ETC: Monster Trucks

A monster truck jumping a flipped monster truck. Awesome.

Monster trucks are completely idiotic, and that's what makes them awesome. The world doesn't need monster trucks, they exist purely for entertainment. Every boy (and probably girls too) at one point or another figures out that if you just put bigger tires on your car, you could drive it over everything. You could drive it over cars and your house and even the whole world! It would be awesome! Then you get bigger and realize that you couldn't really do that. Cars are the way they are for a reason and aside from the technical details, you can't just drive over other people's cars, they'd get mad. Even though you know that, there's always just a bit of that little kid in you that still wants to do it.
The monster trucks come to town every year and we've been going to see them for the past five years. It never gets old. They weigh 10,000 pounds and have 1500 horsepower and and they smash cars for goodness sake! The show we go to starts out with head to head racing and ends with a one at a time show off exhibition of jumping and smashing things for style points. All of my kids pick their favorite truck at the beginning of the night and cheer for them. Inevitably there are trucks that roll over and get smashed up. Tires pop and fall right off the wheel. There's carnage, there has to be, it's what a sold out stadium demands. Thousands of fans cheering while the driver climbs on his (or her) upturned, broken, truck with arms raised in victory.

Earphones are needed. It's loud. Very loud.

Monster trucks are one of those things that you have to experience to really feel. It's like the ballet in that respect. You can't believe you'd pay to watch people dance out a story on stage. Sure, it's cute when my kids do it, but miming out a story in dance? Really? Except it's beautiful and moving. And in a way, so are monster trucks. The technology and the work that is required to get 10,000 pounds moving that fast and flying that far and doing it safely for the driver and the fans is pretty amazing. The fact that they don't do it for any purpose other than entertainment is wonderful in it's own way too. If you live someplace where the monster trucks do a show, and if you've ever had, or been, a kid who thought that smashing cars with a big huge truck sounded like a good idea, I highly recommend going. The kids love it, and so do I.