Monster Truck Mayhem

An Afternoon Family Expedition

Over the years I have seen monster trucks in person, but I had never seen them in action. A neighboring burg, the town of Coeur d'Alene, had their Springfest this past weekend. What is Springfest? I found it to be a festival catered to kids and their credit card bearing parents. There was an open livestock show, motorcycle acrobatics, crafts, bounce houses, helicopter rides, and all manner of child-enrapturing activities. There was also all manner of vendors crowding the fairgrounds that the event was held at, everything from fidget spinners to grilled onion slathered German sausages was being offered throughout the four corners of the fairgrounds.

The main event was the reason for our presence at the festival of child glee and rampant consumerism: The Monster Truck Show! My son really wanted to see the big-wheeled spectacle, and as I had been given some get into Springfest for free passes, I found that I was completely amiable to his request.

As it always shall be in North Idaho we went from barely above freezing to "Holy Cheezits It's Hot" weather in one calendar day. The amount of pale flesh that was bared helped reflect some of that heat back into the atmosphere, and I am pretty sure that the local economy was blessed with a slight uptick due to aloe vera sales, for the sheer volume of flesh burned was ample.

We met up with my Mom, Aunt, and visiting Uncle at the fairgrounds, and while they all wandered around taking in the sites with my two children, my husband and I staked our seat claim on the bleachers overlooking the arena. It was while waiting for the others to return that I found myself immensely entertained by watching folks pay to take a spin in the back of the "world's tallest monster truck." The driver of the banana yellow beast would escort paying customers up a set of stairs and into the bed of his mammoth truck. He would then take them on a run and gun tour of the arena. Some of the kids in the truck would cheer, others cried, and a good selection of the grown ups really got into the spirit of things and hollered and yelled like they were at a frat party.

Show time eventually descended upon us, and things got loud. I didn't realize just how loud monster trucks were and laughed like a drug-addled hyena as some of my future hearing prowess was offered on the altar of adrenaline-charged Murican mechanical enjoyment! Some of our bleacher-mates had traversed the monster truck circuit before and had hearing protection utilized in various ear-sheltering forms. Needed gear for future event attendance noted.

The song Doctor My Eyes by Jackson Browne blared over the loudspeaker next to us and my mother quipped: "More like Doctor My Ears!"

We might have all disolved into amused giggles, not that anyone could hear them.

Just imagine a bunch of people singing EARS instead of eyes at the top of their lungs!
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Slightly to the left of us was a wonderful old car from the 1980's. An engineering masterpiece, a token of a bygone era that many car enthusiasts would prefer stay bygone. I began telling my daughter that I was going to purchase that fine little car for her as her first vehicle. Most of the time she knows I am as serious as the Saturday Night Live cast on a weeknight, but a slight look of horror crossed her features as I made an effort to locate the show's promoters. Her terror was alleviated as the monster truck Cyclops made his rounds in the arena and crushed my girl's future ride into the mud. What a waste.

My daughter's almost first car. May it rest in pieces.

My favorite part of the monster truck show wasn't even the monster trucks. The show's promoters rounded up a bunch of local guys and their rides for a tough truck race. Just based on the look of the vehicles alone, I was pretty sure that some of them were my neighbors. All of the vehicles were older Ford pickups and Jeep Cherokees, and I got to laughing super hard as they raced each other around the arena through the various jumps and mud obstacles. One Jeep had a Monkey attached to his roof, that monkey finally took flight along with the front right spring of his suspension. My daughter piped up:

"He can still race! See Mom! He doesn't need that spring!"

I replied most drolly,

"Honey, driving without that front spring is like running without a bra. It can be done, but I don't recommend it."

The lady sitting in front of me started choking, an action that caused me a bit of momentary concern, but she then turned around and beamed at me. The choking was from laughter. As she was a mother of two boisterous toddlers I figured that I had just done my good deed of the day and tipped my hat at her with a smile in return.

In the end I have decided that I enjoy watching monster trucks, although the sport must cost a small fortune, and the trucks themselves are prone to all sorts of mechanical hiccups. There were frozen wheels, transmission snafus, and fuel line hijinks. There was also a big focus on safety. I had no idea that the MC of the event had a kill switch to any vehicle in the arena, he could silence the engines of the trucks with a push of a button. The harnessing that the drivers strapped themselves into was impressive as well, and it made me think that I might enjoy a monster truck for wheeling around in on the farm. It's probably a short person thing, but I think my cats and turkey would enjoy rides in the back of it too.

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's arena mud coated iPhone.