The Announcer - By Brian Varmecky

(April 24th, 2007 - www.wmtrl.com)

- Take It Outside

     After four months of indoor racing, it’s time to take the action outdoors. Heading into the summer season, Marc McDonald holds the top spot with 15 wins in 30 events, averaging 70.17 points per race. Pablo Huffaker is a close second with 13 wins and 1807 points. There’s a good chance Huffaker will get more events than McDonald during the light Monster Jam summer tour (as compared to their winter tour).

     On both of their heels is the defending World Champion Mark Hall in Raminator. There’s no doubt that the Raminator will get plenty of action this summer, as the Special Events tour has begun and Monster Nationals will be outdoors soon, too. Hall has won an amazing 17 of 20 events and has missed the final only twice. What’s more impressive is that he’s done it with an EWR of 0.958, meaning he has been running in difficult fields.

     Linsey Weenk may be a spot behind Hall, but can boast an EWR of 1.004. Weenk has 9 wins in 25 events. Randy Brown is in 5th and may be the new Mr. Consistency of monster truck racing. Brown has 12 wins in 28 races, but he has never finished lower than 5th in the WMTRL world standings. Jimmy Creten has 6th and picked up a big win in Montreal. Both Weenk and Creten will have full schedules during the summer as they will be competing on the Chris Arel tour, J&K tour, and at the San Bernardino Monster Jam.

     Neil Elliot has won half of his events and holds 7th. Gary Porter, the inaugural WMTRL champion, is in 8th with 21 finals in 27 events. Charlie Pauken makes for a 4th Digger in the Top Ten and has 9 wins. Rounding out the Top 10 is Michael Vaters, who has 9 wins in 19 finals and is looking for his first WMTRL Top Ten award.

     Some other notables:

- Tom Meents is in 11th with only 14 events so far this season. He needs at least 6 more to be included in the final

  standings.

- Sean Duhon nearly won the CFP championship, but fell to Dan Runte in Pocatello. His strong winter has him ranked 12th.

- Dan Patrick broke into the Top Ten last year and could repeat with a strong summer. However, without the MOD tour this

  year, he may not be able to get enough big events.

- Rick Raab has only 5 of his 26 events, but has been running consistently and is ranked 14th.

- Team Bigfoot seems to be on the verge of a big summer and perhaps a championship run. All four drivers are in the Top 20:

  Dan Runte (15), Dave Harkey (17), Keith Sturgeon (18) and Rick Long (20). Collectively, the team has won 53% of their

  events (36 of 67) and average 62.52 points per event. (In comparison, Team Grave Digger has won 37% (62 of 168) and

  average 61.52 points per event.) Team Bigfoot is hurt a bit by running at lower ranked events (an average of 0.825), but

  more so by running in fewer events . . . so far. Currently, only Keith Sturgeon has competed in more than 20 events. But,

  with the Chris Arel and Special Events series coming up, Bigfoot should make another mid-year charge.

- Another team to watch out for is Rebel Racing of Michael Hawkins and Billy Chapin. Currently ranked 23rd and 24th, the

  two has 16 wins and 30 finals together. Expect more outdoor events from the two during the course of the summer.

     Remember that the minimum number of events is currently 14, but this will be increased to 20 before the end of the year. We don’t yet have a date set for when the final minimum will be implemented. This is the first year using the higher minimum (it was only 10 races the past 3 years), so we’re still gauging when it’s best to set the cut off date. Until then, we’ll be increasing the minimum incrementally every few weeks.

- Week In Review

- Upsets of the Week

Charlotte, NC – Rookie Whit Carlton earned his first career win by defeating mentor Gary Porter in the finals at Bobcats Arena.
Salt Lake City, UT – Rookie Ron Duncombe has been making a name for himself driving the Maverik Monster Trakker. During week 12 in Salt Lake City, he defeated Dan Rodoni, Mike Wine, and Phil Foster during the weekend, and advanced to the final round on Saturday night. He still needs 4 more events (currently) to become ranked.
Worcester, MA – Bobby Robbins knocked off Chad Tingler and Grave Digger in the opening round. Alex Blackwell swept the weekend.
Waco, TX – Devin Jones earns his 3rd win of the season by defeating Doug Noelke in the Chicago-Style finals.

- Spotlight

     In 2005, Bigfoot’s Rick Long earned the WMTRL’s Rookie of the Year award after winning 11 of 34 races and earning a ranking of 38th. This year, Team Bigfoot has another potential Rookie of the Year in Keith Sturgeon.

     Sturgeon is in his first full season behind the wheel of Bigfoot #10 but has already broken into the Top 20. In 22 races, he has 11 wins in 17 final round appearances. The next closest rookie is Live Nation’s Bobby Parr, ranked 31st with 4 wins in 15 events.

     He started his year going 1 for 2 in 4 events in Las Vegas. In El Paso, he won 1 of 2 finals. On the CFP tour in Belton, Sturgeon swept the weekend with wins over Richard Blackburne and Sean Duhon. He was runner-up twice in Austin, TX, but came back the next week and won both finals against Devin Jones in Odessa, TX. Sturgeon was kept out of the finals in CFP Monroe, LA where Sean Duhon swept the weekend, but went 1 for 2 in Jonesboro, AR the following week. He extended his winning streak to 3 with two more wins in Pasco, WA, but only won 1 of 2 in Fort Wayne. Most recently, Sturgeon split the weekend with Larry Birch in Durham, Massachusetts.

     Being Bigfoot’s #4 driver has kept Sturgeon out of the biggest point events, but he has been running consistently and has been improving each week. His next scheduled event, however, is WHR’s event at the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Washington. This event is traditionally a bigger one, and could provide Sturgeon with a chance to increase his lead in the Rookie of the Year running.

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