The Monster Truck Racing Open Championship (MTROC) is an independent driver ranking system designed to reward excellence in monster truck racing. All monster truck drivers and events are eligible for inclusion in the standings. We gather results, award points, and calculate driver rankings based on a combination of total accumulated points and average points-per-race.
2020 World Rankings
Current Rankings and Event Recaps
As September comes to an end, so does the 2020 Monster Truck Racing Open Championship season and it looks like Tyler Menninga will be able to successfully defend his world championship! The Grave Digger driver had an unrivaled season in 2019, and despite missing around half of his schedule this year due to the pandemic, he was still able to record 16 wins in 26 races, accumulate 5,454 points (3rd best) for an average of 209.77 points-per-race (4th best).
He is the second driver to win back-to-back open championships as Mark Hall accomplished the same with Raminator in 2006 and 2007. The Open Championship was not held from 2008 to 2018. This is also the 4th time that Team Grave Digger has won the championship, adding to the total started by Gary Porter and Carl Van Horn in 2004 and 2005, respectively.
Coty Saucier in Monster Energy finishes a mere 490 points behind Menninga in 2nd place. He had the best average of all drivers with 269.87 points-per-race through 15 races. This season, the average points-per-race available at each race was about 75, which means that Saucier averaged at least 3 heat wins per event. He won 7 of his 15 events before being shutdown by the pandemic.
Jimmy Creten in Bounty Hunter is once again the top non-Monster Jam driver and he finished with the most points of all drivers with 5,876. He placed third overall.
Mikeal Christensen in Vendetta won the most races of any driver with 22. He won his twenty-second race this past weekend to take this honor away from Cody Holman who had scored 21 victories prior to the pandemic. Christensen also ties with Austin Minton for having competed in the most racing events with 43 each.
Brandon Vinson had the toughest schedule this year at 1.026. He is one of only 8 drivers with a schedule above 1.000. The average for all races this year was 0.778. This number is based on the previous year’s ranking for all the drivers in competition at an event. An event rating of 1.500 would be a theoretical race between the Top 4 drivers in the world. An event rating of 0.500 would be a theoretical race between 4 rookies or unranked drivers.
Joe Sylvester barely missed the cut-off for being included in the ranking since he only competed in 13 events, but he was in the final round 12 times! That’s a Performance rating of 96.15 which would be the best in the world. Of ranked drivers, Bigfoot’s Darron Schnell takes the honor with a Performance rating of 93.00 with 21 finals in 25 races. The performance rating is meant to measure how often a driver advances to the semi-final and final rounds.
We have 293 events on the books that were cancelled this season, predominately due to the pandemic. Of the 532 scored events, the July 11th Insanity Tour event in Tremonton, Utah was the highest-rated event at an amazing 1.363 out of a maximum 1.500! The Monster Jam in Biloxi, Mississippi was second at 1.263.
In terms of total points, the Friday night Monster Jam All Star race in Las Vegas, Nevada was the biggest event of the year with the winner (Ryan Anderson) picking up 520 points.
We’ll have more stats and season recap in future weeks!
Take note that we are STILL ACCEPTING 2020 RACING RESULTS until around October 12th-ish. We will post a list of missing events soon, and if you happen to have any of the results, we will still count them towards the 2020 standings so long as we receive them before the 12th. We’ll post the final official 2020 standings shortly after the deadline.
===== CASPER, WYOMING =====
There was some great, young talent on display in Casper, Wyoming, but unfortunately we were not able to get results from the racing. If you have any information on the brackets from Casper, there is still time to report it before we close the books on 2020!
===== COCHRAN, GEORGIA =====
Jimmy Creten scored another podium finish in the 2020 season and was the top driver amongst all non-Monster Jam events, as well. He won his 18th race of the season on Saturday afternoon in Cochran, Georgia over Scott Hartsock in the Gunslinger.
Hartsock broke a rear axle during freestyle and could not return for the evening event. In two wheel skills that night, both Bounty Hunter and Iron Outlaw suffered damage and could not return. Strange as it may be, since there were at least 4 trucks scheduled to race and there was nothing unusual about the brackets, the event was still able to count for points. Both Austin Minton and Dawn Creten were awarded byes into the final round with Minton scoring his 3rd win of the season.
===== LANCASTER, SOUTH CAROLINA =====
Kristen Hope and Jack Brown traded wins in Lancaster to close out the 2020 season. For Hope, it was her 3rd win of the season and moved her up 9 spots in the standings.
===== LISLE, NEW YORK =====
John Fitzgerald scored a double-win in Lisle as he claimed the drag racing win on both Saturday Night over Triton Robbins in Krazy Train and then on Sunday afternoon over Chris Sawicki in Crushstation.
