Tom Meents
Tom Meents (born June 10, 1967) is a professional monster truck driver. He currently drives Maximum Destruction (truck) on the USHRA Monster Jam circuit.
Career
Meents started out as a mud racer, driving his own vehicle, Shake Me. Meents experienced his first wreck when he rolled the Shake Me over at a USHRA Mud Race in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He won the NMRO Open Class championship in 1992. He later teamed up with Paul Shafer to drive Shafer's Mud Patrol vehicle. Tom won the NMRO Class 5 championship in 1993 and 1994 and won the Class 6 championship in 1993. This also led to an opportunity to drive one of Shafer's Monster Patrol monster trucks, which Tom drove to a quick rise in popularity. Among his accomplishments in this truck was a victory at the USHRA U.S. Truck Fest in 1997.
Meents bought the truck and in 1999 was commissioned by PACE Motor Sports (now Clear Channel to run a Bulldozer (truck) body to help increase the truck's exposure. In his first event with Bulldozer, Meents defeated Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger on national television, becoming an instant star in the process. Meents would continue driving Bulldozer until the end of 1999.
In 2000, Clear Channel commissioned Meents to drive a new truck, Goldberg, named after the WCW wrestler. Meents was extremely successful in the truck and rose to an even greater level of popularity, despite controversy over the truck's wrestling basis and unconventional looks. With Goldberg, Meents won the inaugural Monster Jam World Finals racing championship in 2000, and completed a full sweep of the event in 2001. This event was notable for the controversial "grand finale", in which Anderson and Meents attempted to drive over each other's trucks at the end of the freestyle competition.
When the WCW folded at the end of 2001, Meents debuted Team Meents, which was a repaint of Goldberg with a similar design and lettering style. Meents again swept the World Finals in 2002 with this truck.
In 2003, the truck got a brand new image with the debut of Maximum Destruction. Meents' popularity has remained high with this truck, with several major stadium event victories, but he has not had the success in the World Finals he had with previous trucks. Despite berths in the first three World Finals since switching to "Max D.", he had only been able to score a co-championship in freestyle with Madusa and El Toro Loco (truck) in 2004. Finally, in 2006, Meents broke through and regained the Monster Jam freestyle championship.
Meents has several signature moves in freestyle, including high-speed "cyclone" donuts, "side surf" two-wheel driving, and roof and wing walks where he stands on the roof or wing (as on Monster Patrol) of the truck while it is still in motion. Another is Tom sticking his left hand out the window while flying through the air. Tom also has a reputation for hitting obstacles at unconventional angles and at higher speeds than other drivers, and has been criticized for the high number of rollovers which please the crowd but are sometimes seen as unnecessary.
Awards
USHRA U.S. Truck Fest Champion - 1997
USHRA World Finals Racing Champion - 2000, 2001, 2002
USHRA World Finals Freestyle Champion - 2001, 2002, co-champion 2004, 2006
Some Cool Sites
USHRA |
MonsterTrucks.net |
Monster Style |
Raceway Park |
Monster Truck Madness |
BMC Choppers |
Shafer Motorsports
Avenger |
Black Stallion |
Bounty Hunter |
Grave Digger |
Gun Slinger |
Madusa |
Sudden Impact |
T-Maxx |
American Guardian |
Bad News |
Big Toyz |
Big Crunch |
Big Dawg |
Bigfoot |
Black Widow |
Blown Thunder |
Brutus |
Captains Curse |
Carolina Crusher |
Cyclone |
Demon |
Devil's Dodge |
Equalizer |
Eradicator |
Goliath |
GraveDigger |
Jurassic Attack |
King Krunch |
Obsession |
Phantom |
Predator |
Raminator |
Randy Brown |
Samson |
Shocker |
Shockwave |
Slingshot |
Swamp Thing |
Thrasher |
The Broker |
War Wizard |
Wildhair |
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Am I missing any monster truck driver websites? let me know
Lets trade links, see your site on mine! let me know
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