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.
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Current Rankings and Event Recaps
Zack Garner’s win in Springfield has moved the Wild Side rookie into the Top Ten in the world. Jack Brown, Kristen Hope, and Hunter Souza all claimed their first wins of the season. Steven Thompson rebounded from transmission problems last week for a win in Tennessee; Tim Jones won in sloppy conditions in Jefferson City; Mike Christensen picked up win 16 on a fast track in Iowa; Michael Phelps put Monster Patrol on the podium with a win in Nebraska.
Plus, we recently found old racing results from February! That good news was offset by the fact that we did not find results for several big events this weekend, including the Toughest Monster Truck Tour in Jefferson City; the CFP No Limits in Lewistown; and Summer Heat in McDonald, Tennessee. If you have results from those events, it’s not too late to report them!
Next weekend has two top drivers back in action with Jimmy Creten and Coty Saucier on track and looking to pick up points. We’re down to the final two months of the season, and with the way this year has gone, I’m not even going to try and predict what will happen between now and October! What I can tell you, however, is what happened this past weekend, so let’s get into the results.
===== DICKINSON, NORTH DAKOTA =====
Kevin Kozala made a cameo appearance behind the wheel of Instigator, but neither he nor the other three drivers were able to earn any points because this was a freestyle-only event.
===== JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI =====
The Toughest Monster Truck Tour was also the Muddiest Tour on Wednesday and Thursday night at the Jaycees Fair. Tim Jones in Twisted Addiction lost to Darron Schnell in Bigfoot in the first round on Wednesday, but returned as a fast loser and beat ‘Foot in the finals. We are still missing first round results from Wednesday and we have no information on Thursday night, so there are still 177 points out there waiting to be claimed. Be sure to let us know if you have any info on these events!
===== LEWISTOWN, MONTANA =====
The No Limits crew put together another fast, challenging straight line drag track, and while the action was great and we found a few video clips online, we unfortunately have almost no information on the racing results from these two events, so we have not been able to award points. If you know any part of the racing brackets from either of these events, please let us know!
===== McDONALD, TENNESSEE =====
The five drivers at the Summer Heat event in McDonald put down some very fast racing passes inside the cozy confines of the Tri-State Exhibition Center. We’re told that Steven Thompson in Hurricane Force won both nights. That’s a much better result than last weekend when he suffered through transmission problems on the starting line. However, the Open Championship staff has been struggling on our end to find the brackets for these events. We’re pretty sure we pieced together the afternoon results thanks to some pictures and videos online, although the brackets were a tad unorthodox. If anyone has more information on the afternoon event, and especially if you have results from the evening, please let us know!
===== MITCHELL, NEBRASKA =====
Michael Phelps in Monster Patrol scored his third win of the season over teammate Clint Watson in Bearfoot. While that earned him points, Phelps currently only has 8 events scored in the books and so is not yet eligible for the rankings, but unofficially his 749 / 93.63 line would have him ranked about 72nd.
===== OSKALOOSA, IOWA =====
Michael Brister’s Wrecking Machine suffered breakage early in both events in Iowa, leaving a 3-truck Team Throttle Monster shootout including TWO Kamikazes! The drag racing track was incredibly fast and gave the trucks great hang time, so the action was intense even with a reduced field. Mikeal Christensen in Vendetta beat out both Kamikazes during the afternoon to pick up his 16th win and 25th final round of the season, both of which are 2nd best behind only Cody Holman. In the evening, Hunter Souza in Black Kamikaze knocked off Vendetta in the first round and then defeated David Olfert in White Kamikaze to win his first racing event of the season!
===== POOLER, GEORGIA =====
As with the McDonald event, there was some great racing in Pooler but also problems with the brackets. Unfortunately, this time is resulted in an event being disqualified from points.
Jack Brown driving Xtermigator won his first of the season on Friday night over Kristen Hope in Wolf’s Head. Brandon Budd was the unlucky recipient of a bye run in the first round. How is that unlucky? Well, it was the only racing pass he got to make. As a result, he was technically left out of the bracket and so this event will not count in his totals.
To compound his points problems, Budd also received a bye run on Saturday night and this time competed in the final round where he beat out Paul Breaud in Backdraft. However, the winner of the opening pair of trucks (Xtermigator over Muddy Girl) never returned, and so that heat is considered to be outside of the brackets. That leaves only 3 trucks in competition, which is less than the minimum 4 required, and so points were not awarded. We’ll explain this decision a bit more in a separate post.
To end the weekend, Kristen Hope in Wolf’s Head picked up her first racing win of the season by getting past Brown in the first round and Budd in the finals. Both Hope and Brown moved up 7 spots in the standings with their wins while Budd gained 2.
===== SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI =====
The biggest win of the weekend was Zack Garner in Wild Side’s victory with MAP in Missouri. After a bye in the first, he knocked off fast loser Devin Jones in War Eagle and then beat out Jamey Garner in the finals. He has won 5 of his last 8 and has scored points in 21 of his 26 events. After an impressive first quarter with Monster Jam, Garner has added 2 wins, 3 finals, and 477 points to his total this summer and now sits in 9th place overall. He could pass potentially pass Adam Anderson with another 400-points, but that will depend partly on how many events he has remaining on his schedule. On the plus side for Garner, there are not many active drivers within striking range, and so even if he does not compete again this season, he will still have a good chance of remaining in the Top Ten.
===== WORLAND, WYOMING =====
Kreg Christensen picked up the Chicago-style win in Wyoming over Jon Morris in American Soldier, but with only three trucks at the event, it did not meet our requirements for points.
===== SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN =====
A very very late report, but we got it! Thanks to a recent YouTube video of the RAM Spectacular held back in February, we were able to record Marvin Anderson’s win over John Bruce during the Sunday racing event. That ended up being a big deal for Bruce who gained 14 spots with that runner-up finished and is now inside the Top 100!
===== THIS WEEKEND =====
There are two big events we’re watching this weekend.
First is East Moline where Jimmy Creten is scheduled to race in a 5-truck field. There are theoretically 213 points available for this event, which would be enough to move Creten ahead of Ryan Anderson for 4th place. Moving up higher than that will require a LOT of points, but gaining ground this high in the standings is always difficult.
Second is Senoia, Georgia where 3rd-ranked Coty Saucier is scheduled to be racing the Overkill Evolution truck in a 6-truck field. Saucier had a chance to move up the rankings in Bloomsburg, but the event did not include any racing and so he could not earn points. It’s not yet clear whether Senoia will include racing or not, but we do know that they’ve added a second Sunday event to the schedule.
Based on the roster we have available, there would be 243 points available each event for a weekend total of 486. A sweep should therefore move Saucier up into 2nd place. That’s because he’d have a total of 4291 points (5th best) and an average of 268.18 (1st best) for a score of (5 + 1 =) 6 which is 1 spot behind Menninga’s score of (1 + 4 =) 5. Conversely, two first round losses would move him around 1,150 points away from Menninga, as his average would drop down to 3rd.
That’s a lot of math, but the bottom line is that these two top drivers both have chances to move up even higher this weekend, so we’ll be paying close attention to their results.
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Archived Rankings and Event Recaps (PDFs)