AILSA CHANG, HOST:
One of the fastest growing industries in family entertainment is monster truck rallies. These ear-splitting jumbo-tire behemoths careen around arenas and fly through the air. And the shows are geared to a unique audience in American motorsports - small children. John Burnett has our story.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Levelland, Texas - is anybody ready for Monster Truck Wars?
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Yes, they are. The Civic Arena in Levelland out on the flatlands of West Texas is packed with families wearing protective earmuffs on this Saturday in mid-February.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Three, two, one, fire them up.
BURNETT: With that, four cartoonish contraptions - a shark, a dinosaur, a locomotive and a pickup - each about the size of a medium bulldozer, roar around the track to the crowd's delight. Back in 1979, the first monster truck, christened Bigfoot, was a souped-up Ford pickup. Today, they don't look anything like trucks. They weigh six tons, burn methyl alcohol, cost around $300,000, and all the major components are custom-made, from the super heavy-duty shocks to the tires that are 5 1/2 feet tall.
JERRY FURAJTER: The first thing that makes it a monster truck is the gigantic tires.
BURNETT: Jerry Furajter is the 26-year-old driver of Shark Attack, whose fiberglass body resembles a tooth-baring shark.
FURAJTER: That's the first thing kids notice when they walk up to them. They all want to touch the tires. Then after that, you'll notice the giant engines in it. They got about 1,500 horsepower. They make a lot of noise. There's no mufflers on these. I mean, when you start it up, you know it's coming.
BURNETT: Audiences are flocking to these ear-punishing spectacles of engineering and horsepower. Industry insiders estimate there are about two dozen players on the monster truck circuit these days, from independent driver promoters to the industry goliath Monster Jam. Monster Jam says it has over 50 trucks, sold 4 1/2 million tickets last year and produces shows around the world. Even Mattel has jumped into the action, with a traveling live show featuring glow-in-the-dark Hot Wheels monster trucks smashing old cars. The company then turns around and sells those miniature monster trucks at Walmart. Monster Truck Wars is a mid-level operator that puts on 130 shows in 70 cities a year.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: This is Devin Jones in T-Rex.
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BURNETT: The toy trucks are a big profit center. Out in the lobby, families are snatching up $15 models of the green, grimacing T. Rex that's doing wheelies and doughnuts on the dirt arena.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: You like that one, or you want the green one?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: The green one.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The green one?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Thank you so much.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Y'all have fun.
BURNETT: The owner of Monster Truck Wars is Michael Harper, 47, from Decatur, Texas. He worked in the NASCAR world for 20 years, then joined Monster Jam as a driver and now owns 12 of the trucks that perform in his shows.
MICHAEL HARPER: So when I started doing Monster Trucks as a kid, it was sponsored by Budweiser and Red Man Chewing Tobacco. Now we're sponsored by a toy company called Monster Machines. So it's a different demographic. Like, if you look out there right now, you see 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds.
TOBIAS MCCURRY: I like the designery and, like, the sound of them. I like how they look and, like, how big the tires are.
BURNETT: That's 8-year-old Tobias McCurry. I asked his dad, David, an engine builder in Lubbock, how much he expected to drop on his family of eight today.
DAVID: Oh, probably between 3- to 500 dollars. Well, actually, no, we've already spent over two - wow. It'd probably be closer...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yeah.
DAVID: ...To 5- to 600 dollars, actually, by the time it's said and done.
BURNETT: How much will parents spend to make their children happy? Monster truck promoters think the sky's the limit.
JEDEDIAH KIDWELL: They go fast and crush cars. And they do high jumps.
BURNETT: Jedediah Kidwell, 6, has a collection of 200 monster trucks and model cars at their home in Lubbock, says his mother, Caitlin.
CAITLIN: He sleeps with a tire. He's had it since he was, like, 2. He - it's a go-kart tire, and he has it in his bed.
BURNETT: For NPR News, I'm John Burnett in Levelland, Texas.
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