AUBURNDALE MONSTER TRUCK SHOW
Auburndale Motor Speedway, Auburndale Florida


Auburndale Motor Speedway is bar none, the toughest bull-ring track in the entire state of Florida. 1/4 low banked track, with a barely a single groove racing line and a drop off with rumble-strips on the inside of the track to keep people off the dirt! This track is known for beating up cars, and tonight would be no differet. 9 cars and a van were going to get destroyed by 4 tough monsters.  **All pictures from this show!**

GOLDBERG - (Didn't catch drivers name)
TEXAS RATTLESNAKE 3:16 - Vance LeRoux
ROCK SOLID - Melissa Stathas
MONKEY'N AROUND - Orville Hill

The trucks simply freestyled tonight, and there wasn't a whole lot to work with. 5 cars setup on the front stretch, two cars set up in turns 1-2, and a car-van-car setup in turns 3-4. There was also very small dirt rollers for the tough trucks that were to come out later.

The begining of the show was by far the highlight (and pretty much only highlight) of the night, although even it did not go off without a hitch. All the trucks were parked outside the speedway in turn 4. There was a small hole in the wall to let trucks in and out. Texas Rattlesnake 3:16 was introduced to come out first. Texas Rattlesnake 3:16 came to the hole in the wall, and following right behind him was Monkey'n Around. With two trucks running it was hard to tell who was running, but apparently Rattlesnake had shut down, and Monkey'n Around was running. Well, unannouced, Monkey'n Around roars towards the turn 4 wall from the outside of the track, and jumps the wall and smashes through a fake styrofoam/wood billboard. Unprepared like everyone else, I missed the spectacular shot.

Monkey'n Around was the first truck out. Orville Hill in his 1998 Dodge Ram out of Ocala Florida came out waving a Marines flag proudly, as his son was just sent back over to Iraq. Monkey'n Around came out and hit the cars a few times and got some decent vertical lift since the cars were all the way up. He also tried a donut but the grass/mud combonation didn't suit well for donuts.


Texas Rattlesnake 3:16 finally came out next. Again the truck got some decent lift and made a few passes over the cars.


Rock Solid was next and was introduced as one of only 7 women in the world who drive monster trucks. It was also announced that she beat Bigfoot a few weeks ago. This truck was very impressive, getting lots of nice air and even attempting but failing at getting a donut. She ended the run by popping out of the sunroof at the top of the truck.


Goldberg was the final truck to hit the track. The truck winded up the RPMs very high each time he went over the cars, possible transmission problems. The run went off fine however, again more of the same, a few passes over the cars.


Tough Trucks were up next, and unfortunatly, there was only 3. The course started in turn 4 with a small roller, went towards turn 1 where there was a washboard section, into turn 2 and another washboard, back towards turn 3 with a final roller for the finish line. The first truck up was a brown bronco. He started the course and made it to turn 2 washboard, and then veered off course, going after the monster truck 5-set of cars sideways! He hits the cars but proceeded to get stuck on the cars and had to get a wrecker out to save him.

Next truck up was a beautiful red chevy, who didn't even bother starting the course, just going right after the cars. He made a pass over the cars and then went to the 2-car set. He got over them put when he came off the cars the front controlling arm snapped sending the front tires in opposite directions, and ending his night.


Third and final truck out was another tall truck, this one a white ford. He kept the truck together, making two passes over each set of cars.

The monsters were next to come back out. Monkey'n Around was scheduled to come out first but broke in the pits, sending Rattlesnake back out onto the track. Rattlesnake made a few passes over both sets of cars, and even managed to knock the grill off the front of the big dodge over one of the sets of cars.

Rock Solid came out next, and proceeded to roar out of the pits and immediatly die on the track with a blown Transmission, apparently the 2nd transmission of the day gone south.

After a lengthy tow off the track, and Vance LeRoux retrieving his front grill, Goldberg went onto the track. This was the most aggressive run of the night with some good air and good momentum. Goldberg ended his run by hitting the car-van-car setup but only getting moderate air over it.


Monkey'n Around got re-fired and went out last. He made a few passes over the cars before coming to a halt over the 5-car set, and then slamming the truck into reverse and doing a nice reverse jump over the five car set to end his run.


With each truck freestyle lasting about 1 minute, and only 3 tuff trucks screwing around on the course, it was only about 8:15 (about 45 mins into the show) when the show hit "intermission". The Awesome monster truck came out to give rides, and then more rides, and then more rides. Literally a 45 minute intermission with absolutly nothing going on. I resorted to watching the Rock Solid team pull the transmission out of the truck across the track. Finally at 9 PM the show would get back under way....maybe.

The monsters were supposed to come back out, but then someone decided to have the bright idea of holding the demo derby next instead! So the track had to be altered by moving the car-van-car setup around to make a box for the demo derby drivers to stay in, another 10-15 minute delay. Then the Demo drivers were told to come out, but they took about 10 minutes to come out. There was only about 10 demo derby cars, and all of them were aggressive as all hell, and they all took each other out within 5 or 10 minutes. After all of that it was around 9:30, and it was announced the monsters were coming back out...after they remove all the demo derby cars and re-set the track.


Well with an hour and half drive ahead of me I did not feel like sticking around to watch 3 trucks roll over a few sets of already crushed down cars, so I packed up and headed home.

I'm never really disappointed when I see a Monster Truck Show, cause I don't get to see many of them a year, but as far as excitement goes this ranks pretty low, but there again I wasn't expecting much out of this show, so I wasn't too overly disappointed, just mostly disappointed in the fact that everything got drug out because of poor show planning/promotion, and they didn't have any real racing. Thanks for reading, Bryan Wagner.

**All pictures from this show!**

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