The Toughest Monster Truck Tour season opener in Southaven, Mississippi featured everything that is great about this series: close competition, exciting wow moments, top notch production value and near capacity crowds. A big thanks to all the amazing people of Southaven for coming out to enjoy the shows, and to all of the drivers and crews for outstanding performances.
The 2017 Championship leader following Week #1 is none other than the masked man himself, Vinny Venom and Snake Bite. The famous BIGFOOT versus Snake Bite rivalry is alive and well, and if the first weekend’s results are any indicator, this may very well be the fight for the title. Venom piloted Snake Bite to wins in 3 of the 6 competitions held at the Landers Center, while BIGFOOT’s new lead driver Larry Swim took 2 wins of his own. Each driver would also end up with one Overall Toughest Monster Truck Trophy as well, with Snake Bite taking the crown on Friday night and BIGFOOT prevailing on Saturday. Jerry Beck was the only other driver to take home a Toughest Monster Truck Tour Medal, as he walked Dirt Crew on the back tires all the way to the Saturday Wheelie Competition win.
Following the first week of competition, Vinny Venom leads Larry Swim by a slim 8 point margin in the overall point standings. In this edition of Tough Talk here on ToughestMonsterTrucks.com, we are going to show how points are scored in each competition and how the 2017 Championship will be decided.
Wheelie Competition
The first event of every Toughest Monster Truck Tour performance is the Wheelie Competition. Each competitor gets 2 chances to try and stand their 10,000 pound monster truck straight up and down in a vertical wheelstand. Each attempt is worth up to 10 points from the Toughest Monster Truck judges, for a possible total of 20 points. After each competitor has run, the driver with the most points receives the Toughest Monster Truck Tour Medal. In the event of a tie, the winner is decided by a fan cheeroff.
Jerry Beck in Dirt Crew taking the Saturday night Wheelie Competition win in Southaven. (Photo by Maass Media)
Racing Competition
The second event for the monster trucks is a Racing Competition. The monster trucks are bracketed up in pairs and the winner of each match-up advances to the next round. When only 2 trucks are remaining, that final round match-up will decide the winner of the Racing Competition Medal. Points are awarded as follows:
Winner: 30 points
Runner-Up: 26 points
Semi-Finals Loss: 23 points
First Round Loss: 20 points
Vinny Venom in Snake Bite takes the very first Racing Competition win of 2017. (Photo by Maass Media)
Freestyle Competition
The final event and grand finale of each Toughest Monster Truck Tour performance is the Freestyle Competition. Each competitor has 90 seconds to put on their most impressive freestyle performance for a possible score of up to 40 points. Toughest Monster Truck Tour judges grade each freestyle based on 4 different categories, each worth up to 10 points.
- Use of Clock – 10 points awarded for filling all 90 seconds, with points deducted for any remaining time on the clock at the conclusion of the run.
- Use of Track – Up to 10 points awarded for hitting every obstacle in both directions, cross-threading obstacles, and using empty space on the track for donuts.
- Momentum – Up to 10 points awarded based on how fast drivers transition from move to move during their run.
- Wow Factor – Up to 10 points awarded based on how impressive each freestyle move is executed. Judges are grading based on the bigger the air, the more vertical the wheelie, and the faster the donut, along with looking for specialty moves such as slap wheelies and saves.
The points awarded for each category are combined for each competitor as their total freestyle score. The driver with the highest score receives the Freestyle Competition Medal.
Larry Swim getting wild in BIGFOOT on his way to the winning 2017’s first Freestyle Competition. (Photo by Maass Media)
Overall Toughest Monster Truck
Competitors fight it out at every event to determine who is the night’s Toughest Monster Truck. Points awarded in Wheelie, Racing and Freestyle Competitions are totaled up, and the driver/truck with the most points is awarded the Overall Toughest Monster Truck Trophy.
Vinny Venom strikes first, making Snake Bite the first Overall Toughest Monster Truck Trophy winner of the new year. (Photos by Maass Media)
Toughest Monster Truck Tour Championship
The total points scored by each truck, in each event are added together at the end of the season. There are 24 individual events being held in 2017, but only each truck’s best 20 scores are counted toward the season championship. This allows each competitor to drop their lowest 4 event totals from the season. Whichever truck’s best 20 scores total the highest number of points will be the 2017 Toughest Monster Truck Tour Champion.
Dan Runte (left) won a historic 5th straight Toughest Monster Truck Tour Championship last year. Larry Swim (right) will try to make it 6 in a row for Team BIGFOOT. (Photo by Maass Media)
Follow along with the 2017 Toughest Monster Truck Tour Championship battle in our new Results section. We will post the full results from each event as well as the current Championship Standings each week.
All of the fun of the 2017 Toughest Monster Truck Tour Championship continues this Friday and Saturday night at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Don’t miss your chance to see the Toughest Monster Trucks LIVE in person, the series is coming to a town near you:
January 20-21 – Rio Rancho, New Mexico
February 3-4 – Youngstown, Ohio
February 11 – Casper, Wyoming
February 17-18 – Salina, Kansas
March 10-11 – Saginaw, Michigan
March 17-18 – Independence, Missouri
March 24-25 – Lafayette, Louisiana
April 7-8 – Loveland, Colorado – CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKEND
CLICK HERE to get your tickets now, we look forward to seeing all of you great Toughest Monster Truck Tour fans along the way.
That’s all for this week’s edition of Tough Talk, It’s Time To Get Tough!
“Tough Talk” on ToughestMonsterTrucks.com is brought to you each week by series announcer Ross Bonar. Ross joined the Toughest Monster Truck Tour as our full time event announcer in 2016. When not calling the action on tour, Ross heads up TheMonsterBlog.com, the leading source of monster truck coverage for the last 10+ years. His video team, led by Colby Marshall, produces incredible coverage of Toughest Monster Truck Tour events, which can be seen on the “TMB TV” YouTube channel. The site also features amazing photo galleries by lead photographer Danny Maass, featuring all the action from our events. In addition to his work with TheMonsterBlog.com, Ross is a founding member of the Board of Directors for the International Monster Truck Museum & Hall of Fame, located in Auburn, Indiana.