WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS
Larry Swim drove Bigfoot to another clean sweep this weekend in Independence, Missouri and has risen again in the Open Championship standings up to Number 7. Jon Zimmer won his 6th Monster Jam Stadium event of the season and is back in the Top Ten. Alex Bardin, meanwhile, won his 1st event of the year in Oklahoma. Larry Quick will carry a 5-race winning streak into the championship round in Pocatello this weekend. And our big mover was Ty Cornelius, Jr who gained 16 spots with three victories in Dothan, Alabama.
We’ve got a super busy weekend to look forward to as the month of April starts off with a roar: 3 stadium events from 3 promoters and 36 events overall! If you’ll be attending any events this weekend please help us out by writing down the racing results and sending them so we can include them in our standings.
DOTHAN, ALABAMA (Monster FMX)
Ty Cornelius, Jr in General Hazzard swept all three drag racing events over teammate Bill Solly in Instigator. Those wins gave Cornelius a big boost in the standings as he jumps up 16 spots into 43rd.
HUGO, OKLAHOMA (Monster Truck Wars)
Alex Bardin won his first event of the year in El Oso Loco by beating out Clint Watson on Saturday afternoon at the Hugo Rodeo Arena. Watson returned the favor in the evening race while campaigning the Outlaw body for a second weekend in a row. He is now in 40th place.
JONESBORO, ARKANSAS (Traxxas)
Hall-of-famer Allen Pezo won both concrete holeshot events in Jonesboro, first defeating Jeff Murphy in the afternoon and then taking out his brother Justin Murphy in the evening. Pezo has 5 wins this season but only 9 events reported and so he is not yet ranked.
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI (Toughest Monster Truck)
Larry Swim extended his winning streak to 9 with another trio of victories on the Toughest Monster Truck Tour. Running on the challenging Chicago-style track, Swim defeated Brandon Budd twice in the finals and Aaron Cain once. He has earned over 2000 points in the month of March alone and is now ranked in the Top Ten.
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA (Monster Jam)
Colton Eichelberger, Jimmy Creten, and Tony Ochs all picked up wins in Lincoln this weekend and they all did it by defeating World #1 Tyler Menninga in the final round. Ochs gained 6 spots in the rankings with his performance, but Eichelberger actually lost a spot due to Larry Swim’s sweep in Independence. As an indication of how well Tyler Menninga has run this season, his 3 runner-up finishes actually lowered his Average Points by 11-hundreths of a point, but he still maintains a comfortable lead in the standings.
MONTROSE, COLORADO (CFP No Limits)
Larry Quick swept the three holeshot races in Montrose as he prepares for the series championship race in Pocatello, Idaho next weekend. Quick defeated Bigfoot’s Michael Miller on Saturday afternoon and then won twice over wife Shannon to close out the weekend. All those wins have moved Larry up into 12th place and he’ll have an opportunity for a big points day in Holt Arena next Saturday.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA (Monster Jam)
Jon Zimmer picked up his 6th win this season and 3rd in 5 weeks when he defeated Cole Venard at the Superdome in New Orleans. While Zimmer lost out to Todd LeDuc in the Monster Jam Stadium points series during the freestyle portion of the program, his racing successes this year have the Dragon Ice driver back into the Top Ten. He has the third-highest Average Points total behind on Adam Anderson and Larry Swim.
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA (Monster Jam)
Not too far from New Orleans, Team Dragon teammate Darren Migues was also earning more wins as he claimed 2 wins in 3 final round appearances. Migues now ranks 16th and has 11 event wins which is the 4th most of all drivers. Brandon Derrow rejoined the series and picked up the opening event win on Saturday, followed by a runner-up performance later that night. Seventeenth ranked Zane Rettew was runner-up on Sunday.
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (Hot Wheels)
Darron Schnell grabbed a win and runner-up at the Hot Wheels Live stop in Norfolk which allowed him to rejoin the Top 50 rankings this week. Christian Norman was the winner on Saturday afternoon. Derick Anson won the nightcap but we have not been able to score that event yet. We hope to have those results in later this week, which may be enough to bump Anson up 1 more spot into the Top 50. Steve Snellen was runner-up at the first race.
SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI (Monster Jam)
Mat Dishman raced Rammunition to his first Monster Jam win of the season over Jack Brown. Dishman appeared headed for a repeat on Saturday but was kept out of the finals by mechanical problems. This let Krysten Anderson win her 5th of the season, also over Brown. Blake Granger then made the headlines for the final two events, winning first over Jared Eichelberger in Earth Shaker and finishing 2nd to Bernard Lyght on Sunday.
NON-POINTS EVENTS
Coty Saucier swept the Monster Jam racing in Cincinnati, but it was run against the clock and not side-by-side so unfortunately it was not eligible for Open Championship points. The same was true for the Monster Jam event in Lexington, Kentucky. The Monster Truck Thunder events in Paso Robles, California did not include racing as far as we can tell and so no points could be awarded.
LATE EVENTS
Thanks to some internet sleuthing and late-posted videos, we were able to complete our reports for the MAP events in Waco, Texas and the Hot Wheels series in Cleveland, Ohio from earlier in the year. This helped get drivers like Clint Watson, Rodney Tweedy, and Darron Schnell enough events to re-qualify for the rankings.
BUSY WEEKEND AHEAD
It will be a hectic weekend for the Open Championship with 10 promoters running 36 events, and that’s assuming we didn’t miss any!
The CFP No Limits series will be crowing its champions in Pocatello, Idaho this weekend. There are currently 10 trucks scheduled for racing which means there will be around 364 points available for the winner.
Chris Arel’s Monster Spectacular returns to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal this weekend.
Hot Wheels Live continues in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for a pair of event while on the other side of the country the Malicious Monster Truck Tour kicks off with a pair in Roseburg, Oregon.
Larry Swim will try to keep his winning streak alive with three more Toughest Monster Truck events in Loveland, Colorado.
The big Monster Jam event this weekend will be in Syracuse, New York with Adam Anderson and Neil Elliot looking to make up ground on Tyler Menninga. There are 4 events scheduled on Colorado Springs, Colorado where Camden Murphy, Justin Sipes, and other stars of the Stadium Series 1 head to the smaller confines of The Broadmoor World Arena. If the racing is side-by-side, this could be a big opportunity for those drivers to raise their rankings.
Cole Venard will try to keep his momentum going in Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend while Grave Digger’s Charlie Pauken will try to get back into the Top Ten. Monster Jam will have a pair of events in both Columbus, Ohio and Little Rock, Arkansas where Tyler Menninga will face off with Jim Creten and Mat Dishman. Plus the Arena Series will be rocking in Columbia, South Carolina!
The Traxxas Tour has six races in two cities, with three events in both Bangor, Maine and Douglas, Arizona. The All-Star Monster Truck Tour will be in Santa Maria, California. The Extreme Monster Truck Nationals have three events in Poole, Georgia. Last but not least, Monster Mash is in Texarkana, Arkansas this weekend for one event.