I agree, I was very underwhelmed when I took my son last year to monster jam.

@@BassPro2yeah the little pods kinda boring lol

Thank you, I’ll keep you in mind!

If I ever win a big lottery payout, I'm going to invest some of those winnings into something that's guaranteed to consistently generate more than enough money annually to make a full racing series like that happen, for many years to come!

@@MonsterTruckMcKayla I've literally thought of that scenario. Please let the next big lottery winner be a huge monster truck fan!

​@@TheMaineEventChannel Definitely! We could finally have the racing series that so many fans have wanted for years! I believe that if it at least gets to the Supercross/Motocross level of racing, we've made it. And we could still have separate freestyle shows, much like how Freestyle Motocross branched out into its own thing.

​​@@MonsterTruckMcKayla the only and main problem the monster trucks have with making such a popular series like super and motocross is that damn near anybody has the ability to be able to get themselves a dirt bike........ The monster trucks cost so much that that isn't even anywhere near possible, so it's hard for fans to be able to have that personal connection with the core of the series, that's where open qualifying would have a hard time succeeding and would still just end up being the same drivers at each event because who out there besides the guys already racing them have monster trucks, I mean of course some folks would end up investing into buying a truck and whatnot but not many I wouldn't think

@@diychad7268 Yeah, I get what you're saying, although I never understood the people wanting to get a stock dirt bike and thinking that it'll be the same as a full-on supercross bike with factory suspension. Even if you have the "best" bike that a previous SX champion rode to the winnner's circle, it's still very rider dependent along with all of the factory mods and upgrades. I suppose one idea is for the MTs to get back behind the idea of trying to sell pickup trucks, like with the Ford Trucks sponsorship of the early 2000s. Even though the MTs are nothing close to how the actual consumer pickup trucks would be, other than a fiberglass body meant to replicate one, the concept of running a truck body that's similar to consumer trucks is what could build a relationship with the fans. In contrast, look at the personal connection that fans have with NASCAR drivers and NHRA drivers, despite those cars being nothing like a consumer car that you can go buy at a local dealership. Which, leads to the super unpopular opinion that a lot of MT fans probably had in the back of their mind, but don't want to accept (myself included): the truck names would have to be abolished completely. Gasp! I know, it sounds like blasphemy, but if you look at any other "serious" racing series, the connection to the fans revolves around the driver and potentially the team/sponsor/manufacturer...NASCAR, NHRA, Supercross/Motocross, Nitro Rallycross, Indy Cars, F1, etc. and not a specific vehicle name with many different drivers that could be driving under that banner. Now, that's not to say that all MT names would have to be discarded...just whatever trucks were to run in a serious racing only series comparable to the other motorsports I just mentioned. There could still be shows with skills and freestyle, and those could be thought of as the FMX world of MTs, whereas the MT events heavily centered on racing could have the absence of truck names with vehicle numbers and sponsors in their place and most emphasis placed on the driver. It might not sound that awesome, and a lot of the personality of the trucks would be lost, but it might be the way to go to kickstart a serious racing series. Everything that has tried to do things the traditional way of retaining the truck names while trying to integrate that with a concept of serious racing has folded, so maybe that's the step in the right direction? And I get what you're saying with the open qualifying...it wouldn't be cheap and maybe the purse payouts would have to increase quite a bit in order for more teams to feel compelled to compete. This would mean marketing heavily to the fans of the other motorsports and hopefully convince them that MTs are serious racing machines in order to bring in that additional revenue. It would definitely take several years, maybe decades realistically in order to rewire the way the general public perceives MTs as just a form of entertainment. But, if a NASCAR sized crowd could be in attendance one day to see an MT race, imagine the revenue in ticket/merchandise sales compared to how they are now. So much of extra profits could be reinvested in a series to make things bigger and better, and pay teams wages that would offset the cost of parts, traveling, etc. If a great many number of trucks show up, I suppose there could be a consolation bracket for some points and money so that way teams that don't qualify well can still stay competitive and traveling to the event wasn't a lost cause financially. Think of it as a "B-Main" bracket as opposed to the top qualifiers that would be in the "A-Main." All in all, it would take a lot of funding, a lot of work, and whole lot of luck to pull something like that off, and there's still no guarantee that it would work, but we can always hope!

Me too!

