Monster Jam - Jan 7

On Sunday, January 7th, we thought we'd try something different for an outing with Alex. We took him to a Monster Jam, a large and loud display of huge trucks racing and doing stunts over a series of ramps. When I'd bought the tickets several weeks previous, I thought it was at the Oakland Arena, which is an enclosed venue. Turns out it was to happen at the Ring Central Arena, an open air arena adjacent to the Oakland Arena. In retrospect, that makes sense since Monster Jam is an extremely noisy event. Baseball games are often held there.

As the date drew closer, upon closer inspection of our tickets, we learned that torrential rains were predicted for that day. So there we were, the night before, at Ace Hardware, buying rain slickers for the three of us. We bought ear plugs, too, while we were there. We had tickets in the first tier, second to last row. Our seats were somewhere in the 120's, the orange section in the diagram. After all the fretting and prep, we were lucky to see our seats were under on overhang and we would be protected from the elements. There were even monitors so we could see the stunts up close on a big screen. 

There were three sections to the show: racing, stunts, and demo of driver skills. First, two cars at a time would race. Since they started 180° from each other and both raced counter clockwise simultaneously the winner was decided by time, not who crossed a "finish line" first. It would have been more thrilling to see them side by side. However the noise, Noise, NOISE they made as they gunned their engines certainly lent an air of excitement. I hearkened back to the time we attended a tractor pull back when Dan was at Cal Poly. 

The stunts and driver skills were impressive. They balanced on two front wheels, two back wheels or two side wheels while negotiated ramps and driving along several yards or just poised in precarious positions.

They were not always successful. The skills and finesse of the crane and forklift drivers that efficiently righted each vehicle and assisted it off the field were even more impressive in my opinion.

In the third section of Monster Jam, drivers showed off their skills. One particular awesome skill was where the driver drove up a curved ramp directly into a vertical wall (right middle of next photo). Front wheels climbed the wall and the vehicle did a 360° back somersault, ideally to land on all four wheels. Only one competitor was successful and then oddly so. When he flipped he landed on only two side wheels, teetered a bit, and then flopped unevenly sideways onto his roof. Unevenly was key. He rev'ed his engine and rocked and eventually with a rear tire righted himself! The physics of that maneuver seemed impossible but it worked.

The following photo is not blurry. After the first half of the show, the rain came pummeling down in the intensity of a downpour. I admired the persistence of those in the first rows who were unsheltered but stayed put. The rain slowed down a slight amount but was still pretty heavy, when we left the stadium after the show. We were parked fairly close – right by the porta-potties that we used as our landmark – but still got pretty wet on the brisk walk out to the car. We clambered inside, took off the wettest outerwear items, turn up the heat, and ate M&Ms, while we waited in the traffic to exit. It is a good thing that M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand.

Even amazing stunts, when they are repeated multiple times by various cars, begin to lose their magic. Alex stayed engaged for about two-thirds of the show but then just sat back and chilled for the remainder. Yes, he chilled and almost napped, even with the loud noise and the earplugs we'd bought that were useless to mitigate it. We enjoyed the experience and are glad we tried it, but will not be rushing back soon.