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St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
June 12, 1989, Monday, City Edition
Monster truck makes big debut
BYLINE: CHUCK MURPHY
SECTION: PASCO TIMES; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 593 words
DATELINE: SPRING HILL
SPRING HILL - One can't help but wonder just how many drivers in Pasco and Pinellas Counties would love to be behind the wheel of the Thumper II when a traffic jam developed.
With a full head of steam, the Thumper II monster truck, which made its debut Sunday in Spring Hill, can sail over eight full-size cars or a motor home. What it can't fly over, it can crush.
"I sometimes wish I had it out (on U.S. 19) myself," said Earl Dagit, creator of the Thumper II.
The truck was on display Sunday in the parking lot at Papa Pizza Inn, near the intersection of U.S. 19 and County Line Road in Hernando County. Visitors crowded the parking lot to get an up-close view of the truck before it leaves the area for a tour of the east and Midwest.
Dagit began building the Thumper II in January and completed work on the huge machine June 1. It is the second of the Thumper trucks and replaces the Thumper I, which has been touring county fairs, tractor pulls and speedways from the Dagit family's base in Hudson since 1985.
The new truck is larger and more powerful than its predecessor. Its 484-cubic-inch engine generates more than 1,200 horsepower to power the 5-foot-6 tires through, over or around anything in the truck's path.
Dagit has been tinkering with monster trucks since the early 1980s, when he worked as a mechanic for a Pasco County Ford dealership. His hobby became a full-time job when the Thumper I made its 1985 debut.
The entire Dagit family is now involved in the work at the Holiday Truck & 4x4 business Dagit owns.
"Everything we make goes back into a new truck," Earl Dagit said. "We close up the shop now when we take the truck on the road."
Dagit's 16-year-old son, Clint, does the driving, while Dagit handles the mechanical work. His wife, Pat, helps with the business side.
Clint, who just completed his freshman year at Gulf Comprehensive High School in New Port Richey, admits that driving the big truck in front of huge crowds and occasional television audiences around the country makes him a little different from the average high school student. But he says he hasn't let the fame go to his head.
"A lot of people at school know that my dad built Thumper, but some of them are just finding out that I do the driving," Clint Dagit said. "But I don't brag about it or anything; I'm just a regular student."
Father and son will leave Wednesday for Pennsylvania and a one-month tour of events in that state and Illinois. Later in the summer, they'll head to North and South Carolina for competition against some of the other big machines on the Monster Truck Racing Association circuit.
The circuit includes races against some of the best known trucks in the country, including Bigfoot, the first true monster-truck superstar.
In fact, the popularity of Bigfoot is one of the reasons that Papa Pizza owner Joey Sarachman asked Dagit to bring Thumper II to his parking lot Sunday.
"Every time someone talks about a monster truck, it's always about Bigfoot," Sarachman said. "But here this guy is in your own back yard, and so few people know about him. I wanted to give people a chance to see Thumper, and it's not bad for my business either."
LOAD-DATE: November 9, 1992
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DISTRIBUTION: PASCO TIMES; HERNANDO TIMES
GRAPHIC: BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO, OLIE STONEROOK, (2); Earl Dagit's Lil' Thump, a 9-foot mini-truck, appears even littler next to Thumper II's giant 5-foot-6 tires; Stephanie Paulter sits in the 25-inch rim of Thumper II in the parking lot at Papa Pizza Inn in Hernando County (ran on page 1 in PT)
Times Publishing Company
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