As of 2024 the current tours feature an even 50/50 split of half independent, half company owned trucks. Some of the independent teams have deals with MJ to run feld identities (ie team scream with megalodon) but they are still independently owned and operated. As for Grave Digger, Dennis sold the name back in the 90s. It is still easily the most famous truck in the entire world and as long as feld has it, monster jam will be fine. You couldn’t pry the rights to gd from felds cold dead hands if you wanted to.

Dennis sold Grave Digger to FELD in 1999 because he couldn't afford to keep the team going. If the source of funding for iconic trucks like it suddenly dried up, I guarantee you'd never see them run at any show again.

@@furioussherman7265 Yeah, because Monster Jam took over and held dominion in everything that had to do with monster trucks! Monster Jam was the only promoter that had the capitol to keep Grave Digger going so FELD sent Anderson an ultimatum, "hand over the Grave Digger trademark, licensing and i.p. or start looking for another promoter!

@@thenickhelms84 Not even close. By the end of the '90s, every monster truck event wanted Grave Digger at it, so Dennis had to expand the team, build new trucks, constantly, and fix the ones on hand. Between that and the signature bat-shit crazy driving style everyone wanted from the black and green wrecking machine, very few people in the industry could've afforded to keep it running. As well, Dennis was also having to deal with a lawsuit from the Grave Digger ride truck tipping over on a beach (thankfully, no one was hurt). It was either sell the team to FELD or go under for good.

Thanks!

Those were some fun times man!

That’s pretty cool you got to attend an event! I didn’t even know Hall was only running on 7 cylinders in kentucky

Thanks for watching over the years!

Would have needed a different backer… the guys putting up the money were crooked record industry guys and very egotistical. They fired Rich’s staff randomly and put their own people in charge. They made the same mistake twice… Unfortunately it allowed for a great idea to disintegrate under ego driven, short sighted behavior and mismanagement of funds.

Thank you! Looking forward to your next mini doc

@@SamsonMTfan Hopefully we don't end up making the same thing at the same time.

haha!

Thank you!

good catch...thanks for the heads up

thanks and great suggestions! Stadium super trucks is next on my list, and theres already a great video out there on the bigfoot/monster jam thing: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/erqqdbOSy7W2lYk.html

@@SamsonMTfan sweet! Thank you for all your great work! Can't wait to see more!

I have a playlist on my channel of the entire 2007 mlmt series on tmb, those are the videos I got the footage from!

It’s Rammunition.

Very well said - I completely agree

thanks! Good points -- a lot of the behind the scenes info about the mlmt and mtc (especially regarding the investors) came from shaefer's pair of interviews with tmb. As for froome's legal issues, the weed charge had nothing to do with the mlmt and I couldnt find anything connecting the tax evasion or money laundering charges directly to the mlmt

Possibly, but I feel the topic might be less interesting in comparison to this video, aside from the fact that their first event was Monster Trux 2000 and their very conservative rules early on, aside from pure event coverage.

@@californiamonstertrucks4655 Monster Trux 2000, I just cringe when I think about that. Considering ProMT was an actual racing series and MT 2000 was a scripted and I don't know why the ProMT would have any associated with it.

@@waynenorbreyjr9638 ProMT was owned by and largely run by Bigfoot staff, and MT2000 had Bigfoot as their main star, so I assume it was done out of convenience. Bigfoot didn't mind doing the scripted stuff as well as legitimate racing, stating that they were basically open to wherever the industry would go.

@@californiamonstertrucks4655 The Bigfoot team did use a lot of their people to run these events. I attended a bunch of these events and noticed individuals and who they were. I do think that the ProMT being sanctioning body I'm sure Bob Chandler, the Hall Bros and Dan Patrick had majority part in it. Aside from the Monster Trux 2000 mess the series I thought was going in a good direction. It reminded me of the Penda Points Series just with a even more professional perspective to it. I definitely would have liked to seen it be like how NHRA has become.

@@californiamonstertrucks4655 Also when Eric Meagher was working in the office at Bigfoot if he had just said these two words "not interested " when he received that call about the idea of Monster Trux 2000. Then again Bigfoot at that point in time was open and willing to try what was being pitched at them and considering what all was going on during that period of time.

hmmm i think you're right... 16 not 14. I've always had a hard time differentiating 14, 15 and 16

@@SamsonMTfan Yeah those 3 chassis's were very similar, still had a slight difference. Looking at them from a distance you would think that there identical, until you really get to looking at them and see what different about them.