TEAM ARUBA SUCCESSFULLY RETURNS MONSTER TRUCK SHOW TO ARUBA FANS

By Tristan Ralston on 15th November, 2012

Oranjestad, Aruba, November 15, 2012:  What started out many years ago as a fundraiser for Team Aruba Racing, also known as The Brute Racing Organization in Aruba, quickly became a marquee event for the nation of Aruba. In 2000 and prior years, Team Aruba regularly held a huge Monster Truck Show, which served the double purpose of entertaining fans and raising funds for their racing operation. However, the event, beloved by fans across Aruba, seemed to be a thing of the past after over a decade since the last showing. This year, in response to imploring fans, Team Aruba once again brought Monster Trucks to Aruba.

‘The Return of Monster Trucks 2012 in Aruba’ was a huge success, featuring six of the top names in Monster Truck including: Bigfoot #18, Avenger, Lucas Oil Stabilizer, Star Marshall (driven by the world’s youngest Monster Truck driver, Cody Holman, age 17) and Chalkboard Chuck. Also in the Aruba show, making its first ever live appearance, was Bigfoot #19. On top of the Monster Truck excitement, the show also featured Tim Dyson, a FMX Stunt Rider who performed back flips on his motocross bike, and Radical Rodriguez, a performance clown, who kept the crowd thoroughly entertained.

“Well, after a year’s of hard work, we have successfully executed an awesome show,” told Team Aruba driver, Trevor Eman, who also orchestrated much of ‘The Return of Monster Trucks’. “Everything started with the ideas about a year ago and it all slowly fell into place. We were able to exhibit local talent in Aruba along with the Monster Trucks from the United States. Altogether it was a great show.”

Local talent included former Team Aruba driver Burt Kelkboom, who performed jumping stunts in his KTM Dune Buggy. The show also featured longtime Team Aruba/Brute Racing member Mike Profet who performed the ‘Steel Wall’ stunt in which he drove his stunt vehicle into a vertically positioned car, flipping it completely over his vehicle. Dirt bike and quad competitions by the Aruba Dirt Riders highlighted other Aruban talent.

“As the Monster Trucks made their way to Florida to be shipped to Aruba, they made a pit stop in Union, SC,” added Eman. “There we held a display, open to the public, for our stateside home base in order to show gratitude to the town of Union, SC for how well they welcomed us in their town when we set up shop there.

“When the monster trucks arrived in Aruba a parade was organized. It started at the harbor area where the trucks were unloaded from the ships and ended at the Renaissance Market Place shopping mall where the trucks were set on display for three days. Thousands of people came out to watch these monster trucks as they drove down the street that was led by police escort. It was a sight to see!”

Continuing past traditions, Eman and crew organized promotional campaigns to rouse excitement for ‘The Return of Monster Trucks 2012’. In the kids coloring contest, each child who entered would color a Monster Truck poster. The winners would get prizes and free tickets to the show. A separate promotion put recycling efforts at the forefront. Families could collect recyclables and turn them in for tickets to the show. Eman notes that both campaigns were a huge success.

“The highlight of the entire event was probably the DC-3 airplane,” added Eman. “We were able to obtain an old DC-3 that has been out of commission for some decades now. It was placed as the center point of the arena. Dirt ramps were build around it and over its wings for the Monster Trucks to jump over and for the dirt riders to race over. On the final night of the show the Monster Trucks slammed on top of the wings ripping them off and Avenger even slammed into the tail wing ripping it down. The crowds loved it.

“All the trucks put on a great show. Avenger made its introduction to the show by jumping over the wall into the arena. To try to top that off, the Bigfoot duo jumped over the wall into the arena together, side by side, during their freestyle performance. It was surely incredible stuff to see.

“The show ended up selling out each night with over 6000 people in the stadium every night. It went so well, we decided to have an ‘encore weekend’ and perform the show once again the following weekend [Nov. 2-3] where the people who did not got a chance to see it the first weekend flocked over together with the people that came to see it again.

“It was a couple of months of very hard work. All the members of The Brute Racing / Team Aruba worked very hard, made sacrifices and put on a heck of a show. We also had many great sponsors on board with us, who were just as eager to put on a good show as we were. We could not be happier with the outcome of a wonderful show.”

For more information and photos, please visit the show’s facebook page.