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The Toronto Star
May 1, 1999, Saturday, Edition 1
MUD IS FOR BUDS
SECTION: WHEELS
LENGTH: 558 words
Torque, gears and monster machines unite the ages
Tyler Gray
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
ORLANDO, Fla. - Fine wine and toasted brie are spiffy. But mud pies and monster trucks make for mayhem.
The hottest ticket in town a few weeks ago was too dirty for a date.
Silly singles. Mud is for buds.
I'm talking monster trucks here.
One of my best friends and I witnessed the rip-roaring, high-flying, spine- snapping action of The Superboooowl of Motorsports! (insert growling exhaust noises and egregious echo effect here).
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! (Saturday, actually, but it didn't sound the same), my friend Charlie and I found our-selves dateless but determined to witness the ''Dodge Ram Monster Jam'' at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
Gone was the pretty green turf. Thick were the clumps of mud, mud bogs, mud tires and mud-slinging pickup trucks.
Charlie was just back from a long stint in Germany. We had some catching up to do, and we decided to bond over monster trucks and $4 cups of Budweiser.
We found that torque and gears transcend the ages and unite anyone who has ever sported a Garth Brooks T-shirt or a short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back ''mullet'' hairdo.
Thanks to Bearfoot, Bulldozer, and a half-dozen other four-wheel monsters, our bonding experience became something to remember. You just have to get out with a good friend now and then.
But before I stumbled upon one-on-one good times with one of my best friends, I did ask my girlfriend to go.
''Gotta work,'' she said.
At 7:30 tonight?
''Gotta work.''
Knowing her, I suppose she wouldn't have marveled at Grave Digger the way we did, anyhow. The trucks aren't for everyone.
But for some, gears and engines and head-over-heels, four-by-four flips fire up fun like ether in a carburetor.
All of that torque pushing all of that rubber ignites something primal.
Ten-year-olds get it.
They yelled good and loud so that the hoots and hollers buried our beer- basted crowing.
And only one teenager got irritated and politely asked us to ''please sit down'' while we were standing and cheering.
We apologized and shut up for a few seconds. But moments later, my metalhead friend and I found ourselves whoopin' it up with dudes in cowboy hats and good old girls in painted-on jeans.
I'm not saying the monster truck rally wasn't a family affair, either. Kinfolk were stacked by the row. Moms, dads and cousins by the dozens dove over railings and each other for monster mementos thrown into the throng.
But without a doubt, the hootin', hollerin' groups that packed the bathrooms and beer vendors were there sans sweethearts.
My best friend was the best company.
Charlie and I booed at Team St. Louis for faux fighting with Team Orlando in the ''quad wars.'' We cheered with the rest for the Hickabilly Express in the amateur dirt-racing rally.
And we dined on the diet of mud donuts spun by the Carolina Crusher. We laughed so hard, we almost fell out of the stands.
Could have been the beer, I guess.
I've said it before: Some ideas are better for friends than dates. That way, when you leave the stadium with a shirt full of four-by-four fumes, a $5 program and a handful of beer-scented commemorative tumblers, you'll answer only to the car-crushing monster truck in your head.
LOAD-DATE: May 1, 1999
LANGUAGE: English
Copyright 1999 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
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