Monster Jam World Finals
| Monster Jam World Finals | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Venue | Sam Boyd Stadium |
| Dates | Late March |
| Competitors | 16 (2000-2004) 20 (2005) 24 (2006-2012) 28 (2013) 32 (2014-present) |
The Monster Jam World Finals is an annual monster truck event held in late March at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the championship event of the Monster Jam series, consisting of racing and freestyle competitions, with the winner of each considered the World champion in that competition for the past year. It is the highest profile monster truck event and draws tremendous media attention.
Originally 16 trucks were invited to compete in the event, but 20 trucks were selected in 2005, 24 selected from 2006-2012, 28 in 2013, and 32 trucks from 2014-present. For the first 14 years at the Monster Jam World Finals, the Racing Championship and Freestyle Championship were held on the same night. However, beginning in 2014 at Monster Jam World Finals XV with the expanded 32 monster truck field, the event expanded to an all-new 3 day format with Double Down on Thursday, the Racing Championship on Friday, and the Freestyle Championship on Saturday. Trucks and drivers are selected based on their performances over the winter season on the FS1 Championship Series, Triple Threat Series or regular events from January into early March. When multiple drivers of the same team or truck are selected, they are typically placed in other trucks that travel with their primary vehicle, e.g. Pablo Huffaker won the 2007 Freestyle Championship driving Captain's Curse and Charlie Pauken won the 2010 Freestyle Championship in Monster Mutt, but since 2015 the drivers were put into their trucks but with a different paint scheme. Many more trucks are invited for display at the "Pit Party" festivities during the event.
The stature of the event leads to extreme performances in both competitions. The racing track, being about 884 feet in length, starts in the parking lot behind the locker rooms of the stadium and features a long straight-away offering speeds over 70 mph before a hair-pin turn. The freestyle track layout is typically the most extreme all season, with several large and unique obstacles, often producing spectacular crashes. The event featured 7 judges (6 regulation, who scored from 1-10 for 90 seconds, and 1 bonus judge, who scored from 1-5 for the next 30 seconds) with the lowest and highest scores discarded in regulation, for a maximum possible score of 45 (excluding tiebreakers), plus the judges could give half points as opposed to only giving whole points during the first quarter. The scoring was updated in 2017 where there was only 1 judge, every person in Sam Boyd Stadium. After the truck's run people had 20 seconds to lock in a score from 1-10 using 0.25 increments. The score would be averaged out to give a score for example: 6.328.
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