Monster Truck Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about Monster Trucks

Monster Truck Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is a monster truck?
A: A monster truck is a specialized truck with a heavy duty suspension, four-wheel steering, and oversized tires constructed for competition and entertainment uses.

How were monster trucks originally created?
A: By modifying stock pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

They have evolved into what?
A: Purpose-built vehicles with tube-frame chassis and fiberglass bodies rather than metal.

A competition monster truck is typically how tall?
A: Typically 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and equipped with 66-inch (1.7 m) off-road tires.

Monster trucks developed in the late 1970s and when did they come into the public eye?
A: They came into the public eye in the early 1980s.

Where?
A: As side acts at popular motocross, tractor pulling, and mud bogging events.

What were they used for at the events?
A: They were used in car-crushing demonstrations.

Today they are usually the what?
A: The main attraction with motocross, mud bogging, ATV racing, or demolition derbies as supporting events.

Monster truck shows typically have two main events, a race and a what?
A: A freestyle competition.

Races are conducted as a single-elimination tournament on what kind of tracks?
A: Short, symmetrical tracks, which may include obstacles such as junk cars or dirt mounds.

The length and complexity of the track can vary with what?
A: The size of the venue, with courses in indoor arenas typically being shorter with fewer obstacles.

In freestyle events, each driver puts on a performance consisting of what?
A: Stunts such as obstacle jumps, back flips, wheelies, and doughnuts.

Historically, additional vehicles for the drivers to crush, such as motor homes and school buses, were placed on the track specifically for what?
A: The freestyle event.

However, incidences of debris flying into the stands and causing serious injuries have influenced most event promoters to do what?
A: To turn away from such obstacles.

Most freestyle courses now consist mostly of what?
A: Large mounds and ramps erected to allow the trucks to perform large jumps and wheelies upon landing.

Freestyle performances have a set time limit and only one truck is allowed where?
A: On the track at a time as a safety measure.

Why are freestyle events typically the final competition of a show?
A: Because damage to the trucks would make them unable to race.

In the late 1970s, heavily modified pickup trucks were becoming popular and the sports of “what” were gaining in popularity?
A: Mud bogging and truck pulling.

Several truck owners had created what?
A: Lifted trucks to compete in such events, and soon competition to hold the title of "biggest truck" developed.

What trucks garnered the most national attention?
A: Bob Chandler's Bigfoot, Everett Jasmer's USA-1, Fred Shafer and Jack Willman Sr.'s Bear Foot, and Jeff Dane's King Kong.

At the time what were the largest tires the trucks were running?
A: They were 48 inches (1.2 m) in diameter.

In April 1981, Bob Chandler drove over junked cars in Bigfoot in what is often believed to be what?
A: The first monster truck to crush cars.

Chandler drove Bigfoot over a pair of cars in a field as a test of the truck's what?
A: Ability, and filmed it to use as a promotional tool in his four-wheel drive performance shop.

An event promoter saw the video of the car crush and asked Chandler what?
A: He asked Chandler to do it in front of a crowd.

Initially he was hesitant because of what?
A: The "destructive" image that could be associated with Bigfoot. Chandler eventually agreed.

After some smaller shows, Chandler performed the feat where?
A: In the Pontiac Silverdome in 1982.

At this show, Chandler also debuted what?
A: A new version of Bigfoot with 66-inch tires.

At a prior event in the early 1980s, when Bigfoot was still running 48-inch tires, Bob George, one of the owners of a motorsport promotion company named Truck-a-rama – later known as the United States Hot Rod Association (USHRA) – is said to have coined what phrase?
A: The phrase "monster truck" when referring to Bigfoot.

The term "monster truck" became the generic name for what?
A: All trucks with oversized tires.

Who followed Bigfoot to 66-inch-diameter (1.7 m) tires?
A: King Kong and Bear Foot, and soon other monster trucks, such as King Krunch, Maddog, and Virginia Giant were being constructed.

These early trucks were built off of what?
A: Stock chassis which were heavily reinforced, used leaf spring suspension, a stock body, and heavy axles from military-specification vehicles to support the tires.

For most of the early 1980s, monster trucks performed primarily what?
A: Exhibitions as a side show to truck pulling or mud bogging events.

