MENIFEE, CA – Obsession racing has been in the Pacific North West six out of the last eight weekends. The first event started out in Roseburg Oregon on the first and second of May. This was three Monster Jam events. The competition consisted of King Krunch, El Matador, TMNT, Caption USA, and Grave Digger. This was a straight line course where Rick shined round by round all three days in racing, much to the fans delight. From Oregon we were fortunate enough to leave our tractor trailer at Dan Rodoni’s shop (driver of Patriot) so we could fly home to work on Obsessed during the following week.
Our next show was in Salinas California for Monster Jam. Salinas is one of Northern California’s most established events. It consists of three days of displays before the show, with a pit party during Saturday’s display. We would like to make a special thanks to Mike Pappas (driver of Tropical Thunder) for getting our Semi to the Salinas show grounds and tiring Obsession up so it could be ready for the first day of the displays. We would also like to thank the Daron and Aaron Basl for piloting our trucks back and forth to be put on display. Not many independents are invited to this show, but we have always been fortunate enough to be there, nine out of the last ten years. The competition consisted of King Krunch, El Matador, Patriot, Tropical Thunder, Escalade, Blue Thunder, TMNT, Grave Digger and Maximum Destruction. This is a very competitive field to be running against. Rick worked his was through the field taking out some big named trucks including the Ford sponsored Blue Thunder. As with all Monster Jam events Rick made a solid freestyle run. We don’t like to go off of the judge’s scores because the crowd’s response and energy is the only honest approval we need.
Memorial weekend we started our Northwest tour with WHR Motorsports in Monroe Washington. The trucks that competed in this tour were, King Krunch, El Matador, Airborne Ranger, Time Flys and Fired Up. Monroe was a two day event and Rick was fortunate enough to have the fastest qualifying times both days. This is always an advantage when pairing up the rounds for racing. Because fastest goes up against the slowest, which means the two fastest trucks can not see each other until the final round. This ended up with Obsession verses King Krunch both nights in the final rounds. This was David Smith in King Krunch’s weekend to shine taking both finals. Due to the noise restrictions in Monroe Washington they only got to do a quick freestyle to please the fans. From Monroe, we all traveled to Spokane Washington for the next WHR event. Thursday morning media (ABC’s Spokane’s affiliate) came bright and early having Rick doing donuts and jumping the cars in Obsession. They also put Eric in the morning news making rounds in his matching Obsession trophy kart. When anchor man asked Rick when does Eric get to drive the big truck? Rick stated “right now for your show if you would like”. So they let Eric hop in the big Obsession and also do some rounds for the ABC news! Spokane was an extended Chicago Style course. Rick was able to do very well in qualifying both nights. As he worked his way to the finals he would see David in King Krunch Friday night in the finals and his team mate Daron Basl in El Matador on Saturday. This weekend was Rick’s weekend to shine!
Our next event was Missoula Montana which is our forth year going to Missoula for WHR Motorsports. This was also a two day event. Friday night Rick had to work hard to get to the finals because in the first round of racing he broke a sway bar but came back as fast looser and made the semi finals. On Saturday night Rick made it to the finals and he was the first one over the finish line, but unfortunately he rubbed a turning pole knocking it over and gave the win to Darron Basl in El Matador.
Our next stop was Butte Montana. This was the first time WHR Motorsports has done an event in Butte. It was like the last three events as far as it being a Chicago Style track. On both Friday and Saturday night Rick was able to get fastest qualifying time and work his way towards the finals. On Friday night Rick was unable to make the call to the finals, because coming out of the last corner of the semi finals he blew an input shaft in his transmission. Rick won the race but it ended the night for racing and freestyle. On Saturday morning David Smith (King Krunch) took our broken transmissions apart to make one good one. Within a few hours they completed one and put it back in the truck for Saturday night’s event. We were very grateful to David for all of his help so we could make Saturday’s event. Saturday night it was Rick and David in the finals. It was a good clean run by both trucks with King Krunch taking the win.
WHR Motorsports let the trucks freestyle at each of their events for novelty runs and to show our appreciation to the fans. We would like to thank all of the sponsors, teams and promoters for making this last tour an enjoyable work environment.
