- 90% of the people tend to just fully panic.
- A lot of crashes.
- There's a ton of concern.
I think I'm just as nervous as you.
(engine rumbling)
- I'm gonna drive that.
That's my truck.
What's up?
I'm Emily and I really like cars.
As I kid, I used to play with cars all the time,
in any shape and form,
whether that was a Barbie car, an RC car,
Hot Wheels, golf carts, go-carts,
driving my dad's car around in the yard, all of it.
And I think it pretty much goes without saying,
that the coolest thing you could ever drive
is a monster truck.
So when Monster Jam reached out to BuzzFeed to see
if anyone wanted to learn how to drive a monster truck,
I obviously kept very calm and cool and professional.
So my friend Zach was like, "Is anyone interested
"in doing a video on the Monster Jam?"
And then I was like, "Oh my god, I love Monster Jam."
And then my friend Megan was like, "Of course you do."
And then I followed up and I was like,
"Do you think they'd let me drive their trucks?"
And then Zach was like, "I actually think so, yeah."
And I was like, "Oh my god, yes."
(ding)
So since I've certainly never driven
a Monster Jam truck before,
the first step was to talk to some people who have.
(upbeat music)
So I'm about to drive one of these things.
- Yeah.
This is like, not a training truck.
So this thing's 100%, ready to rip.
Have you ever drove anything like, high performance?
- I drive a 2006 Scion TC.
- [Morgan] Yeah.
- And I think she's got 160 horsepower.
(Emily clicks tongue)
- Yeah, I was about to say,
that's probably about 12 of those.
So take about 12 of those motors.
- This thing has 1,500 horsepower.
It's 12,000 pounds.
- Great.
- So you're way in left field.
There's a ton of concern to throwing...
I don't even know how to explain your level,
into a professional level vehicle.
- What should I be worried about?
- 90% of the people tend to just fully panic,
and normally the panic mode is to hit the throttle
wide open, that's not a good idea.
- I can't imagine why.
- It's instant, there's no lag, it's instant.
When you hit the pedal, it's gone.
- Okay.
- So just to give you a little heads up.
(engines rumbling)
There's a lot of mistakes that are made.
And a lot of crashes, 'cause I can guarantee you,
you go to step in that truck,
your hands are gonna start trembling and shaking.
- When I pull onto the track, I have no plan.
- Right. - I'm just gonna go crazy,
I'm not stopping until the truck's stopping,
and I hope like heck, the truck's tore up, but I'm not.
- Right.
- Monday morning when you roll out of bed,
you're like, man, I felt like I just got in a car crash.
- 'Cause you did.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- We kind of shouldn't be doing what we're doing
with this motor, but we're gonna make an exception.
Yeah, there's a gas and brake, and a steering wheel,
which all sounds normal,
but then there's ignition switch, start button,
multiple fans, water accumulators.
(Ryan thoughts draining out each other)
- You'll figure it out.
I can explain it to you all day,
how to drive a Monster Jam truck,
but until you do it, it's just like,
in one ear, out the other.
- Uh huh.
- I mean, you can't do anything worse than what we do.
- That's true.
(Morgan laughs)
And I do that today,
then I've done something terribly wrong.
- Yeah, we'll probably never have you back.
(upbeat music)
- I'm excited now.
I guess we're just gonna get the suit on.
And then we'll be driving.
All right.
- [Ryan] So you're gonna be in fully flame-resistant suit.
You're gonna have the same neck restraint systems
that we run in the trucks.
Same helmets that we run in the trucks.
Fire-resistant gloves, shoes.
- I'm ready.
I'm a pro.
- So you ask us questions all day,
so I'm gonna ask you, why do you wanna do this?
- My whole life, I remember seeing Monster Jam commercials,
and being like, I wanna go.
And my parents were like, meh.
(Emily sighs)
In 2018, my twin brother died,
and it was really terrible.
For a while,
I kind of thought my life was over.
And nothing really made sense or mattered anymore.
And I went home for a while to be with my family.
And when I came back I was all by myself,
in like, this new way.
And I didn't know what I was gonna do
or how my life was gonna be now.
When I got back, I went of Facebook, as you do
and I saw an ad for Monster Jam Triple Threat.
Something I always wanted to go to,
and never did as a kid.
Kind of, weirdly, resurfaced in my life
when I needed it the most.
And so I organized this huge group of my friends to go.
And it (beep) rocked.
(engine rumbling) (Emily screaming)
Going to Monster Jam was really the first thing that I did
after my brother died that really allowed me
to just have fun and kind of forgot about my life
for a second, and how sad I was.
But I didn't tell anyone at Monster Jam that.
I wanted them to think I was cool.
(bass music)
- [Morgan] You know, you could crash and roll over.
I'm hoping you keep it on all four wheels.
- She's in the truck,
I'm gonna get her the rest of the way strapped in,
and we're gonna go through her first start up process.
And then after that, I'm getting the heck out of here,
and we're gonna turn her loose on this huge track.
This is the start button,
and then this is the ignition button.
This thing is an absolute life saver.
Power on.
(fan running)
Fuel on.
Two hands, start button, and then ignition.
Two hands.
(engine starts) (upbeat music)
- What a pro, what a pro! - Nice job!
- [Ryan] How'd it feel?
- [Emily] That was (beep) insane. (laughs)
- [Ryan] That's exactly what I like to hear.
- [Emily] Oh my god.
- Let's get you outta that thing.
Little shaky. - Shaking a little bit.
- I'm not gonna lie, it was very impressive.
You picked up on everything, super fast.
The shifting, the starting technique, the rear steer.
Normally, there's always rookie mistakes
on each one of those.
- [Morgan] You could go the test field and start jumping.
Yeah, you picked it up quick.
- Heck yeah, that'd be sweet. - Good job.
- She picked up on it right away, I couldn't believe it.
We have drivers that weren't that good at the beginning,
now that are really good.
So she was awesome fast.
Very impressive.
- Well, thank you so much.
- Yeah, no, definitely, absolutely.
- This was like, the best day of my life.
- Yeah.
- So to some, they might just be big, dumb trucks.
To me, being able to drive one of these things that just,
brought me so much joy and happiness
when I was in the darkest moment of my life,
just really means
so much more.
I'm the queen of Monster Jam, baby.
And in life, in everyone's life,
there might be times when you feel like
you may never be able to have a single ounce of fun again,
and it's times like that, when we really need things
lie Monster Jam the most.
So I hope that you find your Monster Jam.
(upbeat music)
(rock music)