The reduced field consisted of Batman, Scooby Doo, Motorstorm, Undertaker USA and The Boss.
For the first time at Fairfield, racing was introduced onto the program. And so, the racing began with the Round 1 pairing of Batman vs The Boss. As expected, Batman made short work of the Boss with another quick run. Next up was father & son, Clive vs Billy with Motorstorm vs Scooby Doo. Both trucks stormed off the line with Motorstorm making the turn much better this time around and crossing the line 1/2 truck length in front of Scooby. It was a good race. Billy is getting better at making those turns!
The finals saw Clive in Motorstorm take on Barry in Batman. Clive maintained his right lane choice and Barry for the first time ran in the left lane. Again a quick start by both trucks, but Clive made the turn faster again and jumped the entire row of cars while Batman crossed the line only a truck length or so behind in second. Clive celebrated his win by chucking some donuts on the dirt infield. Sadly, this was the last time Motorstorm came out as oil pressure problems sidelined it for the rest of the night. I personally was looking forward to seeing what Clive could do in Motorstorm, but it wasn't to be.
Infill entertainment consisted of the car crane drop, which was done twice cos the car didn't get squished enough first time around, the Fast 50's, and appearances by the Mystery Machine Jet Van, the Strikemaster Jet Plane, Tranzilla and a new Jet car (a Daihatsu micro car with a jet hanging out the back, quite a sight!). The ever popular fireworks was again a great show.
The Monster truck sky wheelie challenge was next with Batman first out and on his very first jump layed out a sick wheelie which scored quite high with the judges. His second sky wheelie scored even higher getting major air with the truck still pointing skyward.
Next out was the Undertaker. You couldn't really expect too much from this truck given it was down around 1300HP on the other trucks, had no rear steer and had leaf sprung suspension - couldn't you? Call it bravery, or call it stupidity, Undertaker took a running leap at the cars, hit the dirt ramp and cleared 4 out of the 5 cars on its first jump. On the second attempt at the first stack, a longer run up meant it cleared ALL the cars and landed hard on the front wheels on the ground - this knocked something loose and caused the motor to slowly sputter out and die. No sky wheelies so no score for the Undertaker.
The Boss was out third with Troy Garcia behind the wheel, and with Troy, anything could happen! Again this older style truck couldn't really get much in the way of a wheelie happening, so Troy attempted to do something else spectacular and proceeded to hit each car stack right in the middle to try and roll the truck!!! Try as he might though, The Boss just wouldn't lay over - an end to these shenanigans was called when the right front tyre went flat - with the Boss stuck in the middle of a car stack!
Billy in Scooby was the final truck for the sky wheelie challenge. He a had a big reputation to uphold with what happened last year in Devils Dodge. His first jump proved he hadn't lost his touch with a huge sky wheelie and massive air. As he came off the cars and started to turn around though, more gremlins kicked in and the motor cut out ended his run prematurely. This one jump though was enough to secure him the win yet again over Batman, but it was a close competition.
The monster truck train was looking like it may consist of only one truck, but after some frantic work, both Undertaker and Scooby Doo were able to be re-fired and took their place in the train. Some more huge jumps by Batman and Scooby and even an actual sky wheelie from the undertaker (the landing of surely would have hurt) and the trucks then parked on top of the cars to the cheers of the crowd.
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