Name: Jason Twite
Age: 23
Background:
Graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in December 2006 with a degree in Mass Communications.
I'm currently back home in Batavia and working at a local web design & video production company.

Marital Status:  Happily engaged to my girlfriend Jackie Hollendoner whom you've seen in pictures from several events.

She has really taken a liking to monster trucks and is always asking to go.

In Cyclone at Rock8

   Beast at Cape Girardeau

At the Home of Bigfoot

Jackie and her roommate Vanessa at Rockford Speedway

Vehicles: My current ride since June 2005 is this flamed-up 1997 Dodge Dakota that, what a shock, I found on eBay just like the van! It had all the custom work already done to it...the paint, taneau cover, spoiler, dual exhaust, tips etc. Despite its good condition, I wasn't afraid to take it to the mud during the Team Demolition Derbies in the summer of 2005. The cleanup sucked though.

With a new vehicle in the driveway, that meant one was going to have to go. It was hard to give it up after being such a good truck but the Ram had to go. After racking up nearly 40,000 miles in just over two years, it really began to show its age and needed some repairs I didn't want to sink money into. So, it was sold in October 2005. Too bad I couldn't keep them all....

    My #2 ride and the current center piece of my garage is the Huge Freakin'Van. With the purchase of the Ram, I no longer had the need to use the van as a daily driver so it is just sitting calmly and lonely everyday now. I'm hoping one day way down the road I'll actually have the time and means to do work to it myself. It's a 1977 Dodge B200 custom Tradesman full size van. I bought it off eBay in May of 2002 and put over 15K miles on it going here, there and everywhere, usually to events, over the course of mid 2002-mid 2003. I promise to get some better shots and ones of all the luxury on the inside here soon.  

    My first ride was also a van, originally it was the family vehicle but then I bought it and turned into Huge Freakin' Van #1.  It was a 1994 Ford E-150 full size conversion van. The van had seen its fair share of use and abuse by the time it was mine so it was quite rough around the edges. But I did a little customizing on the inside and, as you can see, on the outside as well. I got to race it at Rockford once but was whooped by that Mercury Villager. Sadly, the van was totaled as I was rear-ended by a drunk driver in another van on April 20th, 2002.

All My Stuff: Being a monster truck fan that I am, of course I have to hoard up every bit of merchandise I can. The pictures below show well over half of my toy collection ranging mostly of monster trucks and Hot Wheels cars. I've boxed up and stopped purchasing wrestling figures to make room for more monster merchandise. The collection has balloned vastly since the last photos with the addition of several new shelves and cases to hold everything. About 1/2 of my side in the basement is filled up with I'm sure more to come and is a constant work in progress. Here are some before and after photos of the new changes:

Monster Truckin' History: I've been hooked on monster trucks ever since I was 3 years old and saw Bigfoot win an event as I was just flipping through the channels on tv and must of thought monster trucks were cool. From then on I learned to program my VCR to record every show I could. Bigfoot became my instant favorite and still is #1 on my list no matter how much I preach about Raminator. My first event, at least I think so, was at the Chicago Ampitheatre for the 1989 TNT Motorsports show. It was the famous one with Stomper going into wall.

I didn't get to go to near as many events as I do now when I was little for the simple facts that I didn't have anyway to know about upcoming events and I had to rely on my parents to take me. From that first event up through the Winter season in 2003, I've been to over 50 events in 8 different states.  Here are some shots of me at shows from years ago up to some more recent ones. As year progressed, I refrained from being in the picture in favor of being behind the camera and focusing on shots of the trucks.

Me by Lon-Ranger at a dealer display

My brother and I at Santa Fe Speedway

Me with Bigfoot at Galesburg Speedway

Me being one of the very, very few people to take
part in the Bigfoot Ride Experience at Lima in 2000

Me and a psycho-looking Madusa at the WF3 Pit Party

I got to drive Bigfoot in May of 2003 at the Springfield Jamboree as part of the Bigfoot Driving Experience and had an absolute blast!

I reached my 100th different monster truck event at the Paul Shafer Motorsports' Grayslake, Illinois show in July of 2005. That does NOT count shows on multiple days or displays/car crushes. I will definitely reach 200 and beyond in a much quicker time.

Site History: I started MidwestMonsters.com back in April of 1999 after encourament from fellow monster truck fans online who had read a brief review I wrote up on the 1999 Chicago Monster Jam for Adam Miller's former site, Monster World.  MidwestMonsters has been at the forefront of monster truck event coverage ever since 2001 and topped all other sites with 20 event coverages in 2002 and was near the top again with 21 events covered in 2003. 2004 was a strong year but with so many events and ever growing amounts of information, coverage turnaround time slowed down and have continued in 2005. It was another solid year in 2005 with 18 shows total and dozens more for 2006, 2007 and beyond!

    This current design and layout is the site's 2nd makeover in its history and hopefully I can just tweek this one whenever necessary without having to totally redo it again. I am open to any and all comments or questions about the site or anything general, feel free to contact me.  I hope this page has given you a little insight as to just who I am and I hope you will remain a follower of MidwestMonsters.com for years to come.

Sincerely,

Jason Twite