The little hand is on blog o’clock and the big hand is, well, way past late, but nevertheless, it’s blog time! Howdy blog readers. It’s your friendly neighborhood Team Kalitta PR guy here…sorry, I got caught up in all the Spiderman-3 hype, which I haven’t seen yet…oh well, soon. Anyway, I digress. Here’s my story, sad, but true (my sincerest apologies to Dion).

Sunday evening, after the racing festivities in the Gateway city were concluded, my buddy Jason “Turbo” Tirb (that’s him there on the right), clutch specialist extraordinaire on the Mac Tools racer and all-around fun guy, told me about a little trip that he and the rest of the boys on the “Big Red” dragster took to see the home of Bigfoot in St. Louis, the legendary monster truck and mechanical movie star that so many of us have drooled over since we kids. Being ever conscious of finding original and interesting blog material, I chimed in and said, “Hey, Turbo, why don’t you write a blog about it?”. He agreed and we parted ways until we both arrived back at the race shop in Michigan.

A few days ago when I was pulling my hair out trying to write something special for you blog devotees, I remembered that my buddy Turbo was going to write a Bigfoot blog. With a relieved smile on my face, I strolled down to his work area and asked if said blog had been written. With tired and clutch dust-clouded eyes, Turbo admitted to me that he indeed had not done it yet. Being the tyrant that I am, I demanded that it be done immediately! Well, not really, but I’m trying to make Turbo sound more heroic, so bear with me. Not soon after, maybe a few days, this made it’s way to my desk…enjoy!...

Hello everyone! Here’s my blog.

After the races in Atlanta, a couple of us crew guys were chatting with one of the original drivers and crew members of the Bigfoot monster truck team and our friend, Ron Bachman. Ron’s a great guy and we get to see him quite a bit throughout the year since he and Bigfoot make several special appearances at the drag races. While chatting with Ron, we remembered that our next event would be in St. Louis, which just happens to be the home of Bigfoot. All of us on the team have a fascination with monster trucks and Bigfoot, of course, is a favorite. Being the always gracious guy that he is, Ron immediately called the Bigfoot shop back in St. Louis and arranged a behind the scenes tour for us.



It was really cool to see the history of Bigfoot and what it has become today. The picture I’ve enclosed shows the newest Bigfoot creation. Bigfoot No. 16 is their first new truck in over a decade. One of the major differences with this newly designed and built truck is the transmission. The tranny of choice in the past has been the Ford C-6, but due to some short-term life expectancy issues with that unit, they are now using a two-speed Abruzzi transmission, which will hopefully show the team some better results. I’m sure the wear on the transmission in a monster truck is unbelievable!

We got to see a lot of really cool things at their place, and we had a great time. The guys at the shop there did a great job of taking us around and answering all of our crazy questions. Our team thanks Ron and the entire Bigfoot crew for taking the time out of their busy schedules and giving us all a thrill we’ll never forget.

Thanks for reading!

“Turbo”