Grave Digger: The Monster Ride!

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Grave Digger!



Dennis Anderson DRIVER INFORMATION Driver Name: Dennis Anderson Residence: Poplar Branch, NC Birthplace: Norfolk, VA Date of Birth: 10/24/60 Marital Status: Married Children: 4 Children - Weston, Adam, Ryan, Krysten

DRIVER HISTORY Grave Digger is the world's best known monster truck. With it's high-speed racing, insane freestyle, and awe-inspiring crashes, Grave Digger guarantees to keep fans on the edge of their seats.

Back in 1981, in an old garage in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Dennis Anderson created a monster. Originally, Anderson pieced together his machine from old parts of discarded vehicles. The original "mud-bogging" truck was supported by the corroded chassis of a 1952 Ford pickup and ran on the innards of a high-performance Chevy engine.

Although his competitors had the advantage of high-tech equipment, Anderson boasted to them I'll take this old junk and dig you a grave." With these words the legend of Grave Digger was born.

The most recent Grave Digger, Grave Digger XIX, is a colossal improvement on the original monster. Bearing the ghostly image created by painter Fred Bumann, it is a machine to be reckoned with. To help Grave Digger absorb the landing after a 100-foot jump, it has nitrogen shock absorbers, creating a massive 26 inches of travel.

In order to take flight, Grave Digger has a 540 cubic inch blown alcohol injected Chevrolet Big Block engine, which produces approximately 1500 horsepower. This engine is the same that you would see in the top NHRA drag racing vehicles.

The drive train is also composed of a custom built transmission that is literally bulletproof. The 10,000 pound monster crushes cars like ants with 66 inch Goodyear "Terra Tires".

To maintain a truck like this is no easy task, especially if you have seen Grave Digger in action. The cost of one truck is nearly $250,000 including over $100,000 in spare parts such as engines and transmissions.

The engine alone costs $50,000. The sport of monster truck racing is brutal on the trucks and demands constant repairs, which keeps the Grave Digger team working around the clock.

At home on the beaches of the southeastern United States, Anderson's fame is a product of his never-say-done, never-say-quit, never-say-can't attitude.

Rounding the corner on his 43rd birthday this year, Anderson spent most of this year recupearting from an injured hand.

He spent early fall 2003 helping FEMA clean up after hurricane Isabel when his beloved Outer Banks were pummelled by 90-110 mile-per-hour winds.

Grave Digger is the most popular truck in monster truck racing history. In the year 2003 alone, Grave Digger raced in roughly 80 cities, and traveled to many more for promotional appearances. To see Grave Digger live in action, tear down to the next U.S. Hot Rod Monster Jam at an arena or stadium near you! Retrieve from online 10/25/2011. http://www.gravedigger.com/?id=58



Since 1995, Monster Jam has been pitting the best drivers and monster trucks against each other in high-flying fashion.

Monster Jam: The Trucks The American South has always prided itself on making the best of any situation and using any tool to get it done.

The end result of decades of tinkering and homemade automobiles is the monster truck. Though the concept and the ideal of what a monster truck is has changed over the years, the main principle of a huge and mean machine has always remained the same.

After decades of being a local attraction, monster trucks roared out of the South thanks to legendary trucks like Bigfoot. Monster Jam arose in the 1990s as the leader in monster-truck sanctioning bodies.

Monster Jam: USHRA Before fans could buy Monster Jam tickets, they bought up tickets left and right for a variety of monster truck shows. Along with dirt bikes, motorcycles, tractor pulls, and demolition derbies, monster trucks were brought to national attention thanks to the United States Hot Rod Association (USHRA).

Promoting extreme motorsports since the 1970s, the USHRA was quickly drawn to the monster truck known as Bigfoot, the truck that would go down as the icon of the sport and perhaps the most famous vehicle in history.

By the 1980s, the monster truck had become the attraction of choice in truck rallies, and the USHRA began to dial up the competition with a heavy emphasis on the dichotomy of building better monster trucks while aiming to destroy more cars in competition.

Inspired by the rise to power of professional wrestling in the 1990s thanks to the WWE and WCW, Monster Jam was created in 1995 to give a national stage to a long-held Southern tradition. Though their audiences were not totally merged, fans who bought WCW or WWE tickets would also be out to get their hands on Monster Jam tickets.

Monster Jam: Grave Digger The first monster truck to emerge from the shadow of Bigfoot was Grave Digger, and the trademarked green and black wrecking machine became the poster truck for Monster Jam. Driver/creator Dennis Anderson turned into a legend to fans with Monster Jam tickets and has since become the Monster Jam equivalent of Michael Schumacher or Dale Earnhardt.

A specialist in the “freestyle” of monster-truck competition, Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger gained a reputation as a team that would lay body and vehicle on the line for fans with Monster Jam tickets every night.

Monster Jam: World Finals By 2000, fans with Monster Jam tickets wanted a way to recognize the best driver and truck on an official basis. The Monster Jam World Finals were born and quickly became one of the top motorsport events in the nation. Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, was chosen to be the venue for the Monster Jam World Finals.

The competition was to be divided between the traditional car-crushing spectacle of freestyle competition and the pure speed action of races. Both events thrill the thousands of fans with Monster Jam tickets in attendance, but freestyle is always a favorite.

The initial Monster Jam World Finals freestyle competition was won by Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger, but rising superstar driver Tom Meents and his Goldberg truck would take the racing title.

Tom Meents and Dennis Anderson would form the biggest rivalry in Monster Jam history, and each drew millions of fans to their camps. Even after WCW and their sponsorship folded, a great deal of fans with Monster Jam tickets flocked to Tom Meents and his new Team Meents truck.

Monster Jam: Taz & Batman Like any sport, a new generation of athletes always takes over as the years progress. Veteran driver John Seasock and his Batman truck have shown all the power of a superhero; John Seasock has reined as the Monster Jam World Final Champion in racing in 2007 and 2008.

The 23-year-old son of Dennis Anderson, Adam Anderson, took the Monster Jam World Finals freestyle competition with his Taz truck. Fans with Monster Jam tickets have hailed the younger Anderson as the future of the sport.

Monster Jam: Future & Legacy The trucks of Monster Jam are moving representation of the American spirit and are monuments to innovation and technology.

By constantly turning over the technology and ramping up the showmanship of every event, fans with Monster Jam tickets get to see one of the few motorsports in the world that still relies on the skill of crews, teams, and technicians instead of uniform restrictions and rules.

Monster Jam events are also surprisingly intimate for a sport that involves 10,000-pound trucks crushing cars as fans are always close to and a part of the action.

With Monster Jam tickets selling to more than seven million fans a year all over the nation, no racing organization brings more action to more people.

From large arenas to giant mega stadiums, Monster Jam packs every venue with screaming fans that cannot get enough of the sights and sounds of the world’s biggest racing machines. With 2009 on track to be the biggest year in Monster Jam history, fans with Monster Jam tickets will not miss a second of it. Retrieve from online 10/25/2011. http://www.onlinetickets.com/info/sports_other/monster_jam/history.html Return to Monster Trucks from Grave Digger