9th Place - Bill Payne - 2025 Monster Truck Racing Open Championship
- MTROC Staff
- Oct 12
- 9 min read
Congratulations to BILL PAYNE for his 9th place finish in the 2025 Monster Truck Racing Open Championship! Bill had a Top Ten finish in 2019 during the first year of the Open Championship and has finished the last three seasons around 20th overall. His 31 wins this season gives him 120 wins in the past 4 seasons. The 10769 points he scored this season through 72 events was the highest in his career and also one of the deciding factors in the championship race.
By our count, I believe Bill Payne is the most veteran driver in the Top Ten this year. He started racing in the mid-2000s running the truly old school leafer Jeeps built by Jeff Bainter back in the 1980s. Despite the trucks being wildly outdated, Payne raced them hard and made a name for himself with wild freestyle runs. Now more than 20 years later, Payne races with his custom-built rock-crawler style truck where he continues to thrill in freestyle but now also dominates in racing.
Bill played a HUGE role in the point championship this year, too. The points he earned in the final week of the season in Lakeport, California with the Malicious Tour gave him more points than Tristan England and Tyler Menninga, which dropped those two drivers down in rank score and put Coty Saucier back into the #1 spot. Payne finished the season with 10769 points and could have had even more except that we did not have reports on 28 of his events.
Payne’s 31 wins were 2nd most in the sport behind on Jimmy Creten. His 58 final round appearances were the most of all drivers. And even with 28 events missing, his 120 heat wins (approximate) is second only to Weston Anderson’s 125.
The only guy who truly gives Bill Payne trouble is arch rival Donald Epidendio in Titan. Payne was 5-26 against the Titan this season, but had winning records against all the other regulars. He was 32-15 against Gavin Sell; 23-15 against Nick Jones; 18-5 against Garrett Gramps; 11-10 against even-more-veteran Marvin Anderson; 11-3 against Myles Parker; 7-2 against Dallas Glenn-Rogers; and 5-3 against David Tucker.
Bill has raced in over 50 brackets for each of the past 4 years, but this was his first time reaching 70 events which was the 7th most of all drivers this season. Straight-Up Racing and the Malicious Tour have carved out a nice West Coast presence for themselves within the sport and a loyal following across lots of cities, so Bill will have plenty of opportunities to rack up points and wins against in 2026 as he looks to defend his Top Ten finish.
===== BILL PAYNE 2025 SEASON RECAP =====
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