This put the weight of the average truck running at the time at around 14, pounds. Chandler wanted to build a truck that would withstand the long jumps and high speeds that were common at the time. This truck was unlike any that was competing with TNT or any monster truck series at the time. It was built completely with a tubular frame, much like that of an off-road vehicle.
The suspension on the truck was completely different, utilizing nitrogen-charged gas shocks and sway bars. This truck had nearly two feet of suspension travel, unlike it's stage two trucks which had only six inches of travel.
Chandler introduced the truck later in the year, but it made it's official debut in as it returned to the TNT circuit. Upon arrival, many drivers were weary of what the Bigfoot team was doing, but decided to compete against the new truck and it's driver, Andy Brass. At that point, the controversy began. He put the plate on his truck and from then on, that was its name.
At the time, there was no such thing as a monster truck. All that was about to change. The friendship between Chandler and Jasmer was about to spawn a national phenomenon and a billion-dollar industry. Chandler : I got a call from Greg Blackwell, a movie producer. He saw a picture of my truck in a magazine.
I said, sure. I got ahold of Everett, and he brought two trucks. Jasmer : Bob had a much bigger operation than me and he had people working on promotional and media types of things. USA-1 on inch Terra tires, Image courtesy of Everett Jasmer. Jasmer : It was an incredible opportunity, and after that, we were getting a lot of invitations to events around the country.
We continued to build our trucks bigger and bigger. It was like evolution, I like to joke. We both crawled out of the mud and became monster truckers in the early s. Chandler : Once I started getting paid to bring Bigfoot to events, it changed things completely. There were 68, people there, all going crazy. There was a body of a car in the mud, sticking up six inches out of the ground, and this Toyota put its front tires on it.
We took the truck there and I drove over cars without a problem. I came around and parked on top of them. We videotaped that. The crowd went crazy. It stunned me. From that point on, whenever I went anywhere, people wanted to see the truck drive over cars. He already had inch tires. Rather, it took place in an empty cornfield in the rural Missouri countryside, with one video camera rolling and a small crowd of onlookers present.
The truck bruised its way over the clunkers without so much as a whimper. History had been made. On the heels of BIGFOOT 1 and 2 was a growing field of imitators, capitalizing on the growing popularity of this new form of motorized entertainment.
As the monster truck industry began to establish itself, the performance of the trucks themselves seems quite modest in contrast to the high-flying, high-speed events of today. Utilizing a fabricated heavy duty box frame, in addition to planetary equipped axles right from the get-go, BIGFOOT 4 was the next step in monster truck technology. Bob Chandler decided to end this competition once and for all. It was a major hit with fans. Bob then decided to purpose build a truck to handle these goliath tires.
Existing monster truck designs were not exactly prime examples of high technology at the time. In , Walker left the team. Long repeated as MTN racing champion again driving Runte won another championship for the team this time, the 4 Wheel Jamboree Nationals Racing Championship.
In , Bigfoot 18 debuts. Runte later won the Toughest Monster Truck Tour with Later that year he piloted it to reclaim the monster truck long-jump record. However, 16 was later retired after a hard crash damaged major components of the truck. Bigfoot 19 was quickly inaugurated as a replacement. In , the world's first electric powered monster truck Bigfoot 20 was introduced. The Australian Bigfoot debuts later in the year driven by Rick Long.
In , AJ Straatman rejoined the team once again. In , Bigfoot 10 and 11 were both retired due to extensive frame damage.
Bigfoot 21 was then welcomed to the fleet. In , Dan Runte announced his final season as a full-time Bigfoot driver. Bigfoot 21 also won 2 different titles with 2 different drivers. Darron Schnell and Josh Gibson each won championships with their respective trucks 19 and In , Josh Gibson and Bigfoot 18 won 3 different championships.
In , Gibson retired from racing. Christian Norman and Mike Miller were hired by the team. Norman also won the 4 Wheel Jamboree Racing championship. However, teammate Ron Bachmann died later that year. Swim retired in June. Soon after, Buddy Tompkins is hired as a new driver for the team, but only for select shows. Bigfoot's first sponsorship was Ford, which ran on the truck from to Since then, multiple companies have sponsored Bigfoot 4x4 due to its fame and popularity in the industry.
The following list is a record of all of Bigfoot's sponsorship bodies through the years. In , Team Bigfoot partnered with WCW to create monster trucks inspired by wrestling icons at the time. The main reasons for the falling out were disputes over pay for appearances at USHRA events, Bigfoot wanting to film their own trucks at USHRA events and have full ownership over the footage, and Monster Jam's attempt to buy the team in the same way they would buy Grave Digger in By the spring of , all of these issues led to months of debating and negotiating as to what Bigfoot's future with Monster Jam would look like, but no agreements were met and both parties parted ways for good by the end of the summer.
Despite the lack of a professional relationship, this does not necessarily mean that there is animosity between all those involved with both parties.
Monster Jam-owned trucks have made pit stops at the Bigfoot compound for repairs and maintenance, and shots of Bigfoot have occasionally made their way onto Monster Jam programming or at live events. In hindsight, Bob Chandler has stated that he most likely would not have left if he had to make the decision over again, and Bigfoot has since made multiple attempts to reconnect professionally with Monster Jam, albeit without much mutual interest.
There have been 20 Bigfoot trucks built over the years. Bigfoot 21 is the latest truck, but there is no Bigfoot 13 due to superstition.
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