What a long two weeks it has been since my last update.  Following the Colorado Springs show, spare time has been as odd of an idea to me as DaVinci’s helicopter design was several centuries ago.  Colorado had treated us better this year than it had in ‘05, so hopes were high that the dreaded “Cleveland Curse” that has stricken our team for the last three years would be non-existent.

While most of my winter schedule is wrapped around the Monster Nationals tour, Tim, Darrell, and I made a stop in Dayton, OH for the first of two Checkered Flag Productions shows being held the same weekend as the Cleveland Monster Nationals event.  Geremie Dishman and his brother Mat would be carrying the Raminator name into Hara Arena for the first time ever, so we decided to stop by and see how it was going on Friday.  Geremie piloted the HBR005 Raminator to a final round win over Excaliber, after taking the top qualifying spot and defeating High Voltage earlier in the evening.  G-Whiz also managed a solid run in freestyle that earned him the win in that category as well, despite the lack of anything on the track to really get big air off of.  The two leaf-sprung Jeeps (High Voltage and Hot Stuff) made very effective car compacters, as they left little for the rest of the field to get air off of.

We left Geremie and Mat in Dayton late Friday night, and made our way in the darkness to Cleveland, making a brief stop outside Columbus at an all-night Waffle House.  I’m not sure if my hash browns really were “covered”, “topped”, “smothered”, or “capped”, but they were edible and that was all I cared about that late at night.  The Wolstein Center at CSU welcomed us in the early morning hours of Saturday, and we crawled into our beds in the two race haulers parked outside the arena, knowing all too well that sleep is a precious commodity the night before a two-shows-in-one-day event.

Before I say anymore about the Cleveland event, let me give you some background information on the Lenco transmissions that our race trucks run.  They are a three speed transmission, but they are neither an automatic nor a traditional manual trans, nor are they engaged via a fluid coupling (automatic) or a pedal clutch (traditional manual).  Rather, a Lenco relies on compressed CO2 to activate “plungers” on the top of the transmission housing, in conjunction with a centrifugal clutch.  When activated, these plungers force a series of clutch packs together inside the trans housing, which transfer the rotating force of the engine to the transfer case and on down through the driveline.  Though originally designed for use in lightweight drag racing cars, the Lenco has found success in the Monster Truck world since the early 1990’s, when trucks like Bearfoot, Samson, and Executioner made the switch from automatics.  The Bigfoot racing team even experimented with a Lenco in one of their early tube chassis, but later abandoned it in favor of a more traditional C-6 auto.  The rearmost “pod” of a Lenco trans, commonly referred to as the “reverser”, is the section that the range selector, or shift linkage is attached to.  While the first two or three “pods” in a Lenco transfer power, the “reverser” pod actually determines in which direction that power will be used (forward or reverse).  While the forward range was more than capable of handling big-time HP numbers, the reverse parts were not so strong.  Movements as simple as backing out of a transporter or backing up at the line during staging were enough to break the lightweight reverse parts, thus robbing the truck of the ability to back up any further.  As mentioned above, these transmissions were designed for a lightweight drag car, not a five ton truck.

In 2004, our team debuted a prototype Lenco that was several inches longer than the normal 3-speed.  The increased length was the result of a longer reverse pod, developed in conjunction between Tim Hall and Lenco.  This new pod promised to be stronger not just in reverse, but in forward as well.  Lenco even said that a reverse wheelie would be possible with the newer, stronger reverser.  We just rolled our eyes.  Cleveland would be the first test for the new trans, and the new trannies were no match for the Cleveland Curse.  Though we managed a final round win during the evening show, it was at the cost of both prototype transmissions, and more than a handful of gear changes as the transmissions failed systematically throughout the shows.  Since then, however, those teething problems have been ironed out over time, and now we have come to rely on this new generation of Lenco.  I swear by them, as they are easier to work on, way faster to change, lighter, less messy, and more effective on outdoor tracks.  With four people from our team working on one of our trucks, we have changed a Lenco in as little as 12 minutes, which is unheard of when using an automatic trans.

