I Hope the Monster Trucks in Redmond Run Over a Bunch of Old Cars

Monster trucks are coming to Redmond. And I’m not talking about the lift-kitted “Monster Trucks” that typically growl through the mean streets of Redmond – I mean real, honest-to-horsepower monster trucks.

The Friday-Saturday engagement at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds and Expo Center is going by the delightfully alliterative name Monster Madness and looks like it should provide two wholesome nights of high-octane, high-suspension, high-powered car-crushing fun.

Here’s a list of trucks appearing at the event: Airborne Ranger Fan Ride Truck, Iron Outlaw, El Matador, Bounty Hunter, King Krunch and Obsession.

I don’t know a single one of those names, but there was a time when I was very much enamored with the world of monster trucks. Bigfoot, of course was king back then, and at my young age I was unendingly confused as to how something could be both an ape-like mythical creature and a truck with obscenely large tires. There was also Gravedigger and Snakebite and a few other names, some of which I saw in person in the early 1990s in a since-imploded stadium known as the Kingdome.

I remember only a few things about this event: 1) It was one of the loudest things I’ve ever seen 2) The amount of people wearing Gravedigger T-shirts was downright impressive and 3) Two men seated about ten rows behind me engaged in a fistfight. It was the first brawl I’d ever seen. Oh, and 4) I wanted to see more cars get crushed. Sure, they were kinda crushed, but not quite crushed enough for my 11-year-old needs.

Then again, there probably aren’t enough cars to be crushed in the world to satiate the needs of an 11 year old. Come to think of it, that still probably holds true today. Maybe I should be heading up to Redmond.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6KOehtOmu4

This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.