PAUL SHAFER MOTORSPORTS
WORLD FINALS!!
NOVEMBER 19-20, 2005 - VOLUSIA COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS
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Welcome to THE MONSTER BLOG's
giant photo coverage of the first ever Paul Shafer Motorsports World
Finals!! THE MONSTER BLOG Special Contributor Flyin' Bryan Wagner
was down in Deland, Fl all weekend attending the event. Bryan took
some amazing photos and I am proud to have them posted here on THE MONSTER
BLOG. This coverage will be different from most of others in that,
instead of detailed descriptions of the entire event from start to finish,
we will simply let Bryan's amazing photography do the talking, while also
breaking in from time to time with comments and the Final Results from the
various competitions held at the PSM World Finals weekend. One thing I would like to point out before we get into this coverage is that because of the VERY large amount of photos Bryan took during this event (500-600), this coverage is setup rather uniquely. The main coverage consists of two pages, this one representing Saturday's action, and Page 2 which contains all of Sunday's action. From these two main pages, there are links to other pages containing the large number of photos, broken down by category. Please be sure to keep that in mind or you will miss out on a lot of amazing pictures!! Bryan arrived down at the Volusia County Fairgrounds on Friday evening, and took some shots of some of the things going on as the teams prepared for the event. THE LINEUP OF MONSTER TRUCKS
What a lineup for the show!! Many folks will probably still make a big deal about so and so wasn't there, or this or that didn't happen the way they said it would, etc, but the bottom line is, there was a Monster Truck show with 17 Monster Trucks in attendance that featured some great racing and freestyle action!! The fact is there just aren't too many times throughout the course of the year that Monster Truck fans are provided a show with that many trucks. Paul Shafer Motorsports actually ended up bringing more trucks than drivers, as truck from their stable attending included: Bearfoot, Frankenstein, Monster Patrol, Smoke, Rampage, Captain USA, Carolina Crusher, Kid Rock, Wild Thang, and Extreme Overkill 2. Larry Swim would handle the driving duties for Bearfoot, as usual, but would also be piloting the Kid Rock truck for the weekend, due to the recent departure of Amber Walker from PSM. Paul Shafer would drive the Smoke truck in racing, while Charlie Miller would take the helm for freestyle, due to Billy Wirth not attending the show. Team Bigfoot would be well represented also, with Dave Harkey driving Bigfoot #14, and Rick Long driving Bigfoot #11. Both trucks would be running the 30th Anniversary paint scheme. 2005 Monsters of Destruction Champion Kreg Christensen would also be competing in his Dragon Slayer machine, running the Tuff Country body for this event. Team truck Spiderman driven by Paul Jensen was also on hand. The final three trucks competing in the weekend's activities would be Dominator driven by Kyle Chandler, Equalizer driven by Mike Hawkins, and Bad News Travels Fast driven by Bruce Haney.
According to Bryan, the course where the Monster Trucks would be doing battle was located in a very large, open portion of the Volusia County Fairgrounds. There would be plenty of room for the trucks to romp around, wide open!! The racing track was setup as a straight line drag course, starting with a two-car roller, and a good 150 foot run up to 8-car set across the finish line. Although the racing lanes were a little uneven early in the day, the would be corrected in time for the competition to begin. The PSM World Finals Racing competition would use ProMT timing equipment to get the official times from each run, and ProMT official Eric Meagher was on hand to setup and maintain the equipment. Film crews from the Outdoor Channel were filming parts of the event for M.O.D. and the Sunshine Network, a Florida-based channel was also taking video during the weekend. SATURDAY TOUGH TRUCK COMPETITION
FIRST ROUND
Ricky Brantley
vs Dale Hair = Ricky wins
SECOND ROUND
Jason Makuch vs
Ricky Brantley = Jason wins (Results found on Super Truck Challenge Forum posted by Leroy)
The event would be using a 16 truck bracket format, so the slowest truck in Qualifying would be eliminated from the Racing portion of the event, placing a lot of pressure on the teams not to have problems in Qualifying. In the end, Bigfoot #14 and Dave Harkey would be the fast qualifiers, although not without problems. Harkey suffered a broken rear-axle during his run, and would have to thrash to get the truck ready in time for racing. On that run, Harkey was matched up with Larry Swim in Kid Rock, who also suffered damage, snapping the front tie rod. James Tigue II and the Carolina Crusher had major transmission problems during his run, but was still able to complete it. Doug Charles in the new Extreme Overkill 2 would be the slowest Qualifier however, and was eliminated from the brackets. See below for full Qualifying results and pictures.
ROUND 1
Shortly after Qualifying, the skies opened up and the Florida rained poured down upon the Volusia County Fairgrounds. This would make for some treacherous, muddy conditions for the Racing competition. Some of the highlights from Round 1 included Bigfoot #11 and Rick Long hitting the second ramp at a bad angle, and blasting over some of the ProMT timing equipment. Bruce Haney and Bad News Travels Fast would be a victim of the muddy conditions, slipping sideways on the first set of cars, forcing him to get out of the throttle, and handing the win to Larry Swim in the Kid Rock truck. Frankenstein received a bye run in the first round as Rampage got the Mag wet during the downpour and the truck would not fire. After Spiderman lost to Dominator in Round 1, Kreg Christensen switched rear-tires with Spiderman onto his own truck Dragon Slayer, hoping that the bigger lugs on Spiderman's rear tires would give him an edge in the next round. Click below to see pictures from Round 1 of Racing!!
Round 2 saw the fastest run of the day as Brian Harwood in the Wild Thang blasted down the course, running a 6.765 elapsed time and defeating Larry Swim in Bearfoot. Kyle Chandler in the Dominator experienced problems during his run, as a little bit of water from the rain got onto the master kill switch causing the truck to shut off in no man's land, handing the win to Kirk Dabney in the Monster Patrol. See below for pictures from Round 2 of Racing!!
Larry Swim in the Kid Rock truck got lucky during his run, as the truck pogo'd over the first jump, and really affected his ET. The luck came when Kirk Dabney in the Monster Patrol truck busted the rear end assembly in no man's land, allowing Swim to recover for the victory. Dave Harkey won a very close matchup against Brian Harwood, setting up a Bigfoot #14 vs. Kid Rock final!! Click the link below for pictures from the Semi-Finals!!
The finals were all set for a great race between Bigfoot #14 and Kid Rock, and the race sure was worthy of a World Finals!! The trucks blasted off the line even, and Kid Rock again pogo'd off the first set of cars, allowing Harkey to take the early lead in no man's land. Larry Swim applied a lot of power and started making his comeback charge!! Both trucks got a lot of air over the final set of cars, but because the finish line was set back about 50 feet past the last car, Kid Rock landed first and the extra burst from getting the tires to the ground first allowed him to take the win in final few feet!! Larry Swim would end up victorious over Dave Harkey and he would take home the giant 8 foot trophy!! Congratulations to Larry Swim for his big win!! Click below for pictures from the Final Round of Racing, and see below for the full brackets!! RACING FINAL RESULTS
The crowning of Larry Swim as the PSM World Finals Racing Champion ends our coverage of Saturday's action at the Paul Shafer Motorsports World Finals!! Click on the link below to view all of Sunday's action, including the Monster Truck Freestyle competition!! |
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CLICK HERE TO VIEW SUNDAY'S ACTION COVERAGE BY BRYAN WAGNER!! |
