It is very important to be fast on the pavement because that is what is laid out in front of the two jumps. Since the course was part asphalt and part dirt, the teams had to compromise on their suspension setups. Which is more than enough power for these lightweight chassis’. The teams are only allowed to adjust things like ride height and suspension settings, the motor is left untouched. These are spec trucks and each competitor gets to race a 100% identical vehicle. One by one the drivers had a few practice laps before qualifying to test out their trucks and the course. Hello dirt guy? Yeah I’d like to order more dirt… You don’t actually realize how large even the smallest jumps are till you stand next to one. God bless jumping trucks.īefore the other competitors did the same, they went out for a course walk of their own. Once the jump was shortened and the course was modified the fearless leader went out for another jump, and this time he soared in the air like a bald eagle. It was a long and tedious process for sure. Little by little Robby directed the earth movers to modify the course to his liking. After all, at the end of the day it’s about the show and there is no point if the racing does not look cool. Much of the day was spent on fixing the course for safety and for flow. Robby took the initiative to test out the monster gap that he created and landed short. Robby originally had constructed a main jump with a ridiculous gap, probably one of the largest ever in a stadium setting. It’s easy for any fan or spectator to assume that the track just happens to appear and the drivers come out and launch off cool jumps with ease.īut what they don’t see is what goes behind the scenes. Stadium trucks is really the best way to bring racing to the city and instead of watching cars zip by at the speed of sound, you get to see all the action from any seat in the house. Robby raced alongside Mickey back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and just like how Mickey raced in his own series, Robby will be racing alongside the field of professional off road racers. It was his dream to bring back off road racing to stadiums ever since the Mickey Thompson series went under. The series is the brainchild of off-road legend, Robby Gordon. It was very nostalgic for him to see stadium truck racing again in his hometown, but to now be a part of the show was the icing on the cake. Qualcomm is the home of the Chargers Football team and the last time stadium style truck racing graced this venue was back in the ’90s with the Mickey Thompson series.īack then at one of those races sitting in the stands as a little boy was Jarod DeAnda, the voice of Formula Drift and now the voice of Stadium Super Trucks. I tried my best to continue to photograph, but at the same time fulfil my boyhood dream of watching jumping trucks in a stadium. So what kind of faces are these drivers making while they are clearing a 23 meter gap? I don’t know, but I have an idea, ‘O’ face maybe? Either way I was diving into a world of unknowns. I just love looking at their faces, because all they are thinking about is landing that jump, nothing else. It kind of reminds me of when I ask people to jump up in the air so I can capture that split second of them floating. I had the pleasure of photographing round 4 of the Stadium Super Truck series in San Diego California at Qualcomm stadium.īeautiful isn’t it? There is something special about an object in the air that is not meant to fly. Watching monster trucks or any type of stadium racing was out of my reach. Until now… “SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY” but Sunday would never come. So hearing those ever enticing radio spots crushed my little piano playing heart. My parents were not square, they were just adapting slowly to this mysterious foreign land of rock music and monster trucks. I did not get to watch movies in theatres until I was twelve years of age. I played the piano and of course I hated it. As a first generation Chinese American, I grew up in a household where my parents listened to classical music and opera.
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