===== NEPHI, UTAH =====
Mikeal Christensen entered the weekend tied with Cody Holman for most wins in the season with 21. He had two shots to take the title for himself, but faced stiff competition. He defeated Kreg Christensen in Dragon Slayer and fast loser Jon Morris in American Soldier during the afternoon event, but lost out to brother Paul Jensen in Kamikaze in the finals. Jensen’s win was his 8th of the season and earned him let him rise up into the Top 25 overall.
With one last shot to get past Holman, Christensen drove past Jon Morris in the first round and David Olfert in Rockwell R.E.D. to advance to his 32nd final round (which is also best in the world this season). There he faced Jensen once again. The two had already raced 18 times this season, with Christensen holding 10-8 advantage, but he added one last win to that total by knocking off Jensen in the rematch.
With that win, Christensen passes Cody Holman and should finish the year with the most wins of any driver at 22.
===== PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA =====
Monster Truck Throwdown had a trio of events in North Dinwiddie at the Virginia Motorsports Park, but unfortunately we only received results for two of them. So, John Gordon’s muddy win on Friday night is currently not scored.
On Saturday night, in slightly better racing conditions, the tough competition on the Throwdown tour took its toll early with 3 of the 8 trucks unable to compete in racing. Cory Snyder in Toxic defeated Rick Steffens with Samson in the first round, and then took out Nick Pagliarulo in Kraken in the semis, before winning his 8th event of the season over Matt Pagliarulo in Jester, who missed the final jump.
On a drier Sunday afternoon, Snyder lost to Brandon Budd in the first round, but returned as fast loser and defeated Samson again to reach another final round. That’s his 12th final in 16 events this year. Budd was ousted by Nick Pagliarulo in the other semis and the Kraken driver got revenge for his Saturday night loss by taking home the win over Toxic in the weekend finale.
Snyder had a slow start to the season just due to a limited schedule, but he came on strong in the final weeks thanks to a dominant performance on the Renegades tour and looks to finish in 31st for the season.
Nick Pagliarulo had a similar slow start due to stiff competition on the Monster Jam Stadium tour, but he also recorded multiple victories last in the season to pull himself up out of the 90s and into the Top 60 to end the season.
===== ROBSTOWN, TEXAS =====
This is another event where we do not have enough information to score points, but from reports we’ve heard, it sounds like Jared Eichelberger swept the day with two racing wins in the Tombstone Sheriff.
===== TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA =====
Travis Mowery took control of the Nitro Menace truck for the weekend and came away as the winner of the Full Throttle racing in Terre Haute. The action was indeed Full Throttle as the track provided fast, close-quarters action. Vern House in Dysfunctional was the runner-up while Roger Gauger in USA-1 took home the series racing championship for the summer.
===== WARTBURG, TENNESSEE =====
Veteran Ed Eckert had to defeat Matt Cody twice on Friday night at the Wartburg Speedway, but he was successful both times and put his legendary Full Boar truck into the winner’s circle.
He could not keep the streak going on Saturday night, however, as Cody drove Iron Warrior past Full Boar in the first round and then defeated Arliss Orem in Split Personality in the semis. RJ Turner in War Wizard won a strange semi-final match over Denver Echternkamp in Venom. Both drivers spun out in the final turn, but did not realize that their opponent had yet to finish the race. Turner was faster in recognizing the opportunity and made it to the finish line with a slow but winning time. Unfortunately, damage kept him out of the finals, so Matt Cody in Iron Warrior raced and defeated Orem once again for his 5th win of the season.
===== WEST FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA =====
The Renegades tour ventured even further west this past weekend with an event in North Dakota, but the racing was not run side-by-side and so points were not awarded.
===== THE WEEK AHEAD =====
The 2021 Open Championship begins right now! This weekend we’ve got action in Arcadia, Florida with 2Xtreme; Indianapolis, Indiana with Monster Truckz; the All Star tour in Kankakee, Illinois; Malicious Monster Trucks in Post Falls, Idaho; the Renegades tour in Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania; and MTE in Vernal, Utah.
As you know, we depend on support from promoters, drivers, and fans to send in racing results each weekend. When you head out to the track this year, you can help us in our mission to record monster truck history and reward excellence in racing by jotting down the racing bracket and sending it in to our staff. Thank you to everyone who had supported our organization so far and we hope that, with continued support, we can keep going for many more years yet to come!
Archived Rankings and Event Recaps (PDFs)
- September 24th
- September 17th
- September 9th
- August 25th
- August 18th
- August 10th
- August 5th
- July 29th
- July 20th
- July 14th
- July 8th
- June 29th
- June 21st
- June 15th
- June 9th