Monster Jam World Finals II

Monster Jam World Finals II
Promotional logo.
Host	SFX Motor Sports Group
League	USHRA Monster Jam
Date	March 24th, 2001
City	Las Vegas, Nevada
Venue	Sam Boyd Stadium

Monster Jam World Finals II (also written as Monster Jam World Finals 2) was the second annual Monster Jam World Finals, held on March 24th, 2001 at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. Similar to the previous Monster Jam World Finals, this event utilized a sixteen-truck lineup, and was broadcasted on Pay-Per-View. However, unlike the previous event, this one was actually live, making it the first World Finals event to have a live broadcast. Tom Meents in Goldberg would perform the first double down in World Finals history, first winning the world racing championship against Lyle Hancock and Blue Thunder, then would go on to perform an incredible freestyle performance with a score of 38. This would also be the very first World Finals to feature an encore performance, which was unplanned.

Lineup

(Note: * indicates a truck/driver's first World Finals appearance).

(Note: ** indicates a truck/driver's only World Finals appearance).

(Note: *** indicates a truck's final World Finals appearance).

1. Spider-Man* - Gary Porter**
2. Bulldozer - Eldon DePew*
3. Wolverine* - Brian Barthel*
4. Sting*** - Tony Farrell*
5. Predator - Allen Pezo
6. Avenger - Jim Koehler
7. Sudden Impact - John Seasock
8. Wrenchead.com*** - Jill Canuso**
9. Black Stallion* - Michael Vaters*
10. Madusa - Debra 'Madusa' Miceli
11. Gunslinger - Scott Hartsock
12. Blue Thunder* - Lyle Hancock
13. Blacksmith (racing only)*/Ragin Steel (freestyle only)** - Pablo Huffaker*
14. Destroyer* - Dan Evans*
15. Grave Digger - Dennis Anderson
16. Goldberg - Tom Meents

The field of trucks. Notice the addition of WCW Nitro Machine as a 17th truck for the photo despite not making an official World Finals appearance.

Special designs

• Goldberg featured a sparkling golden design.

Track layout

The track during Goldberg's freestyle.

The track featured the same J-hook style racing format as the previous event, only with no obstacle in between the racing lanes. On the left side was a ramp and landing pad, featuring a box van. On the right side was 30-foot tall trailer, rail car pyramid, and van jump. This was also the first Monster Jam event to feature a mobile home as an obstacle in freestyle.

Qualifying

1. Wolverine - 16.12
2. Goldberg - 16.23
3. Gunslinger - 16.42
4. Blue Thunder - 16.53
5. Spider-Man - 16.99
6. Grave Digger - 17.22
7. Sudden Impact - 17.37
8. Predator - 17.48
9. Madusa - 17.81
10. Bulldozer - 17.87
11. Blacksmith - 19.29
12. Avenger - 19.68
13. Wrenchead.com - 20.73
14. The Destroyer - 21.33
15. Sting - 23.49
16. Black Stallion - 37.64

Predator's unseen qualifying crash.

Gunslinger's unseen qualifying run.

Goldberg and Bulldozer during their qualifying runs.

Racing results

Round one

Wolverine vs. Black Stallion

Predator vs. Madusa

Grave Digger vs. Blacksmith

Wrenchead.com vs. Blue Thunder

The Destroyer vs. Gunslinger (wins, but crashes head on into the wall protection and cannot return)

Spider Man vs. Avenger (wins, but breaks the rear tie rod and cannot return)

Sudden Impact vs. Bulldozer (crashes into wall protection, but barely has any damage and is able to continue)

Goldberg vs. Sting

Round two

Wolverine vs. Predator

Blue Thunder vs. Blacksmith (wins, but flips into wall protection, cannot return)

Spider Man vs. The Destroyer

Bulldozer vs. Goldberg

Round two racing incident

The yellow turning pole making impact with the water pipe.

During the round two race against Goldberg and Bulldozer, Goldberg struck a turning pole in Thunder Alley, which in turn destroyed a water pipe. The resulting incident caused flooding in the chicane, and it was later decided that the track would be shortened, with the trucks starting inside the stadium instead.

Semi-finals

Wolverine vs. Blue Thunder (note: this race was run twice, due to a bad start for Wolverine, but Blue Thunder won both times)

Goldberg vs. The Destroyer

Championship race

Goldberg vs. Blue Thunder (crashes)

Avenger almost going over due to its breakage in round 1.

Avenger after fixing the broken tie rod, but somehow popping its left-rear tire before the second round race.

Spider-Man's unseen test bye-run down the flooded path.

Blacksmith's crash in round 2.

Blue Thunder's crash in the championship race.

Freestyle order

(Note: * indicates that a truck's freestyle performance was only shown on PPV).

