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The sixteen trucks posing for a picture

Monster Jam World Finals III (also written as Monster Jam World Finals 3) was the third annual Monster Jam World Finals, held on March 23th, 2002 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event utilized a sixteen-truck lineup and was the last World Finals to be broadcasted live on Pay-Per-View. For the second year in a row, Tom Meents in Team Meents performed a double down, first winning racing against Jimmy Creten in Bounty Hunter, then performing an incredible freestyle performance with a score of 37.

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The track under construction..

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An overhead image of the back area, showing Avenger, Black Stallion, Bounty Hunter, Bulldozer, Firemouth, Grave Digger 20th Anniversary, Scarlet Bandit, Spiderman, Sudden Impact, and Wolverine.

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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/driver's last World Finals appearance).

  1. Black Stallion - Michael Vaters
  2. Predator - Allen Pezo
  3. Blacksmith - Pablo Huffaker
  4. Bounty Hunter* - Jimmy Creten*
  5. Hot Wheels* - Eldon DePew***
  6. Avenger - Jim Koehler
  7. Bulldozer - Guy Wood
  8. Sudden Impact - John Seasock
  9. Power Forward* - Chad Fortune*
  10. Madusa - Debra 'Madusa' Miceli
  11. Firemouth** - Carl Van Horn*
  12. Wolverine - Brian Barthel
  13. Gunslinger - Scott Hartsock
  14. Blue Thunder - Lyle Hancock
  15. Grave Digger - Dennis Anderson
    Screenshot 2018-09-01-00-42-24

    Grave Digger takes down the catch fence during racing.

  16. Team Meents** - Tom Meents

Special schemes[]

  • Hot Wheels made its debut.

Track layout[]

The track layout was the same as the last two years racing-wise, with a massive jump with a bus on top in the middle, a bus stack and a sea container on the left, and a 30-foot tall trailer and another bus stack on the right. For freestyle, a camper on a flatbed trailer would be added at the right lane entrance. Two cars would be added to the left lane entrance, and numerous additional cars and vans were added to the rows of blue and white crush cars (previously used in racing) and several motorhomes were added to the course as well.

Screenshot 2018-09-01-00-35-55

Qualifying.

Results[]

Qualifying times[]

  1. Team Meents - 14.45
  2. Wolverine - 16.28
  3. Blacksmith - 16.32
  4. Grave Digger - 16.69
  5. Hot Wheels - 17.46
  6. Bulldozer - 17.75
  7. Sudden Impact - 17.82
  8. Madusa - 17.84
  9. Gunslinger - 18.07
  10. Avenger - 18.63
  11. Power Forward - 19.37
  12. Predator - 24.38
  13. Black Stallion - 25.17
  14. Firemouth - DNF
  15. Bounty Hunter - DNQ
  16. Blue Thunder - DNQ

Racing[]

Round one[]

Team Meents vs. Blue Thunder (DNS)

Madusa vs. Gunslinger

Bulldozer vs. Power Forward (crashes)

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Grave Digger 20th Anniversary vs. Black Stallion (red-lighted)

Black Smith vs. Firemouth

Hot Wheels vs. Predator

Sudden Impact vs. Avenger (crashes)

Wolverine vs. Bounty Hunter

Round two[]

Team Meents vs. Gunslinger

Grave Digger 20th Anniversary vs. Bulldozer (crashes)

Black Smith vs. Hot Wheels (crashes)

Sudden Impact vs. Bounty Hunter

Semi finals[]

Team Meents vs. Grave Digger 20th Anniversary

Black Smith (crosses the finish line first, but loses due to a 10-second penalty by hitting two of the turning poles) vs. Bounty Hunter

Screenshot 20190507-165606

Championship race[]

Team Meents (crashes) vs. Bounty Hunter

Freestyle order[]

  1. Madusa
  2. Gunslinger
  3. Sudden Impact
  4. Firemouth
  5. Predator
  6. Black Stallion
  7. Bulldozer
  8. Wolverine
  9. Bounty Hunter
  10. Avenger
  11. Power Forward
  12. Hot Wheels
  13. Blacksmith
  14. Blue Thunder
  15. Grave Digger 20th Anniversary
  16. Team Meents

Freestyle scores[]

  1. Team Meents- 37
  2. Grave Digger 20th Anniversary- 36
  3. Blacksmith- 35
  4. Blue Thunder- 35
  5. Black Stallion- 32
  6. Wolverine- 30
  7. Sudden Impact- 24
  8. Firemouth- 24
  9. Bounty Hunter- 22
  10. Predator- 21
  11. Gunslinger- 20
  12. Madusa- 19
  13. Hot Wheels- 17
  14. Power Forward- 12
  15. Bulldozer- 8
  16. Avenger- 8

Encore[]

Wolverine, Bulldozer, Blacksmith, Grave Digger 15 and Team Meents (running on Spider-Man) came out for an encore. Bulldozer started by racing into the stadium from the left lane of Thunder Alley. Wolverine followed from the left lane, with Blacksmith following from the right lane, each going over an obstacle on the other side of the track from each other. Grave Digger would follow Black Smith from the right side, while Team Meents would follow Wolverine from the left side. Once the trucks met at the end of the stadium, Team Meents saved the truck from rolling over, as Grave Digger blew a tire, and Black Smith began to spin into donuts. Bulldozer then charged over the bus pyramid, breaking the right front wheel off on impact. Wolverine followed after Bulldozer, jumping the Pyramid, and also breaking off the front right wheel. Wolverine sped forward, popping the rear tire, and rolling onto its side. At this point, Blacksmith and Team Meents would park where they were, and Grave Digger climbed onto the buses and parked.

