1.30.2012

Monster Jam 2012

Growing up in a town of 100K lends itself to only the smallest of traveling shows. I can remember going to MidSouth Wrestling, the Harlem Globetrotters, and the occasional circus, but Lake Charles never got the big events like concerts, broadway things, or NFL/NBA. We also never had, to my recollection, MONSTER JAM!
Bennett and I loaded up and got to the Superdome at 3....the show started at 7. I was slightly worried since his bedtime usually is 730, but he was alive and alert all night.

We started off with Pit Passes which allowed us to walk around the Dome floorand touch the trucks, meet the drivers, and drive remote control trucks. There was also a display of Traxxas cars, which are high-end remote control cars. I caught a cool picture of one of the trucks flying through the air. They go 75 mph, and the truck in the picture was $850. Hopefully Santa saw those!






Going into Monster Jam 2012, Bennett loved Gravedigger, the black/green/purple truck behind him in this picture. What is neat is that Gravedigger is celebrating his 30th anniversary, and I can remember him when i was a kid as well as BigFoot.





When it was time for the show to start, i quickly realized that spending very little on the tickets really puts you up in the rafters of the Dome. Our first seats were so high that there was a windchill from the a/c, so we had to move because he was freezing. Plus, it was pretty hard to make out exactly what we were seeing.






Once we moved, i realized we were in higher-end seats when I saw this dude leaving from the row behind me. Surely he was going to check to make sure his driver had the limo running in case there was an emergency in his Tokyo office.





(No lie, the attire at Monster Jam was pretty varied....sitting next to the pimp was a woman in shorts and thong sandals WITH socks.....you don't get that brave with your attire unless you are very used to wearing that).

Before the racing and freestyle started there was a crash-derby race WITH trailers...apparently the only rule was you had to pull something. Some people had mini-FEMA trailers, some people had boat/seado, and one guy nailed an entire living room set with lamps and a tv to his flatbed trailer. Not much lasted.







After a while, and after each one kept wrecking and essentially jumping until the truck broke (see Gravedigger's wheel), Bennett fell in love with Maximum Destruction, the 13 time champion and apparently the best truck around. I was pretty amazed at how high the truck was jumping (maybe 30-40 feet high).



Bennett had a great time and was a trooper all the way to the car. We got out of the Dome around 10:15, and he was out before we hit the Causeway. Asleep with his new Maximum Destruction truck!


Love that kid.






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