Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
Up early this morning for a drive round to Sussex to go monster truck driving.
Back in February, Abi kindly bought me a chance to go monster truck driving for my birthday. It’s the sort of thing you book a little in advance, and today is my turn.
Rather than desribe the whole day and bore you to tears, I’ll leave it brief and just say that I had a fantastic time, that 4WD with the right tyres is truly asstounding, and the size of some of the kit amazing. I had a wonderful day.
Here’s some piccys and a few details. Click for larger versions of the images.
First up was “Black Ice”, a relatively small “monster truck”, but still pretty high and a good introduction. The later pick has yours truly at the wheel.
Next, onto “Grizzly”, the larger truck. This one was based on a Chevy Silverado. Has a 7.5litre V8, weighs a shade under 8 tonnes, most of that coming from the tyres, which weigh about 900kg each (about the weight of my entire car!). They’re 1000/50 R25’s according to the tyre side wall. Pretty huge compared to the tiny 205/50 R15’s on my car.
This first shot shows the truck front on. That disk smack bang in the middle is one of two brake discs. Stopping this thing is pretty tricky.
Next up, yours truly blatting round the field:
Finally, rolling over a couple of cars. This helps put things into perspective too. Note the large array of shock absorbers at both ends.
Last order of the day was to roll an off-roader on purpose. So here’s a pic of me, very tightly strapped in having got it wrong on purpose. The digger arm you see is there to push me back over. And the thing they tell you in the safety briefing.… don’t try and put your arm out to stop it falling. It’ll hurt.
Posted by Phil on April 30, 2005 08:54 PM | Categories: Lazy weekend
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it's a small world - you did the same this as a good mate of mine on the same day: http://www.goddammit.co.uk/article.php?story=20050430215148605
Posted by: Phil at May 2, 2005 11:28 PM
1000/50 are actually low-profile tyres if I am not wrong.
Posted by: sjon at May 2, 2005 7:26 AM