The quarter mile Riverhead Raceway oval asphalt track in Riverhead, NY plays host to Monster Trucks each Labor Day weekend. The Monster Truck weekend is the most anticipated weekend of Riverhead Raceway's schedule, which covers seven months of the year. For the Sunday show of Labor Day weekend 2000, the weather was rainy, gray, and (literally) electrifying. Shortly before show time, several loud thunder strikes were heard and several large lightening bolts were spotted only about a mile or two from the raceway. Long Island doesn't usually see lightening bolts in thunderstorms, yet this thunderstorm was large enough to produce them. The rain had left a very large puddle in the center of the track, where the cross sections of the Figure-8 met. But all of this dark weather didn't stop the Monster Trucks and the two races before them from going on, even though actual raining. The Monster Trucks that came to perform in freestyle were:
WWF The ROCK
Owner/Driver: Wildfire Motorsports/Tony Stephan
Hometown: Reed City, MI
Road Rage
Owner/Driver: Bob Shae
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Bigfoot 15
Owner/Driver: Bigfoot 4x4/Eric Tack
Hometown: Butler, PA
All three Monster Trucks parked on the mosh pit of cars that would later be assembled into rows for Freestyle.
Enduros
Before the Monster Trucks Freestyled, there was an Enduro race. An Enduro race is basically an "anything goes" race with about 100 laps and about 100 cars, even on a short quarter mile oval track. There hardly are cautions, and when there is one, it is because there is a bouncing tire on the track, a car starting to catch on fire, or too many cars incapacitated in one place blocking the track. Here are a few pictures from the Enduro race.
The slick track made usually a high amount of spins and crashes to be even higher than usual, as #97 and #19 go into a spin with a pack of ten cars close behind.
A high-speed spin on the front stretch.
Click "Next Page" for Bob Shae's Freestyle in Road Rage!