THE ROAR of big Chevy engines and the thrills and spills of monster truck racing had a capacity crowd of over 5000 monster truck fans on their feet for the Monster X Tour at the Korumburra Showgrounds.
All the big drivers were there Pat Paquet better known as PsychoPAT, driving MonstaTron, Kevin King in Moonshine Madness, South Coast Monster Trucks owner Simon O’Neill, Jarryd Xuereb and Ryan Ciszek.
“They came from all over Gippsland and Melbourne,” said Monster X Tour promoter Tracey Mitchell, who has been running Monster trucks with Simon O’Neill for ten years.
“MonstaTron, Bush Ranger and Moonshine Madness all belong to us,” said Tracey.
Based in Korumburra, the Monster X Tour takes Simon and Tracey to Cairns, Darwin and Perth as well as small country towns in Victoria and New South Wales.
“We just love the power, energy and excitement of it all.”
For Simon, it’s about making a noise jumping over shipping containers and cars.
Running 8-71 superchargers on methanol drag racing fuel, the big block Chevy V8s in the monster trucks produce 1500 Hp delivered to 66 inch wide tyres via a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission or two-speed Turbo 400 gearbox.
“The trucks are valued at close to half a million dollars each,” said Simon.
Bush Ranger was imported, but South Coast Monster Trucks builds and modifies its own trucks from a small, unassuming shed in Korumburra.
“We change over engines and beef up the gearboxes.”
Monster truck engines only last about 30 hours before they need to be pulled apart.
Kevin King in Moonshine Madness has been driving monster trucks for 20 years.
“I enjoy driving,” said Kevin.
“The fans let me know, they go crazy.”
The noise is what attracts monster truck fans.
“Loud and fast,” said Kevin.
“It adds to the excitement. Monster trucks are huge in America.”
Based in Georgia, Kevin King said monster trucks regularly attract 60,000 to 70,000 diehard fans, the biggest crowd was 1.2 million near Shanghai in China.
Flips and hitting containers hard and lifting over them are part of the game. And that didn’t stop a couple of hiccups early on when the early madness and bone-crushing power saw pieces of the trucks fly across the grounds.
“Caravans and cars, not a problem,” said King.
“This is relatively small to what we can get in America.”