1. Predator
2. Sudden Impact*
3. The Destroyer*
4. Wrenchead.com
5. Black Stallion
6. Madusa
7. Spider-Man
8. Avenger
9. Sting
10. Ragin' Steel
11. Bulldozer
12. Goldberg
13. Grave Digger

Freestyle scores

1. Goldberg - 38
2. Wrenchead.com - 36
3. Grave Digger - 36
4. Avenger - 34
5. Sting - 34
6. Madusa - 33
7. Spider Man - 31
8. Black Stallion - 30
9. Bulldozer - 28
10. Ragin Steel - 27
11. The Destroyer - 23
12. Predator - 22
13. Sudden Impact - 19
14. Gunslinger - DNF
15. Blue Thunder - DNF
16. Wolverine - DNF

Sudden Impact's PPV-only freestyle.

Destroyer's PPV-only freestyle.

Wrenchead.com's freestyle crash.

Grave Digger 14's freestyle crash.

Encore

World Finals II featured the first-ever encore in World Finals history, which started the tradition of having encores after the main event of the World Finals. After Dennis Anderson's freestyle ended prematurely and the show had extra pay-per-view time left, an entirely improvised encore was featured. Grave Digger VII would first come out onto the track for a bonus freestyle performance, only to crash early in the process. After that, a third Grave Digger, XII, came out and jumped onto Goldberg (which was still stuck in the semi-trailer obstacle). Finally, a second Goldberg would come out, only to ram into a damaged Grave Digger VII (which was still left out on the track), causing it to roll onto its roof.

Grave Digger 7's encore crash.

Grave Digger 12's encore crash.

Goldberg 2's encore crash.

Other awards

• Rookie of the Year: Steve Reynolds: Bulldozer
• Sportsman of the Year: John Seasock: Sudden Impact & Jim Koehler: Avenger
• Crash Madness: Eldon DePew: Bulldozer

Controversy

Despite the show's legendary status and positive reception from fans in attendance, there was controversy and suggestion among some who followed the sport closely and those involved in it, mainly regarding the freestyle competition and subsequent encore. During the PPV broadcast, Brian Barthel expressed his disapproval over the fact that so many trucks seemed to be destroying themselves on purpose for the sake of entertainment, rather than trying to drive clean, which could explain one reason as to why he did not freestyle at this event. This was part of a growing concern regarding the then-new freestyle competition, and whether or not drivers were taking too many dangerous risks for the sake of winning. TruckWorld.com would publish multiple emails in their monthly newsletter, both positive and scathing, from fans and members of the industry who contacted them with their thoughts and suggestions as to what Monster Jam should do from that point forward. This led to then-SFX vice president of marketing Ken Hudgens to issue a response to the emails, explaining every decision that was made at the event and assuring that there would be multiple rule changes for the 2002 season, namely regarding the issue of trucks crashing into and driving on top of one another. Ultimately, Monster Jam's direction would largely rule in favor of those who praised the show.

Trivia

• This was the first World Finals in which trucks would remove fiberglass pieces of their bodies for qualifying, a tradition that continued up until Monster Jam World Finals XII.
  • Allen Pezo's Predator actually flipped over in qualifying. Pezo came out of Thunder Alley, and when he approached the turn, he overturned the truck and rolled it. The truck blasted a flame and it extinguished itself when it flipped onto its left side. Photos of this crash were taken and posted on the old USHRA website, and one of them was also used as the CD jewel case's interior for the 2002 video game, "Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction." Pictures of the crash can be found on the old USHRA website via the Internet WayBack Machine Archive.
• The footage of Goldberg and Bulldozer's qualifying runs showed something the track design was originally going to have. It initially meant to have two short sea containers (or one long sea container) for a giant freestyle obstacle, with two white vans on one side, and two stacks of white cars on the other. However, this ended up being changed probably to add a bit of variety, though a similar concept featuring blue and white crush car stacks and red buses was introduced in the 2002 season and used at Monster Jam World Finals III.