In 1985, major promoters, such as the USHRA and TNT Motorsports, began doing what?
A: Racing monster trucks on a regular basis.

The races, as they are today, were in the form of what?
A: Single elimination drag races, held over a course littered with obstacles.

The change to racing eventually led truck owners to begin doing what?
A: Building lighter trucks, with more power.

The establishment of TNT's first-ever monster truck points championship in 1988 expedited the process and found teams beginning to use what?
A: Straight-rail frames, fiberglass bodies, and lighter axle components to shave weight and gain speed.

In 1988, to standardize rules for truck construction and safety, Bob Chandler, Braden, and George Carpenter formed what?
A: The Monster Truck Racing Association (MTRA).

The MTRA created standard safety what?
A: Rules to govern monster trucks.

With racing taking precedence, several teams began to think in new ways as to how what?
A: How the trucks could be built.

Towards the end of 1988, Gary Cook and David Morris debuted Equalizer, a truck with what?
A: A combination of coil springs and shock absorbers as the main source of suspension rather than the standard of leaf springs and shock absorbers.

In 1989, Jack Willman Sr., now with his own truck, Taurus, debuted a new truck which used a what?
A: A solid axle suspension system made of parallel four-link suspensions and coil overs that together weighed in at close to 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg).

However, the ultimate coup de grâce came from whom?
A: Chandler, also in 1989, whose Bigfoot 8 featured a full tubular chassis and a long-travel suspension system made of triangulated four-link suspensions, bump stops, limit straps, cantilevers, and shock absorbers charged with nitrogen gas.

The truck revolutionized how monster trucks were what?
A: How they were built.

In 1991, TNT was purchased by whom?
A: The USHRA and their points series were merged.

Even though racing was dominant as a competition, USHRA events began having what?
A: Freestyle exhibitions as early as 1993.

These exhibitions were developed as drivers, notably Dennis Anderson of the extremely popular Grave Digger, began asking for what?
A: Time to come out and perform if they lost in early rounds of racing.

Promoters began to notice the popularity of freestyle among fans, and in 2000 USHRA began doing what?
A: Holding freestyle as a judged competition at events, and now even awards a freestyle championship.

The USHRA's Monster Jam series, now owned by Feld Entertainment, is currently what?
A: The largest, touring through the United States, Canada and select regions of Europe.

Today, trucks now have custom built tubular chassis, with four-link suspension to provide up to how much clearance?
A: Up to 4 feet.

A: They also now have fiberglass bodies that attach to the chassis separately and are designed to be what?
A: Easily removed and easily replaced when damaged.

The use of fiberglass panel bodies has allowed monster truck owners to develop a wide variety of what?
A: Thematic concept trucks that scarcely resemble the modified stock trucks that became early monster trucks.

Engines are now typically mounted where?
A: Behind the driver on most trucks, and are typically supercharged, run on a methanol alcohol and corn-based oil fuel, and have displacement of up to 575 cubic inches (9.42 L).

Axles are mostly taken from what?
A: Either heavy-duty military trucks or road vehicles such as school buses, and are modified to have a planetary gear reduction at the hub to help turn the tires.

The tires are typically "Terra" tires used on what?
A: Fertilizer spreaders, and are of size 66"×43"-25", that is, 66-inch diameter, 43-inch width, to fit 25-inch diameter rims (168×109-63 cm).

Most trucks utilize a modified or custom-designed what?
A: Automatic transmission, such as a Turbo 400, Powerglide, Ford C6 transmission, or a Torque-flite 727.

Most of the automatic transmissions are heavily modified with what?
A: Transbrakes, manual valve bodies, and heavy duty gear sets.

Lenco transmissions are usually found in two-speed or three speed configurations, and are commonly shifted using what?
A: Compressed carbon dioxide.

Many trucks are constructed with the driver sitting where for visibility?
A: In the center of the cab.

Most cabs are shielded with Lexan or comparable polycarbonate, which protects the driver from what?
A: Track debris, and also allows for increased visibility.

Drivers are required to wear what?
A: Fire suits, safety harnesses, helmets, and head and neck restraints.