BIGFOOT 50x50 Day 13, 2012: “It’s Electric”

For Team BIGFOOT, changes in truck and driver assignments were on the menu early in 2012. Larry Swim made his triumphant return in 2011 after having his back injured during the summer of 2010. For 2012, Larry would pilot BIGFOOT 16 under the Bad Boy body, swapping out Dan Runte, who was in the new Summit 18. In May, J.R. Adams would take over MLB 10 from Kyle Doyle, who would take over BIGFOOT 14.

Rick Long would stay in E3-15 and win his third consecutive Monster Nationals Racing Championship. Larry Swim would reclaim his spot atop the CFP Winter Nationals with his third championship win, while Dan Runte would win his first Toughest Monster Truck Tour Championship.

In March, it was announced that BIGFOOT would be teaming up for a multi-year deal with multi-disciplined racer Robby Gordon and his company Speed Energy. The deal also included a new monster truck, built at the Robby Gordon Motorsports shop in Charlotte, North Carolina. Speed Energy would be the primary sponsor for BIGFOOT 19, which was scheduled primarily for displays through the rest of the year.

On September 16, seven BIGFOOT trucks would converge on the Indiana State Fairgrounds for the 2012 Four-Wheel Jamboree. The event would end up being a breakout performance by Darron Schnell and Vi-COR 11, winning three races and being the runner up for one. On the second day of the Jamboree during a freestyle run alongside Darron Schnell, Larry Swim accidentally clipped a dirt ramp during a sky wheelie and sent E3-16 hard onto its right side. This wreck severely bent the chassis, and would ultimately end up retiring BIGFOOT 16. The truck remains the shortest tenured in BIGFOOT history at just 5 years.

But the biggest story coming out of Indy that year was Dan Runte and Summit 18 breaking the world record for a long jump. Again. Dan’s 1999 record was broken in 2010 by Joe Sylvester and his truck, Bad Habit, by six feet, bringing the overall record to 208 feet. Dan and Team BIGFOOT were ready to take it back. After a test jump and an aborted attempt, Dan screamed towards the ramp and took flight. Flying through the air and winging the throttle to keep his angle right, Summit 18 slammed into the ground, nose first, but intact. Jamboree officials scrambled to measure the landing spot and it was announced that Dan flew the truck 214 feet, 8 inches and to a new world record.

For the second year in a row a member of the BIGFOOT organization was honored at the International Monster Truck Museum & Hall of Fame. This time it was Jim Kramer. The man who, along with Bob Chandler, was at the forefront of all things monster trucks, and all things BIGFOOT. As Bob’s friend, first and foremost, Jim helped form Midwest Four-Wheel Drive along with Bob in the mid-70’s. After leaving Midwest for a few years, Jim returned and, along with his friend, blazed a trail that leads all the way to where we are today. Jim was inducted with Monster Mash’s Mike Welch, Promotor George Carpenter, Jus’ Show-N-Off’s Pablo Huffaker, and Grave Digger’s Dennis Anderson.

November 8 would feature a new batch of firsts for BIGFOOT. First would be BIGFOOT 20, which would be the first all electric, battery powered monster truck in existence. Odyssey Battery 20 would make its public debut at SEMA a week earlier, but today was 20’s first big test, a car crush. Newly inducted Hall of Famer Jim Kramer would be doing the honors. Listening to 20 is a wild experience. It has all of the size you would expect from a monster truck, but none of the bone vibrating engine noise. Just the electromagnetic whirring and whining, loading and unloading of the motor and the sound of the tires on the ground. Jim made a few passes around the cars, just as his friend Bob had done 31 years prior. But when Jim hit the cars, that’s all that could be heard. The crunching and mashing of metal and plastic. Jim wheeled around again and hit the cars once more. Adding another first to his already Hall of Fame worthy list of accomplishments.