• Sudden Impact's and The Destroyer's freestyles were not shown on the DVD or VHS release, and shown in highlight form on the TV broadcast. Both trucks ran very brief runs before breaking down. This lead to John Seasock's fuming interview after the run being cut out as well, where he uses mild profanity, and Dan Evans' interview being cut as well.
• Despite Lyle Hancock missing out on the freestyle competition, he was interviewed about Wrenchead.com's spectacular freestyle run, and Dan Moriarty claimed that it was time for Blue Thunder to top Wrenchead's freestyle score of 36 (which sadly never happened). For unknown reasons, this segment was cut from the home video releases.
• This event marked the first of the following occurrences:
  • The first World Finals to be broadcasted live on Pay-Per-View.
  • The first (and only) World Finals to not utilize a center ramp.
  • The first (and only) World Finals in Las Vegas to feature a unique racing format other than the famous Vegas Style due to a major incident in round 2.
  • The first World Finals where a certain truck (Wolverine) would be the first winner of racing, but not compete for freestyle. The truck somehow broke a pick-up tube during the second race against Blue Thunder and lost oil pressure as a result.
  • The first World Finals to publicly broadcast qualifying times for the racing competition, although not all qualifying footage was shown.
• This World Finals has the highest average score across all seventeen World Finals freestyle competitions to utilize manual judging, having an average score of 30 (not including trucks that were unable to freestyle).
  • This is likely attributed to the fact that this World Finals saw a record number of freestyles score more than 30 points, with eight trucks reaching that mark.
  • Including the trucks that were unable to compete in freestyle, the average is 24.375 points, second most in that category.
• Jim Koehler ran a "3" flag on the back of his truck during this event as a tribute to Dale Earnhardt Sr., who had recently died in a tragic accident at the final lap of the 2001 NASCAR Daytona 500.
• Jim Koehler actually made it to the starting line to face Dan Evans in round 2, but the left rear tire of Avenger was flat for unknown reasons, resulting in USHRA officials ordering Gary Porter to come to the line and make a pass to get a feel of the track as soon as he made a test bye-run in Spider-Man. This was only seen on the PPV broadcast. However, a monster truck that is ready wouldn't officially compete for racing as a bye-run until a year later at Monster Jam World Finals 3.
• It was mentioned in the live Pay-Per-View broadcast that there were several backup trucks behind the scenes at the event for use by drivers if their trucks failed to start for freestyle, including Little Tiger, Ragin Steel, WCW Nitro Machine, and other Grave Digger versions. Even then, only Ragin' Steel would be brought out for use in the competition by Pablo Huffaker to replace Blacksmith. It is unknown why Brian Barthel did not bring out Little Tiger as a replacement (and move Wolverine's wheels to Little Tiger), nor why Lyle Hancock did not bring out one of the backups, even though Blue Thunder could have been repaired in time for freestyle. Plus, some cases where monster trucks lacking many of their original fiberglass parts would compete in freestyle began at later World Finals events, such as El Toro Loco's World Finals 5 championship freestyle run in 2004.
  • Because Ragin' Steel wasn't ever set to perform, as it was only there for display purposes in the first place, it had no brakes. Temporary driver Pablo Huffaker had to borrow brakes from one of the Grave Digger trucks to drive it. This may be the reason why Dennis Anderson only brought out three Grave Diggers for the encore when he actually had four.
• This is the last World Finals to feature any sort of WCW sponsorship, particularly with Goldberg and Sting, as the company was shut down only 2 days later. This would also be Sting's last show and WCW Nitro Machine's last pit party appearance as such.
• Sting would use three sets of tires during the weekend. The truck arrived on shaved and rounded Goodyears, displayed and raced with a set of Firestones, and freestyled with a less-shaven set of Goodyears. It is unknown why these swaps occurred, and one of the only times where a fleet truck ran Firestone tires.
• Multiple celebrities were in attendance, as shown standing on a platform underneath the scoreboard. This included Bill Goldberg, Karl Malone, Courtney Cox, David Arquette and Matt Leblanc.
• Mike Vaters was claimed to be the Thunder Nationals champion on the broadcast, thus justifying his appearance at the event, yet the 2001 Thunder Nationals championship would take place the following weekend. To add to that, Vaters was not the reigning champion from the previous year either, as both 2000 and 2001 Thunder Nationals championships would go to Mike Nitzke in Rambo.
• During Black Stallion's freestyle, his second "reverse" move was portrayed as if he accomplished it in his final five seconds of freestyle time. However, what actually happened was he didn't have time to make it over, as he needed time to align himself with the obstacle, which was more than he had time on the clock. Mikes decides to do it anyway to appease the fans. However, the home video portrays this completely different. It cuts out the preparation time to show it immediately. Mike's dialogue, "...the time has expired," were also said before move took place, but on the home video, it was after.

Non-competing trucks

(Note: Two of the three pit-party Grave Digger trucks and the second Goldberg were featured in the encore. However, because the encore was solely for the fans and there were no competition points given out, they were technically non-competing trucks. Also, Pablo Huffaker did borrow and drive Ragin' Steel for freestyle, since Blacksmith had crashed over the containers in racing.)

• Bounty Hunter
• Grave Digger VII
• Grave Digger XII
• Grave Digger X
• Second Goldberg
• Little Tiger
• The Monster Bus
• Nitro Machine
• Ragin' Steel (Note: As mentioned above, Ragin' Steel was borrowed by Pablo Huffaker for freestyle, thus it never made a World Finals racing appearance but did unexpectedly make an official World Finals freestyle appearance.)
• Scarlet Bandit

Dennis Anderson standing in front of Grave Digger 10 at the World Finals 2 pre-show.