FRESNO – On a gorgeous, sunny Saturday, Hobbytown USA in Fresno would once again be the site of the RC Monster Truck Showdown and what an event it was! While the turnout for the stock class (none) and 2.2/Mega (three) class was underwhelming, the quality and quantity of the Mod class more than made up for it with 24 trucks competing in racing and freestyle.
Preparations began the night before as it was announced the racing format would consist of a bit of a throwback to the Monster Jam “Cyclone” style race course. This modified form of Chicago style racing used about 10 years ago had both trucks starting in the middle of the track facing each other at a roller jump. From there, both trucks would hit jumps on the outside lanes before taking the two inside jumps in a roundy-round Chicago style finish.
The racers started showing up early with a strong showing from the Southern California area, most driving over 4 hours to compete. Once the trucks were prepped, they were placed on the track where all competitors and spectators voted on who would be the winner of the JConcepts Show & Shine prize.
After the votes were tallied, Michael Letcher’s unique, new Kraken Axial SMT10 based truck was the runaway winner. He received a JConcepts body and RC Monster Truck Showdown crew shirt.
Finally, it was time to go racing! The 2.2/Mega class would start with two qualifying passes and then run a knockout bracket until one competitor claimed three victories. In the end, Isaac Soria and his Bigfoot was the first to get three victories over Tony Gabriel and Jacob Smallwood and would take home the set of JConcepts Tribute Wheels and Firestorm Tires.
With the 2.2/Mega trucks done, the stacked Mod class would get two qualifying passes with the best time being used to seed the bracket. There were some wild moments and surprises to get the event going with Eric Myers losing a wheel and crashing his Terminator SMT10 into the pits and unable to make the racing bracket. Isaac Soria and the Lucas Oil Crusader would take the top qualifying position with R/C Monster Jam World Finals competitors Trever Adamo and Michael Iacono right behind him.
With the brackets set, the top 9 trucks received a bye into the second round while the remaining 14 would go head to head in round 1. While most of round one was chalk, there were two upsets both at the hands of Jessica Dahl who took out last year’s runner-up Stephanie Iacono’s Pretty In Black (15th seed) with her blue Knucklehead truck (18th seed), and then beat her 10th seeded significant other Michael Letcher’s red Knucklehead with her 23rd seeded Monster Mutt Dalmatian in the most exciting race of round 1.
The upsets would end there as all of the trucks that received byes in round 1 would take victories in round 2 with the only upset being a photo finish of Kraken (9th seed) taking out Larry Turner’s Titan (8th seed) setting up a quarter finals that featured 8 trucks and 5 drivers. Isaac Soria’s Crusader took out the Kraken, Trever Adamo’s Wild Flower knocked out Michael Iacono’s Roush Performance truck, then Trever’s Hang Time beat Isaac’s Over Bored, and then the final four was set with Brent Newman piloting Launch Control over Iacono’s Scooby Doo.
With two Proline Bounty rewards on the line, Trever Adamo still had both trucks in the competition and on either end of the bracket. After knocking out the number one seeded Crusader, it came down to Brent Newman piloting one of Adamo’s trucks to prevent an all Adamo finals. In what ended up being the race of the day, Trever and Hang Time would win in a photo finish. In a showing of great sportsmanship, Trever decided to put the Bounties into the remaining prizes and a third place race would be the final race of the day with Brent taking out Isaac making the podium a 1,2,3 finish for Trever’s Warpath chassis. You can watch the full, unedited Mod class race here.
The track was completely changed for freestyle adding multiple ramps and adding room to the floor. After Tony Gabriel took the 2.2/Mega class win, the carnage would continue in the mod class with the order being the reverse order of the racing bracket. Eric Myers started things off and gave Terminator all it had until it literally would not run anymore with broken axles, gears, and servo (the Terminator body became an obstacle for the rest of the event), and Kris Ribali later would find out just how solid of a foundation the Hobbytown walls were built on as his Fluffy truck would take a hard hit that ended up breaking the front housing. They would end up splitting the Beef Tubes Carnage Care package.
While valiant efforts were made by Tony Gabriel’s Zombie and Kris Ribali’s Hooligan early on, the creme rose to the top with Michael Iacono’s Roush Performance truck taking the lead late with a high speed run that filled the clock and featured the only cyclone donuts and a monster backflip attempt to end the run that ended up bending the frame. With only two trucks remaining, Trever took it “easy” on Wild Flower but put on an all out air assault with Hang Time finishing the run on three wheels and leaving no doubt who the overall champion of the event would be. You can watch the freestyle portion of the event here
Big thanks to everyone for coming out and making this a fun event for all competitors! A big thank you to JConcepts, Beef Tubes, and Pro-line Racing for sponsoring the event and providing the prizes. Special thanks to Tony Gabriel for helping organize the event, Trever Adamo for providing additional ramps and photos, Larry Turner for the lights, Lindsay Sinopoli for scoring and paparazzi photos, Michael Iacono for video, and Eric Myers for the racing and freestyle action shots!