Monster Trucks Wiki
Register
Advertisement


Lyle Hancock (born March 28th, 1955) is a retired monster truck driver out of Barco, North Carolina. He is best known for driving trucks such as Blue Thunder, Wrenchhead.com and Grave Digger. He also drove Nasty Habits.

Career[]

Hancock began his monster truck career by driving Mike West's Unnamed & Untamed and Nasty Habits.

In 1991, Lyle joined Team Grave Digger. He would become best known for driving Grave Digger III in the PENDA Points Series up until his initial retirement in 1995.

In 1997, Lyle drove Wild Thang in the February Houston show.

In 2000, Lyle would return to driving monster trucks full-time, when he joined PACE Motorsports to drive the recently-introduced Wrenchhead.com. Both truck and driver would go on to have a strong season, as they would be invited to compete in Monster Jam World Finals I. During the event, Hancock would be eliminated in the semi-final round of racing by Tom Meents in Goldberg and finished second in freestyle, behind Dennis Anderson in Grave Digger. He originally was going to do a reverse backflip. It's unknown it that was true, but he ended up reversing through the container in the middle of the track. He would score a 39 out of 40. Hancock would also briefly return to driving Grave Digger that year in Anaheim to fill in for an injured Anderson.

In 2001, Lyle would become the new driver for the recently-introduced Blue Thunder. He would debut the truck at the Astrodome in Houston and would go on to sweep the event, winning the racing competition and finishing in a three-way tie for freestyle. Hancock and Blue Thunder would go on to have a strong season, as they would be invited to compete in Monster Jam World Finals II. During the event, Hancock would make it all the way to the championship round in racing, but lost to Tom Meents in Goldberg, crashing in the process. He would be unable to compete in freestyle that night.

In 2002, Lyle would again be invited to compete in Monster Jam World Finals III. Despite being unable to compete in racing due to mechanical issues, he would go on to finish fourth in freestyle.

2003 would be Hancock's final year of competition in Blue Thunder. Following his departure from Clear Channel Entertainment-Motorsports, he would retire from competition. However, he would briefly come out of retirement in 2007 to drive Sudden Impact for an event in Israel.

World Finals appearances[]

  • 2000 - Wrenchead.com
  • 2001 - Blue Thunder
  • 2002 - Blue Thunder
  • 2003 - Blue Thunder

Gallery[]

Advertisement