John Seasock (born July 3, 1965) is a retired driver out of Frackville, Pennsylvania. He is best known as the driver of Sudden Impact and Batman.
Monster truck career[]
Seasock started his career in 1991. In 1992, he purchased Tom Beitz’s Sudden Impact and performed his first show under this identity in Boyertown, Pennsylvania at a community event. Later that same summer, John would roll the truck while performing a reverse wheel stand at a company event for an excavating company in Pennsylvania. John drove this red bullnose Ford pick up until late 1994.
In 1994, Seasock would spend the summer season out west driving Pirate Pete for Mike Welch Motorsports. Upon returning back to the North East, John began driving Devils Dodge for Larry Birch of New Jersey. During the 1996 season John purchased Ron Burlson’s Storm Warning and renamed it Sudden Impact. This truck was where Sudden Impact gained its trademark teal color with orange lettering. John would change the suspension from leaf springs, to long travel nitrogen shocks, to coil over shocks before selling it to Rich Blackburne in 1998.
He drove Pat Summa's Above N Beyond in New Orleans of 1997. John drove Thrasher in Baltimore in 1997 for Pat Summa.
In late 1999, Seasock would purchase Robert Fisher’s second UFO/Liquidator 3 chassis and subsequently turn it into the third Sudden Impact. This truck was a rough copy of Marty Garza and Jerry Richmond’s Maximum Overkill and was quite competitive by design. With a low CG, long wheelbase, and coil over shock design.
Seasock would make many TV appearances in the early 2000's during Monster Jam on TNN and would become one of the veteran drivers of the sport and would make it to the World Finals four years in a row from 2000 to 2003. When Monster Jam switched from TNN to SPEED, Seasock would make fewer appearances with Sudden Impact, only appearing a couple of times on TV during the 2004 season. In San Antonio 2004, he drove Inferno. During this time, Seasock would debut a new look for Sudden Impact.
In 2005, Seasock would debut the T-Maxx truck and drove it in the 2005 season and events in the following calendar year. Unfortunately, he wrecked the truck in its first appearance at New Orleans. Meanwhile, Sudden Impact would be driven by Brandon Lagarde.
Seasock would only make one appearance on TV in 2006, driving T-Maxx at the final Pontiac show, before leaving the team all together. Carl Van Horn would take over as the T-Maxx driver. After the 2006 season, Seasock drove several trucks at events for the rest of the year, including Team Suzuki, El Toro Loco in Lebanon Valley and Hot Wheels and Inferno during the 2006 European Tour.
Seasock's big break would come in 2007 when he joined FELD Motorsports, who placed him behind the wheel of Batman, replacing former driver Jason Childress. Seasock won racing in Atlanta during one of his first appearances in his new truck and would make it to the World Finals for the first time since 2003 and won his first world championship in racing by defeating Dennis Anderson. Following this, Seasock would become one of the best racers in the sport and was considered at the levels of Dennis Anderson and Tom Meents in terms of racing skill. John drove Blue Thunder in Stafford Springs as a last minute fill-in.
Seasock entered the 2008 season as the defending world racing champion and as such, made it to the World Finals that year. Seasock successfully won the racing championship for the second year in a row, becoming only the second driver after Tom Meents to successfully defend his championship two years running.
Unfortunately, Seasock could not make it three in a row in 2009, as he would lose in the first round of racing at the World Finals to Lupe Soza in El Toro Loco, thus ending his two year reign as racing champion. Seasock would continue to drive Batman for the remainder of 2009 and in 2010. For the European Tour in 2010, Seasock drove the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle truck.
In late 2010, Seasock was announced as one of the two new drivers for the Advance Auto Parts Grinder truck along with Frank Krmel for the 2011 season, thus joining the team and leaving Batman, which would now be driven by the returning Norm Miller.
Seasock drove the Grinder truck throughout the season and at the World Finals in 2012 and 2013. He drove Grinder in the racing competition only, while Lupe Soza drove it in freestyle. The Grinder truck was retired at the end of 2013 when Advance Auto Parts dropped their sponsorship with Monster Jam and Seasock returned to drive Batman in 2014 until the DC sponsorship ended that same year and retired the truck. John also drove one of the Doom's Day's at the World Finals 15 encore. In Arnhem & Stockholm, John drove Spider-Man.
2015 would be Seasock's last year as a driver. That year he would drive N.E A. Police, even winning racing in Anaheim, CA. In 2016, Seasock retired from driving and in the same year, his son JR Seasock debuted driving Higher Education. His other son, Kyle Seasock is currently building, and will drive Violent Impact.
World Finals appearances[]
- 2000 - Sudden Impact
- 2001 - Sudden Impact
- 2002 - Sudden Impact
- 2003 - Sudden Impact
- 2007 - Batman (won racing)
- 2008 - Batman (won racing)
- 2009 - Batman
- 2010 - Batman
- 2011 - Advance Auto Parts Grinder (encore only)
- 2012 - Advance Auto Parts Grinder (racing only)
- 2013 - Advance Auto Parts Grinder (racing only)
- 2014 - Doom's Day (encore only)
Trivia[]
- During his time in Sudden Impact, John was known to stand on top of the truck while it was moving, which he usually did after a freestyle run if the truck did not flip over. He also occasionally did this during his career in Batman.
- John had previously suffered from bell's palsy.
- John was co-owner of Eradicator with Andy Slifko, as both drivers are from Pennsylvania.
- John is close friends in real life with former WWE wrestler, Gene Snitsky.