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950 of 996 DOCUMENTS
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
January 21, 1990, Sunday, City Edition
It jumps, it crushes - it's Bigfoot
BYLINE: JACQUIN SANDERS
SECTION: TAMPA BAY AND STATE; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 678 words
A Plymouth pulled up in front of Performance Ford in east Tampa.
Through the passenger-side door came Timothy Morgan, 11, followed by a motherly admonition: "Timmy, you say no if they offer you a ride in that crazy thing."
Timothy did not dignify the suggestion with an answer. Possibly he didn't even hear it. His admiring gaze never wavered from the hulking, misshapen vehicle parked in front of the car agency.
Balboa never looked more fondly at the great Pacific than this child did at Bigfoot, most renowned of the mon-ster trucks.
Timothy joined a dozen of his peers, adult men in T-shirts, jeans and baseball caps. All stared wistfully at the truck. Now and then, one would step closer and look with great interest at Bigfoot's underside or at the gleaming 540-cubic-inch engine.
For those deficient in contemporary American culture, Bigfoot is an ordinary-looking Ford pickup truck mounted on colossal tires (5 feet, 6 inches tall; 4 feet wide). They make the truck above them look like a shrun-ken head, or at least a case of retarded automotive development.
Bigfoot is a TV star. On Friday, it was doing a personal appearance to plug a gathering of its ilk Saturday at Tampa Stadium. There, competing monster trucks would show why they have become the most
fetching thing on non-prime-time TV since the Flintstones lost their freshness.
They would race. (Bigfoot does the 150-foot lurch at about 50 mph.) They would jump. (Bigfoot takes off from a 3-foot ramp and leaps a cluster of fearful passenger cars, lined up side by side.) They would crush. (Bigfoot gets on top of a pile of old cars, scrunching them into a ball.) They would showboat. (Like Roy Rogers' Trigger, Bigfoot can rare up on hind legs - wheels.)
Bigfoot is a barnstormer, races nearly every weekend, has a driver named John Piant. At 26, Piant looks exactly as you would hope: tousle-haired and tall with an engaging grin.
It's a good bet that he'd rather be himself, driving Bigfoot, than Joe Montana. He would certainly rather be himself than George Bush.
"You get down out of this car, and you're just shaking you're so excited," he says. "In Indianapolis, I jumped over 11 cars, and it's hard to say it in words, but it was the biggest thing I ever did "
Suddenly the grin fades; he looks very serious. "There's another guy, he jumped 14 cars. But I never had 14. Eleven was the most we ever had for jumping."
Determination comes over his face. "One day I'll get a chance at 14. And more."
Piant grew up in St. Louis, where Bigfoot first saw the light of day 15 years ago, the brainchild of a truck equipment store owner named Bob Chandler. Now there are six Bigfeet out nearly every weekend, competing at monster truck rallies all over the country. Piant is the youngest of the drivers.
"First I was just allowed to crush cars. Finally, at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, last year, I got to drive one."
No training first? No practice? "Wasn't necessary. I knew exactly what I wanted to do."
Timothy Morgan had been watching Piant out of the corner of his eye. Finally, the driver approached and, very kindly, talked about the truck.
Timothy didn't say much until the end of their conversation. Then shyly he confided: "I'm going to be a mon-ster truck driver when I grow up."
"Hey, all right, go get it," said Piant, grinning. "See you in about 10 years."
Gravely, Timothy shook hands with the driver and then walked down to the road where his mother was waiting for him in the family Plymouth.
LOAD-DATE: November 11, 1992
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DISTRIBUTION: TAMPA BAY AND STATE
GRAPHIC: COLOR PHOTO, MIKE PEASE; John Piant, of St. Louis, poses with Bigfoot, a monster truck
TYPE: COLUMN
Times Publishing Company
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