Monster Truck Jam - 2006

There's nothing like a visit to the Monster Truck Jam at the Tampa Stadium.

Here are some of the trucks lined up on our left side.

And here are the rest of the trucks lined up on our right side.

There was a motorcycle jumping exhibition and a daredevil jumping into a stack of cars in the middle of an explosion.

They had some racing between the trucks, then they had a freestyle competition. Here is the "Escalade" taking out an RV.

They even had one truck named Monster Mutt with a woman driver. Here she is, taking a run over a yellow bus.

And we've got Maximum Destruction doing his thing.

Katrina's favorite, Grave Digger, shows how to 'get air' on several of the jumps during the competition.

At the end of the run, Grave digger eneded up with a flat tire, so he took one more pass at the car-pile and cart-wheeled.

There was a ton of dust in the air as the trucks ran through the show, that's why some of the pictures seem a bit foggy. Unfortunately, there were quite few rude people that would stand up in front of us while we were taking pictures (while we were seated), so some of the pictures we took were ruined. There was even an interesting event from the row in front of us. It seems a couple brought their fairly young boys to the show (they were about 2 and 4 years old) and decided not to watch their boys as they roamed around the seats. At one point, the 4 year-old climbed onto the empty seats directly in front of me (about 3 seats down from his parents) and stepped off of the seat with one foot.

I figured he would do something stupid like that, so I was prepared and reached forward to catch him just inches before he hit the bottom of his chin on the seat back in front of him. His parents were so surprised by the commotion and hustled 'Junior' back over by them, but he simply walked away unnoticed about 30 seconds later. The 2-year old little brother, then decided to casually stroll over with his older brother and throw a half-eaten hot dog at me. I thought the little guy was just goofing around, so I picked up his impromtu missle and placed it on the seat in front of me. Any thought I had about his just fooling around were quickly dispelled when he picked up the hot dog, glared at me and pelted me again with what can only be described as willful intent.

Apparently, the toddler was under the belief I had done something wrong to his brother, and when his parents finally noticed what was happening, they only seemed to be mildly embarrassed as he used me as a target for his frustrations. Luann told me later that she could see how this Yuppie-Family really didn't belong here because they had no clue what was going on, nor had the self-respect to keep control of their kids. I'm just glad they didn't try to call the police or threaten to sue me for putting my hands on their 4-year old (in order to catch him before he hurt himself). It's a strange world we live in. Never a word of thanks as we save them from their own self-destruction...