BIGFOOT 50x50 Day 29, 1996: “The Squared Circle”

Professional Wrestling and Monster Truck Racing are not totally dissimilar businesses. Independent contractors traveling from place to place to ply the craft. The larger than life performance art lends itself to the larger than life personalities of the massive machines. Between Austin 3:16 and the New World Order, 1996 was a pivotal year for the wrestling business, and BIGFOOT was in prime position to ride that wave as well. As seen in October 1995 with the monster truck sumo match, World Championship Wrestling had entered into a partnership with BIGFOOT 4x4 to utilize their trucks, themed after their wrestlers, with art and body design done by Dan Patterson and George Link. This started with Hulkster, modeled after wrestling’s biggest persona, Hulk Hogan, and his arch nemesis at the time, the Kevin Sullivan led faction, Dungeon of Doom. In 1996, the WrestleTrucks would invade the industry.

In February, Ron Bachmann and BIGFOOT 1 went on a trip to Japan to make an appearance for Firestone at the Tokyo International Fairgrounds. It would be the first time The Original Monster Truck would leave North America, and the first time it would leave the U.S. since it visited Canada in 1986.

In May, the PENDA Points Series kicked off in Lima, Ohio. Instead of Power Wheels, Dan Runte would run BIGFOOT 14 under the more traditional BIGFOOT Blue body and the “pink and teal” paint scheme. Eric Meager would sport the new Hulkster body on BIGFOOT 15’s chassis. Dan and Eric would face each other in the finals of race one, with Dan coming out on top. Dan would then go on to win the next seven races in a row, keep the points lead and ultimately win the championship. Meanwhile, 15 would switch to the Stinger body in Canfield and Dungeon of Doom 8 would join the series in Bloomsburg with Sky Hartley behind the wheel for one race, and Eric Tack for the other.

On September 9, Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness PC game was released. Racing on different style courses like rally, drag, and circuit, players could choose from twelve trucks including BIGFOOT, Power Wheels, Wildfoot, and Snake Bite. The game was a critical and commercial success and would gain worldwide popularity.