Other awards[]

Trivia[]

  • This event marked the first of the following occurrences:
    • The first World Finals event to have all the trucks in the field competing in freestyle.
    • The first World Finals event in which a certain monster truck was unable to compete for racing (Blue Thunder). Blue Thunder could not compete in racing due to brake problems during the introductions.
    • The first World Finals event where a monster truck that is ready officially competes for racing in a bye-run (excluding Spider-Man's test bye-run at Monster Jam World Finals II).
    • The first World Finals event to feature crush cars on the right side of Thunder Alley, allowing for drivers to perform their first hit in the beginning of their freestyle performances.
    • The first World Finals event where certain monster trucks would not touch any of the rows of crush cars (racing obstacles) when competing for freestyle (Gunslinger and Avenger).
    • This was also the second and last World Finals event where one monster truck would compete, but not touch any of the rows of crush cars at all (aside from qualifying). The first time this happened was at Monster Jam World Finals I due to Airborne Ranger running into a side wall in round 1 of racing, which would oddly prevent it from competing for freestyle.
    • The first event to feature drivers commentate in the broadcasting booth for racing and freestyle competitions.
      • In this event, drivers such as Tom Meents, Madusa (Debra Miceli), Lyle Hancock, Jim Koehler, and others joined in. One driver who did not compete in the event, Dawn Creten (driver of Scarlet Bandit, which was only displayed at the pit party) also joined in during Bounty Hunter's freestyle run, with one of Scarlet Bandit's flags attached to its rear.
  • This event marked the last of the following occurrences:
    • The last World Finals to be broadcasted on TNN.
    • The last World Finals to be broadcasted on Pay-Per-View.
    • The last World Finals to be commentated by Mike Hogwood.
  • This event marks Gunslinger's last World Finals freestyle appearance until Monster Jam World Finals 11 in 2010 when it returned with a different body design. At Monster Jam World Finals 4 and 6, the old version's motor was accidentally blown in racing.
  • Avenger would tie Bulldozer for the lowest score of the freestyle. It would then go on to win the freestyle title the next year, being the first, and currently only time a monster truck with the lowest score would go on the win the title the next year.
  • Bulldozer's freestyle was not seen on the VHS and DVD releases, and was only seen on the Pay-Per View broadcast of the event. It did a wheelie, which caused it to hit a van and roll over.
    • This marked the last time a truck's entire freestyle would be cut from the DVD and VHS tapes (although several trucks would have their freestyle footage cut short in the 2004 season).
    • The run can now be seen on Monster Jam's YouTube page exclusive to members.
  • This, along with World Finals XI, had the most racing crashes with a total of five, being Power Forward, Avenger, Hot Wheels, Bulldozer, and Team Meents who crashed after the race was over.
    • Four of the five crashes occurred in the turn in the right lane.
  • Avenger, Blue Thunder, Firemouth, and Power Forward all crashed in qualifying, yet both Avenger and Power Forward did make qualifying times. This was because they had crashed in practice as opposed to the actual qualifying pass.
  • This is the only World Finals to date to have the racing champion (Team Meents) crash in racing. The truck crashed after a failed donut attempt after the race, luckily there was barely any damage.
  • Grave Digger took down sections of the catch fence in Thunder Alley at two different times, at both lanes of the track. Oddly enough, the second time was never pointed out by the announcers.
  • There is currently no footage of the full encore available anywhere on the internet, and only very few and rare photos can be found. The only video footage available is a mere 5-second footage of the encore was uploaded in YouTube in 2018.

Pit party (Non competing trucks)[]

  • Second Blue Thunder (Note: This backup Blue Thunder did briefly appear in the staging area while Lyle Hancock's original Blue Thunder was under repair in round 1. It is unknown why the second Blue Thunder was not used as a replacement in racing, and the reason why it also never appeared in the encore remains unknown.)
  • Blue Thunder Ride
  • Destroyer (Ride Truck)
  • El Toro Loco
  • Multiple Grave Digger monster trucks
  • Inferno
  • Little Tiger (Note: Little Tiger's rear wheels would be reused on Wolverine for freestyle due to an issue with at least one of Wolverine's original yellow rear wheels in racing.)
  • Obsession
  • Prowler
  • Ragin Steel
  • Spider-Man
  • Scarlet Bandit (Note: One of Scarlet Bandit's rear flags was used on Bounty Hunter in both racing and freestyle, presumably to compensate for the fact Scarlet Bandit was not officially invited to compete at World Finals 3.)
  • Surf Monster
Monster Jam World Finals by Year
I (2000)II (2001)III (2002)IV (2003)V (2004)VI (2005)VII (2006)VIII (2007)IX (2008)X (2009)XI (2010)XII (2011)XIII (2012)XIV (2013)XV (2014)XVI (2015)XVII (2016)XVIII (2017)XIX (2018)XX (2019)XXI (2020/2022)XXII (2023)XXIII (2024)
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