Words by: John Schultz and Collin Cocores

Pics by: Collin Cocores and John Schultz

Yet again, HPI, in conjunction with Ultimate Hobbies in Orange, CA, were in full effect! The R/C Demo show started on Friday, and ran throughout the entire autograph session that ended on Saturday. HPI handed out massive amounts of catalogs, as well as knowledge with the full support team we had out there demo’ing. Everything from Wheely King’s to Baja 5B’s could be seen catching crazy amounts of air, and leaving quite an impression on all that spectated for even a minute. Things got even wilder towards the end, when you could find the likes of Dennis Anderson, John Seasock, and Damon Bradshaw both driving the cars and trucks, as well as making the crowd go wild for autographed items such as bodies, wheels, and tires.

Monster Jam World Finals consisted of four action packed days of showing, building, practicing, qualifying, racing and ALL OUT destruction! Watching from the ground up building the track, putting trucks together, tuning suspension and motors, reworking components, making sure everything is perfect. The stress levels were high, and the field was full of talks and plans of attack on how to get to the finish line first. The first two days consisted of autograph sessions with the fans and drivers, taking pictures, and answering questions. And they all had only one thing on through mind the whole time- WINNING! There were over 40 truck at the event and only 24 invited for the show!

There were speeds in excess of 70 mph in the 24-foot lanes that seemed to shrink to 24-inches. Trucks were rubbing walls coming out of Thunder Alley to get to the turn first and line up to clear the 5 car stack to the finish line. Jimmy Creten’s of Bounty Hunter was there for business, and ended up coming in second in the racing. But John Seasock of Batman was on a mission, he was FOCUSED, and he knew what to do and how he needed to do it. Making no mistakes each round and getting to the finish line first was his goal, and he is now the 2008 Monster Jam NGK Spark Plugs World Finals Racing Champion!!!

Who was to conquer the freestyle? Who was going to take it to the next level? The goal was to get to 90 sec without braking or ending up on their lid. Freestyle was out of control with an 80-foot triple, buses, cars, boats, a waterfall, YES, a waterfall. Right from the start Chad Tingler driving Monster Mutt Dalmatian set the bar high! Hitting the triple perfectly making no mistakes we all knew it was going to be tough to beat! But again, Team Creten was there in full force, but this time it was Dawn Creten showing us that girls can drive and lay it down! Out hitting everything she could, she went for the triple and had a bad bounce which sent her on her nose and on the gas, all to turn into a SPECTACULAR SAVE!!! Over and around on the gas and she pulled it out! And the crowd went out of control! As each truck came out they knew they had to bring it! Tom Meence in Maximum Destruction went big and broke a steering knuckle, Dennis Anderson Broke an axle and then caught on fire, all while driving it in the ground as he would put it! But the man with a new truck this year, Adam Anderson in TAZ, with an awesome run, cross threading everything hitting whatever was in the way, jumping every obstacle that he could and still drove his truck off the field with minimal damage. Adam Anderson in TAZ ended up being the 2008 Monster Jam NGK Spark Plugs World Finals Freestyle Champion!!!

HPI would like to send a big congrats out to John Seasock of Batman and Adam Anderson of TAZ. Way to go guys!!

Also- make sure to check out CBS Prime Time 1-hour special coming up at the end of this month to see all of the action for yourself!

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