Anyways, the idea of doing a reverser with a Lenco truck still seemed silly, but in February of 2005, Mark Hall attempted one in Battle Creek, MI at a Monster Nationals show.  Well, it was a not-so-stellar end to a really stellar freestyle.  You see, Mark learned the hard way that he needed to shift to at least second gear while in reverse to get enough speed to do a real reverser. Instead, in first gear, Mark backed over the cars…he was blushing the entire time, I’m sure.  Since then, we’ve not attempted one again, though we had an idea of what we needed to do to make it work right.

The “Cleveland Curse” I mentioned above has stricken us for the last few years, making freestyle and racing wins difficult at best, and frequently impossible.  The first show on Saturday started off well enough, though nothing particularly outlandish or out of the ordinary happened, until freestyle, that is.  Andy Hoffman and his Nitemare Chevrolet are well known on the Monster Nationals tour for wild reverse jumps. Andy has won a number of freestyles with his reversers, which often clear three to five cars.  Dale Benear and I had been trading jokes shortly before his freestyle run, about how I thought he should go out and do a reverser.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one planting this particular bug in his ear.  As Dale began to wrap up a fast-paced run, complete with big air and donuts, he crawled over the right lane of cars, then came to a stop on the other side, facing straight forward at Nitemare, of all trucks.  A voice on the team radio reminded him to shift into high gear, and he did just that, stabbing the gas a mere five or so feet from the cars.  With such a short run, I didn’t expect much of a jump, but to my surprise the truck carried the rear wheels past the last car, clearing the entire set.  The first (known) successful reverser by a Lenco-equipped truck.  Dale and our entire team were all smiles after that run.  Unfortunately, the smiles didn’t last much longer.
 

There was so much fixing going on all day that I still can’t remember for sure what we broke when, though the most adrenaline-charged part of the weekend had to be the middle of the second show.  Mark broke a transfer case output shaft during his freestyle run, ending it prematurely.  We had two options: fix the shaft, or go ahead and replace the entire transfer case with our spare, which was in the Raminator hauler outside the arena.  Both options involved removing the entire transfer case itself, so the decision was made to go ahead and try to replace it between the end of freestyle and the start of racing.  That gave us about 30 minutes to do what would normally be a 4+ hour ordeal.  I sprinted out to the hauler and managed to get the spare T-case down from the loft, and then carried it what seemed like 25 miles back into the pits in the arena.  Though made almost entirely of billet aluminum, the damn thing weighed well over 100lbs, probably closer to 115 or 120.  I was near exhausted by the time I made it back to the pits, and on a side note, I’d like to thank the arena staff for NOT opening ANY doors for me.  Thanks!
 

Long story short, we were able to get the transfer cases swapped out just in time for Mark to make the call for his first round race against Big Dawg.  Mark, amped up from the frantic parts swapping, brought Raminator’s big Hemi up to nearly 6,000rpm’s on the line, and launched with ferocity rarely seen on the Monster Nationals tour.  The truck catapulted itself across the cars, beating Big Dawg easily, though the pogo-stick landing on the concrete dealt a blow that our team just couldn’t repair in time.  The landing sheared four of the six bolts that fasten the wheelie bar to the frame, bent the rear axle housing, bent two four-link bars, badly mangled both rear wheels, and destroyed the rear driveline.  Dale soldiered on in Rammunition, until a broken front ring and pinion ended his night earlier than any of us would have liked.
 

Madison, WI would be the next stop on the Monster Nationals tour. Madison is three shows over three days, Friday through Sunday.  That gave us Monday through Thursday to repair the damage done to both trucks, plus complete maintenance on Geremie’s race truck, AND finish his new pit cart in time for his western swing of CFP shows.
 

Our team proved the level of devotion, dedication, and hard work we are capable of (as though the transfer case swap wasn’t enough ) by working diligently every day, everybody starting on time just before 7a.m., and nobody leaving before 6p.m. or so each night.  Mark spent many late nights performing welding tasks that the rest of us aren’t quite as proficient at, so we tried to help pick up the slack some in other areas.  Darrell covered the body shop end of things, patching up the damage to the rear body panels, which Travis then re-decaled Thursday night.  Travis and Dale, with the help of Mark, tore into the wounded Raminator’s rear axle area, while I commenced replacing the broken front pig in Rammunition.  Geremie and Mat had their own tasks needing taken care of to ready themselves for their trip, while Tim oversaw the operation and took care of engine maintenance.  Nobody had one specific task, however; we all just jumped in when something needed done.  These long days and long evenings coupled with strenuous work pushed everyone’s patience to the breaking point more than once, as we felt not only the stress of making sure we made the Madison event in good condition, but also the burden we place on ourselves to do the absolute best job possible.  Our wives and girlfriends spent evenings alone that they normally wouldn’t have, but they understood that we are driven, both by the success we’ve earned and the success we still crave.
 

