Monsters Invade Western Speedway: August 8 & 9, 2008 By Ken Keating, Illusion Photography                Ear splitting, earth shattering monsters invaded Western Speedway Friday and Saturday night as six Monster Trucks, FMX motorcycles, and a live band performed for several hundred fans that entered the grandstands. The Monster Trucks ran qualifying rounds, illimination rounds, and freestyle events both nights. The riders from Aerial Assault FMX performed high flying jumps that defied anything that resembles sanity often leaving their bikes, standing on the handlebars, and other high risk maneuvers thirty to forty feet in the air and flying between two ramps. Three of these riders are from Phoenix, Arizona while two were from Abbottsford. The guys from the States really have enjoyed their first trip into Canada with stops in Campbell River and here at Western Speedway as part of a six week tour.                 Friday night’s program ran quite well as the riders were able to perform three times between runs by the Monster Trucks and an intermission that allowed Fear Zero, a Vancouver based band, to entertain the fans. After the runs by Aerial Assault FMX and the Monster Trucks, Fear Zero closed out the evening as fans were allowed to come onto the track and meet the drivers and look at all the trucks while listening to the band.                 Friday night really belonged to Jen Campbell as she quickly became a fan favorite with her daring and hard charging style of driving the 10,000 pound Monster Moose. It also helped when she whipped her husband Brad, driving Public Disturbance, in the freestyle events. She completely destroyed a camper van that was once owned by Marty “McFly” Hanson and then took on the other obstacles and jumps placed around the speedway. The Predator, one of the regulars on the Monster Jam tours, suffered a blown motor while Lennie Kilgour participated in the freestyle. As he crossed a jump on the front stretch, there was a huge plume of smoke coming from the engine compartment, not a good sign. Braden Farr showed up with Jail Break, a truck based out of Green Bay; Wisconsin, and was in his first ever appearance in a Monster Truck Competition. He is from Princeton, BC, and the only Canadian that took part in the Monster Weekend program. Another truck often seen at Monster Jam was Godzilla, driven by Steve Hurley, and usually seen up in the top rounds of competition. Lennie also drove the truck known as Pouncer to round out the trucks visiting Western Speedway.                 Kevin Garrigus, on his Sikspak.com sponsored Yamaha, Tyler Polk, Dennis Saulnier and Erin Von Egman made up the FMX riders with Bryan Wilkins providing names, info and interviews with all the riders. They were very reluctant to give up the track for the Monster Trucks as they have such a passion for the jumps they perform and they were good at it.                 Unfortunately Mother Nature played havoc with the Saturday program. Hats off to the FMX guys as they put in a lot of effort drying the ramp once the rain subsided. The drivers in their Monster Trucks had some trouble getting the traction needed to launch the trucks in side by side competition. The Western Speedway officials, in consultations with the other event organizers must be commended for putting on a show that had to be revamped because of the weather. Fear Zero also put in a great effort to get their high tech equipment dried enough to perform. The FMX riders did get in two sessions of jumps but were unable to do as much as they did on the Friday program. Four drivers from the Demo Car series played a couple of football games using a car as the football. Doug “the Slug” Richens pushed the ball to the finish three times for the win. The rain didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the fans that showed up Saturday as they waited for the rain to quit dressed in plastic, some with umbrellas, and some braved the cool and wet weather until it cleared. Even my camera needed extra time to work properly in the cool wet conditions.                 Brad Campbell took on a mobile home and stacked cars sideways ripping away the side panels on Public Disturbance to win Saturday’s freestyle. Jen Campbell also took out a rather large travel trailer in her sequence. Again, a very entertaining evening came to an end with the band Fear Zero as they played while fans entered the track to talk to all participants.