcer said at one point, drawing a lone boo from the stands. Someone who wants to win may still lose.
The event was ongoing 12 minutes before the unofficial break time. Monster Jam plans to have the indoor event last two hours, which is about the amount of time parents can reasonably expect their children to sit still. Shipwrecks slow you down.
Then the words came out. Grave Digger's theme song, “Bad to the Bone,” started playing. Mr. Anderson drove his truck into the center of his pit and immediately posted the highest score of the round, securing his lead for the next day as well.
Or at least for a few hours. The central mound must be rebuilt quickly and the racecourse soil must be well manicured. Another competition was scheduled to begin at 7pm.