In the middle of all of this fixing and replacing, the great Frank Kidd, photographer extraordinaire and amateur comedian, came down from Detroit to photograph our team for the new hero cards that will be coming out next month, and for any other media-related stuff Dodge has planned for us that might require a team or individual photo.  I think that the day-long photo shoot was a much needed break in all of the seriousness that we had been burdened with of late, though it did put us in more of a bind time-wise.  Nevertheless, the humorous spirit of our team shined through, as the lens was filled with just as many silly pictures as serious ones.  I suppose you could say that we like to ham it up a lot….in some cases, a really, really, BIG ham.
 

After all was said and done, the last race truck was loaded up Thursday night, in time for everyone to go home and get a bit of sleep and head out early the next morning for Madison.  Though we faced more than our fair share of parts breakage, thanks to a sub-par batch of axle components, Madison was definitely better to us than Cleveland had been.  Mark managed to take the win Friday night, and lost by inches in the finals Saturday night.  Dale had an equally successful weekend as Mark did, losing to Mark in the finals Friday night and winning Sunday’s finals over Big Dawg.  Mark also captured the freestyle win on Friday night, and both guys put on a great show in the other freestyles and wheelie/donut contests.  I should also add that I dominated the “Monster Truck Crew R/C Race” during Saturday night’s show.  I matched up against LMD crew chief Jeff Perrin, both of us equipped with Traxxas E-Maxx trucks.  The race was a one lapper, a “green-white-checkered” if you will.  I piloted the Raminator-bodied E-Maxx to victory, and even threw in a couple wheelies and donuts to cap it off.  I later admitted to Jeff when we were joking around out in the parking lot that I have an E-Maxx of my own, and that my significant other works for one of the largest R/C distributors/manufacturers in the world.  I still had fun though, and we shared some laughs over it.
 

Usually, the end of the Madison event on Sunday means a trip to Steve Combs’ house for a laid back dinner and evening of storytelling, jokes, and merriment.  Steve, in case you didn’t know, is the owner of Knight Stalker, arguably the premier monster truck shock and steering cylinder builder; not to mention, he and his wife are also downright nice people all around.  Unfortunately, the state of our crew and the hectic schedule of the past week and the coming week prompted us to return home ASAP, thus keeping us from hanging out with Steve.  We left Madison feeling a bit better than we did when we departed Cleveland, though I must admit I was just as tired and hungry.  I think the rest of the crew was as well, so the Rochelle, IL Petro fell victim to the onslaught of hungriness that our team had become.  While the Iron Skillet ranks low on my list of favored dining establishments, it fit the bill that night just fine, especially considering that the Cracker Barrel is not very accommodating when you are driving around 75ft long race haulers.  A couple hours later we rolled into the shop, and not long after I rolled into bed for some well-earned shut-eye.

The Monday following Madison would be a much appreciated day off, so after a bit of sleeping in (and a very annoying power outage), I decided to venture out into the frigid Illinois weather and enjoy some quiet, with nothing more than myself and my camera.  My trip eventually led me to the local air museum (located on the former Chanute AFB), where I appeased the aircraft buff in me.  (For a side-story and some photos of my day off, check out my post on the Monster Blog Fan Forum).  My work week kicked off Tuesday morning bright and early, as we began the entire process all over again.  East Lansing, MI plays host to the next stop on the Monster Nationals tour this coming weekend, for a one-night-only race at the Breslin Center.  I’ll do better to stay more on-time with my blog updates, as a two week span clearly takes up too much space!

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my blogs over the past weeks and months, and extended thank-you’s to those who have written to me with your thoughts and comments; as always, much appreciated.  Rock on!

- KD
 

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