Weekend Race Recap
Friday - An all-star line-up proved to an excited crowd in Louisville's Freedom Hall just how much parity there is in Monster Jam today when four separate competitions were won by four different competitors in the Friday night opener of the annual Fright Night weekend in Kentucky.
Opening the action it was Frank Krmel nailing a pair of huge sky wheelies to take the wheelie contest, then 2008 World Freestyle Champion Adam Anderson amazed the crowd with a dizzying roung of cyclones to make his Taz truck a winner in the donut contest.
The extremely competitive race bracket saw Alex Blackwell take advantage of a second chance to bring Captains's Curse home the winner of the Championship Race. In the semifinals Taz defeated Captain's Curse in one of the closest races of the night but at the end of the battle Taz broke his rear steering, allowing Captain's Curse the chance to advance into the Championship Race. There Blackwell took hold of the bonus opportunity, out running Gary Porter in Grave Digger for the racing victory.
Porter then rounded out the night with a huge, wild freestyle performance that made Grave Digger a one point winner over Randy Moore and War Wizard in the Freestyle Competition.
RACING RESULTS
1st round - Grave Digger def War Wizard; Blue Thunder def Bad News; Taz def Monster Mutt; Captain's Curse def Predator
Semifinals - Grave Digger def Blue Thunder; Taz def Captain's Curse (Captain's Curse advance to finals due to Taz's broken rear steering)
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - CAPTAIN'S CURSE DEFEATED GRAVE DIGGER
FREESTYLE RESULTS
GRAVE DIGGER 26
War Wizard 25
Captain's Curse 24
Blue Thunder 24
Monster Mutt 22
Bad News 20
Predator 19
WHEELIE COMPETITION
BLUE THUNDER 26
Captain's Curse 24
Taz 23
Predator 22
Grave Digger 20
War Wizard 19
Monster Mutt 18
Bad News 16
DONUT COMPETITION
TAZ 30
Grave Digger 29
Bad News 27
Predator 26
Captain's Curse 25
Blue Thunder 25
Monster Mutt 22
War Wizard 22
Saturday - Another balanced night of results from a strong, world class Monster Jam line-up saw Adam Anderson open the night with a pair of wins in Taz before Gary Porter took the top racing honors in Grave Digger, then Frank Krmel showed the pro-Ford Louisville crowd while that manufacturer tabbed him to join the Blue Thunder team by beating this star studded line-up to win the freestyle competition in Freedom Hall.
Anderson, the 2008 World Freestyle Champion, was the strongest of the talented field at the start, powering Taz to the victory first in the Wheelie Competitin, then Anderson duplicated his amazing set of cyclones from Friday to win the Donut Competition for the second straight night.
In the racing bracket Anderson put himself in position to make it three for three in the competitions on tap by rolling through the top half of the bracket to advance to the Championship Race. In the bottom half of the bracket Porter marched through to set up a final race that had the large crowd buzzing, pitting the youngest world champ in the sport's history against the 25 year veteran driving for the team that Adam's father created more tha a quarter century ago. This round went to the veteran as Porter drove Grave Digger to a truck length triumph over Taz to give Grave Digger the night's racing victory.
In freestyle it was Randy Moore in War Wizard who got the crowd rocking with an outstanding performance to take the lead, but then Krmel brought the big blue Ford onto the concrete surface. Performing in front of his family and friends who made the trip south from Michigan to see him in action, Krmel flew Blue Thunder through the air with a series of massive leaps, by far the biggest air of the night, to grab the lead. Taz was next in the performance order, but Anderson cut a tire ending his run early. Grave Digger came out last and Porter was sensational and had the night's greatest save, but the judges were clearly more impressed with Krmel's sic air and scored Blue Thunder one point better than Grave Digger, Krmel taking his first big freestyle win since joining the Blue Thunder team a couple months ago.
RACING RESULTS
1st round - Predator bye run (due to War Wizard mechnical problems); Taz def Bad News; Grave Digger def Blue Thunder; Captain's Curse def Monster Mutt
Semifinals - Taz def Predator; Grave Digger def Captain's Curse
CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - GRAVE DIGGER DEFEATED TAZ
FREESTYLE RESULTS
BLUE THUNDER 26
Grave Digger 25
War Wizard 24
Predator 21
Captain's Curse 18
Monster Mutt 15
Bad News 14
Taz 6
WHEELIE COMPETITION
TAZ 23
Grave Digger 22
Blue Thunder 20
Captain's Curse 19
Predator 18
War Wizard 17
Monster Mutt 14
Bad News 12
DONUT COMPETITION
TAZ 26
Bad News 25
Grave Digger 21
Captain's Curse 20
Predator 18
Monster Mutt 16
Blue Thunder 13
