Monster trucks are amazing. These beautiful, brutal behemoths have giant tires, super-powerful engines and transmissions, near-indestructible chassis and frames, incredibly loud and voluminous exhaust systems, spectacular paint jobs and incredibly talented drivers who can make the monster trucks do acrobatic tricks, jump high into the air and crush competitors with their gigantic wheels. A monster truck show is one of the most exciting, exhilarating, innovative, fun events you can experience with its roaring engines, smoke bellowing tailpipes, death-defying stunts and non-stop, heart-pounding action.
How Are Monster Trucks Transported? Transporting monster trucks takes large, strong, uniquely designed trailers specially prepared to protect these precious spectacles of advanced engineering. These special trailers are pulled by trucks with very powerful engines and industrial strength shocks and springs.
Moving Those Beautiful Brutal Behemoths
It takes special skills, powerful equipment, precise planning and flawless execution to move the monster trucks from one location to another while ensuring they are not damaged due to mishandling, negligent drivers or by road hazards. A top monster truck can weigh as much as 20,000 pounds. It takes a massive trailer to accommodate that bulk. Plus, you also have to transport a wide variety of spare parts that these rugged monster trucks regularly bend, twist out of shape and break during their performances. Without having those spare parts on hand, the show would quickly come to a screeching halt.
One of the first steps in safely transporting a monster truck is to remove and store its monster sized tires. Each of those giant sized tires weighs hundreds of pounds and are several feet tall and incredibly wide. Finding a trailer equipped to hold, secure, protect and transport the tires can present a challenge to the average transportation company. But experienced monster truck teams procure the perfect trailers for transporting the body of the monster truck and its tires as soon as they make the decision to build a monster truck and know the size, shape and weight of its body and tire.
Transporting a monster truck takes a full-time commitment from a cohesive team of specialists. Usually it will require a small fleet of trucks, trailers and support vehicles to make it possible for a monster truck to be able to do all the traveling it takes to compete on the widely spread out monster truck competition circuit. A small army of specially trained individuals are responsible for taking apart the monster truck after each appearance, making sure all the parts and equipment are in tip top condition and properly cleaned, oiled, greased and packaged to safely hit the highway.
Moving Monster Trucks Requires Special Equipment
When people see monster trucks standing on their rear wheels, billowing smoke, flying through the air and crushing competitors, few realize the army of support staff and countless hours of work and the vast array of specialized equipment it requires to move these big behemoths from one location to another. Standard power tools aren’t strong enough to remove the parts of a monster truck to prepare it to be transported. Specialized, more powerful and durable tools must be used. People toil for hours long after the show is over to remove, examine, secure and pack the parts of the monster truck for transportation.
Moving a monster truck is a massive undertaking. Each of the monster trucks has a custom built fiberglass body and a steel driver’s compartment safety structure that is built out of metal tubing and then mounted to the frame of the truck. Special tools, equipment and consideration is required to move it.
A team of experienced automotive specialists armed with their heavy-duty tools begin taking apart the monster truck and preparing it for transportation as soon as the show in which it appeared is over. Without the concerted efforts of each member of the team, stripping down, cleaning, repairing and replacing damaged components and putting them in the right trailer for transportation in a timely manner would be near impossible. The process of moving the specially-made large and oversized monster truck components across the country on tight deadlines 25 plus weeks a year requires specialized equipment on gigantic trailers and trucks calls for talent, commitment, excellent planning and advanced logistics.
The Logistics Of Transporting Monster Trucks
Transporting a massive monster truck back and forth across the country every weekend for six or more months a year can be a logistical nightmare. To make it work, monster truck teams work out the logistics well in advance. On the day of the monster truck rally, each member of the team is clear on their role and exactly what action they need to take for the team to work like a well-oiled machine. They must have all the required tools, equipment, trailers and trucks in place and ready to go. The stripping, loading and transporting of the monster truck follows a practiced choreography that saves time, energy and money.
A rigorous planning and post-mortem process after each show filters out errors and bottlenecks and helps the process to flow freely and all activities involved in transporting the monster truck to be refined, mastered and placed in the most efficient place in the process. Nothing is left to chance. Everything from cleaning and preparing the trailers to gassing up the vehicles to transport the monster truck is given a time slot and manpower allocation that works best within the overall process of transporting the monster truck from the current show to its next destination without a hiccup.
Each action related to the process of transporting the monster truck fits in and moves like clockwork. Everything that needs to be done is scheduled well in advance. Everyone knows who will be controlling the toter-tire with the monster truck’s tires after the show and who is responsible for removing damaged parts, replacing them with new ones and properly disposing of the old ones. This eliminates confusion, wasted time and motion and makes it possible to transport a monster truck, its spare parts and support staff hundreds of miles each week with military-type precision.
Transporting Monster Trucks Step By Step
Whether the monster truck companies are charged with transporting is involved in racing or freestyle events, the preparation for transporting them remains the same. The trailers that hold the massive pieces and those holding parts that are smaller and more sensitive and require special care, are prepared. The people responsible for getting the monster truck off stage and into the area where it will be taken apart stand with tools in hand ready to spring into action. As soon as the monster truck has completed it performance, the steps for transporting it to its next location begin.
Experienced teams streamline and consolidate key logistical processes over time to reduce the minutes, money and manpower required to get the monster truck from where they are to where they need to be next. The truck is stripped, packed and prepared to hit the road. The logistics team identifies the most direct, safest, route well in advance taking things like weather, traffic, terrain, road surfaces and landforms into consideration. This ensures the monster truck’s transportation path has as few obstacles as possible so it can quickly get to its destination and be ready to perform.
Having the experience, flexibility, skilled workers, equipment, transportation and logistics in place makes moving monster trucks to and from the sites of the events in a timely manner a breeze. Still, caution is taken to ensure the safety of these valuable, technologically-advanced vehicles as they’re transported to meet critical time requirements. Experienced drivers work carefully and expeditiously to get the monster trucks and their equipment to their destinations all over the country in the most economical and efficient way possible to ensure the monster truck is in place and ready to put on a great show.
A Variety Of Vehicles
Transporting monster trucks state to state and coast to coast requires a variety of types of vehicles and experienced licensed, insured and bonded professionals 7 days a week. Monster trucks on giant wheels is a uniquely American phenomenon that has its roots in the rural communities in the United States. Today a wide range of vehicles transport these trucks across international borders. With their 1,500 horsepower engines powered by three gallons a minute of methanol fuel and riding on nitrogen charged shocks and four-ling racing suspensions, monster trucks belch smoke and fire, do wheelies and donuts, jump off ramps, get big air and make people’s hearts race.
When the show is over these monster trucks are carefully packed up in trucks, trailers and other vehicles and taken to another location where they will drive over cars, do stunts and tricks and bring excitement, joy and laughter into the lives of countless people of all ages. Some think the people who transport the monster trucks are just as responsible for winning the championship trophies and accolades as the drivers who put the monster trucks through their paces and drive audiences wild.
