St Louis USHRA

[Ryan Smith]

The Wrenchead.com
Grand Slam of Motorsports


St. Louis, MO
2000 Results



Highlights
Goldberg Won Freestyle With Only 3-Wheels!



Monster Truck Winner
Goldberg- Saturday

Monster Freestyle Winner
Goldberg won with a 29- Saturday

Pro Quads
Tim Farr- Saturday

Weekend Race Recap

St. Louis, MO (December 30, 2000)
Written by Laura Wolfe

Fans in the TWA Dome were treated to one of the wildest USHRA events ever, with the infamous St. Louis style - Roundy Round course with high speed flat tracking action that made the monsters do a full lap and a half before reaching the finish. It was one thrilling moment to the next.

Tom Meents driving Goldberg broke his left rear tire completely off in an awesome display of freestyle and had the crowd chanting GOLDBERG, GOLDBERG, GOLDBERG, when he continued on to try a three wheel donut and came to a rest after trying to conquer the SFX pyramid. He was given a score of 29 by the judges and that was the highest freestyle score of the evening.

Goldberg wasn't the only monster truck that lost a wheel during freestyle. Grave Digger also had a wheel break off, but he wasn't able to pull off a spectacular performance, like Goldberg was. Grave Digger started out his freestyle pass with his patented Grave Digger demolition style performance but then went over the SFX pyramid and went so high, when he landed the right rear wheel broke and bent around to the back of the truck and brought the truck to a stop like an anchor.

During racing both Grave Digger and Goldberg were setting the course records and with that speed was catching some great air and barely being able to stop before going off the course. Goldberg proved to be a little faster, he took the win this evening. Sudden Impact and Destroyer gave it their all and put up a strong fight with great passes before being beaten in the semi-finals. Other St. Louis racing news: Madusa flipped her red, white & blue truck early in round 2 and Prowler broke in qualifying.

Formula USA Pro Quads debuted in St. Louis - There were 4 heats - Tim Farr won heat one, with Kory Ellis taking the second position. Jeremia Jones won heat two, with Bill Balance taking a strong second place on an indoor motocross track instead of his natural terrain of cross country woods racing. Shane Hitt checked out in heat three winning by a large margin to qualify him for a front row start for the main event. Keith Little with a stong performance out dueled Ben Jackson to take the final heat win. All eight would go on to have positions on the front row for the main event. It was a clean start once the light went green, but by the time twenty bikes were fighting to funnel into turn one the bar banging and nerfing had risen to a point something had to give. What gave was the ground giving Shane Hitt a bad headache and a sore ankle as he was thrown from his ride and was practically run over by the rest of the pack. There was a small pileup due to the incident and a few of the top riders were taken out of contention by the time taken to separate the quads from one another. It was Jeremia Jones race to lose as he started to check out in the early stages of the race. Tim Farr moved himself into second position and then as a seasoned veteran set himself up to make a challenge by the end of the race. With three laps remaining Farr started to make his presents felt through the infield in the tank trap section and over the big air 65 foot triple jump, but then would lose ground to Jones on the high speed, high flying doubles around the outer track perimeter. It all came down to endurance and with two laps remaining Jones made one small mistake and the 1999 Formula USA champion made his move and dove underneath in the right hand sweeper to take the lead. Jones recovered and was able to mount a challenge to recover the first place position he had just lost through the rhythm doubles but Farr shut the door fast and played a perfect game of defense on the last lap to secure the Round one victory in the first step to defending his title.

It was a stiff night of racing in St. Louis...and the monster truck racing season has just begun!