The Toughest Monster Truck Tour Makes a Stop at Casper

CASPER, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - You could hear the roar of monster trucks at the ford Wyoming Center, where the Toughest Monster Truck Tour visited.

With motorcyclists doing stunts and monster trucks tearing up the arena. Just how much work goes into getting the whole show set up?

Kelly Goldman the president of the tour gives some details on what goes into setting the event up.

She said, “Its about 80 dump truck loads of dirt. Most of our venues believe it or not own their own dirt pile. So the venue here they actually own dirt. Its actually right out back, its not a very long trip for the dump trucks.”

When it comes to getting the beater cars for the show, Goldman said, “We get our vehicles from mikes towing. They bring them in for us and then they take them out at the end.”

With all of this set up going on, it would all be for naught if it weren’t for the main attractions; the monster trucks. One of the drivers in the show, who also happens to be a Casper native, Jacob Ladwig, gave some details on his truck the Rat Attack.

Before he became the one behind the wheel, he used to work for the first driver on the Rat Attack, where he would help him out with maintaining the truck.

Ladwig talked about the origin of the truck’s name, saying, “When racing was first really getting going and people were building performance motors, they used to call them rat motors. So that was kind of just the name for what kind of motor you had for performance and stuff like that. My boss was always into the old school hot rod stuff. So and this is what this is. Its an old school car, its a hot rod. So we came up with the name ‘rat attack.’”

Although his truck is the one of the smaller ones that competed, that doesn’t mean the specs of the vehicle are small at all.

The drivers use a special kind of gas that you can’t find at any normal gas station. Drivers typically purchase it at certain stores or oil distributors.

When it comes to the amount of gas the truck uses when performing, Ladwig said, “My tank is 30 gallons and by the end of the night I’m usually running about 15 gallons.”

Even though those trucks are some of the loudest things, it doesn’t effect Ladwig. Once he gets in that car, the only thing on his mind is getting the job done. He said, “once I get my head sock on and I get my helmet on and I get to driving and I get to focusing on what I’m doing I don’t even pay attention to the sound, it doesn’t bother me, I just focus on my job at hand.”

This show will be one Ladwig remembers for awhile. Not only did he win during the Chicago Style Racing event, keeping his undefeated streak in that event when he drives in Casper, but he ended up taking home the win at the end of the series.

Being able to perform in front of his home crowd is really special. Ladwig said, “It means a lot to me. This is home, it always will be. And I just want to come back and make sure I do the best I possibly can for where I grew up and all of these people.”

Although the Casper show is over, the Toughest Monster Truck Tour still goes on, with their next stop at Saginaw, Michigan on March 3rd.

Copyright 2023 KGWN. All rights reserved.