The Monster X Tour rocked the Rabobank Arena this past weekend with three huge shows and TMB was on hand to capture all the action. With a star studded lineup including the always wild Godfather of the new Monster Truck Mafia, Bill Payne and Rock Star, the hard charging Donald Epidendio in Titan, and the legendary Dan Runte in Summit Bigfoot, every competition would be a tooth and nail fight to claim a victory. Friday’s racing bracket was all Donald Epidendio in Titan as he schooled former boss and teammate Bill Payne off the line in the short, straight line drag course for the win. Bill Payne in the all new Rock Star started the weekend strong, earning both the wheelie and freestyle wins with a nice wheelie and high-energy freestyle run to close out round one of Bakersfield.
Bill Payne in Rock Star was the weekend's big winner, sweeping all three wheelie and freestyle contests.
Saturday afternoon’s action began with a huge, past-vertical wheelie from Titan, but was edged out by Bill Payne in Rock Star’s walking wheelie off the car stack. Racing came down to Titan and Rock Star once again, with Epidendio earning the win on the J-style course over Payne, who made an incredible, bicycle save in the corner to keep the brand new body intact. A very strong performance by Epidendio in Titan would again be ousted by a fast paced freestyle from Bill Payne in Rock Star as he stayed perfect in Bakersfield freestyle competition.
Donald Epidendio in Titan was strong in every competition, narrowly losing to Rock Star time and again, but Donald did manage to take 2 out of 3 racing competitions.
Saturday evening’s wheelie contest was one of the best overall ever seen by TMB as every truck vaulted vertical. Despite a vertical wheelie and rollover from “Hillbilly” in Black Knight and a massive vertical wheelie by Titan, Bill Payne went on to sweep the weekend’s wheelie contests by catapulting Rock Star vertical and walking the truck off the car stack to the roar of the Bakersfield fans. After a strong weekend but no wins, Runte made it his mission to best the competition in racing and that he did, beating a smooth Garrett Ladelle in California Kid in the final round. To close the weekend, it was Bill Payne in Rock Star sweeping freestyle with two more incredible saves and vertical wheel stands on the beat up car sets.
The competition gave veteran Dan Runte in the beautiful new Summit Bigfoot #16 all he could handle, but he did manage to take the racing finale on Saturday night.
TMB would like to send a special thanks to Danny Torgerson and his crew with the Monster X Tour for putting on three, fantastic shows and having TMB on hand to film Episode 4.2 of the TMB TV Original Series! Lots of great coverage is coming your way from Bakersfield including a huge photo gallery from TMB’s Ross Z. Bonar along with the aforementioned TMB TV Original Series episode premiering Wednesday, February 16th. You can the same great lineup in action from the previous weekend’s event in Fresno, California on this week’s season premiere of MT Unlimited on Wednesday night at 8PM Eastern. To find out when the Monster X Tour is coming to a city near year, visit them online at www.MonsterXTour.com!
