When she was in ninth grade, Becky McDonough saw her first monster truck competition at the Metrodome and vowed that someday she would return as a driver. The Brainerd native will make good on that promise Saturday, when she fires up her supercharged, 1,500-horsepower El Toro Loco for the Monster Jam.
"I'm so excited about my first time ... driving at home," McDonough, 24, said from Detroit, where she was prepping her truck for an event last weekend. "I've spent most of my time in the North and Midwest this year, which is great because I have a lot of family in the area. But it's nothing like being back in Minneapolis."
When last year's Monster Jam was canceled because the Metrodome's roof had collapsed, McDonough was driving in Costa Rica, trying to persuade an owner to give her a spot behind the wheel of one of the 12-foot-tall, 5-ton behemoths.
She never doubted that it would happen, but there were plenty of naysayers.
"People told me I couldn't do it because I was a girl," she said. "I'm one of those people that if you tell me I can't do something, it makes me want to do it more. I've always had an 'I'll show you' attitude."
One of only a few female drivers in the sport, she proved that she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty -- literally. She signed on as a mechanic for four years, then spent another year as the only female crew chief on the tour.
"When I told my friends that I wanted to be a driver, they said, 'You don't know anything about mechanics.' And they were right," she said. "So I learned. And it was wonderful training. One of my jobs was to move the trucks on and off the semis [that carry them between cities], and that gave me a great feel for what it's like to drive them."
She also came to appreciate the responsibility that comes with being in the driver's seat. The trucks cost between $350,000 and $400,000, and there are cases of reckless drivers totalling them in just a few months. Blowing an engine costs $35,000. Factor in the battering of the tires (5 1/2 feet fall, 850 pounds, $1,800 apiece), the nitrogen used to fill the shocks and the alcohol burned as fuel, and owners estimate that every heat a truck runs costs $2,500 -- and it's not unusual to run six heats on a typical night.
"There's so much to learn," McDonough said. As the truck bounces over scrap cars that have been hauled in from junkyards, "the speed you hit them and the angle the tire hits them has a huge effect on how the truck reacts. I'm learning when to give it gas and when to back off the gas, and I'm learning how the truck lands."
Because of all the flying, bouncing and landing, "the chiropractor is the driver's best friend," she said with a laugh. But beyond a little jarring, she's not worried about her safety. In addition to being inside a roll cage and wearing a helmet, "I'm in a seven-point safety belt, which is like being strapped in with seven seat belts."
The only safety precaution she doesn't use are earplugs, "which I don't wear because I want to hear how the motor is responding," she said. "I probably should wear them, and the people in the stands definitely should wear them."
When she was asked to think back to her ninth-grade Monster Jam and reflect on what made her want to drive one of the huge trucks, she said, "It was the horsepower, the noise, the adrenaline, the attitude of the whole thing."
And now? "Pretty much the same things," she said.
