For the fourth year in a row, KSR Motorsports returned to New Jersey Motorsports Park to bring their Night of Fire and Destruction show.
Seven monster trucks competed with Larry Swim in Bigfoot, a father and daughter team Darren Migues in Nitro Menace and Kaylyn Migues in Jailbird, Zach Adams in Annihilator, Monster Jam driver Cory Snyder in Toxic, and Tyler Leicht in Temporarily Insane.
The show also featured bike stuntmen Doug Danger and Louis “Rocket” Re plus a quad racing team who divided themselves up into two teams one representing New York and the other New Jersey.
The event started out with the pit party where fans got an up-close look at the monster trucks and quad bikes along with meeting the drivers to get pictures and autographs. You could purchase your favorite monster truck merchandise along with food and drinks. Monster truck rides were also available. After the pit party ended, it was time to go racing.
Doug Danger did some tricks on his bike before making a jump over a monster truck with pyro going off to start the show. Team New York and Team New Jersey had three rounds of racing with Jersey winning the first, New York the second race, and Jersey the third.
The monster truck racing was awesome. The unfortunate news that happened at the Sunday show was Bigfoot blew an engine and did not return for the rest of the show. The finals came down to a father and daughter showdown as Kaylyn Migues beat her dad Darren Migues.
The best part of the show was the freestyle event for the monster trucks. Cory Snyder, the driver of the Toxic monster truck went wild. Zach Adams of Annihilator also put on a nice freestyle. Kaylyn Migues closed out the freestyle but unfortunately broke the rear steering to end her night and the show.
Overall, the show was really good compared to past shows as far as the number of participants. Some much-needed improvement is needed in the timing of events in order to make the show flow smoother. The announcer struggled at times as he seemed not to know what was going on behind him. His timing was off and so was the show.
The show was held up several times by crew working to clean up debris, change out ramps, and extinguish fire lattice fencing by picking it up and spreading it on the dirt. They could have done the skit of getting the fans riled up with who was going to win the quad wars at those times instead of waiting for clean-up.
The announcer even stated he didn’t know what was going on until someone tells him. Not professional and not even funny as it dragged the show on until after 9 p.m. and by that time people were leaving.
Simple things would have moved it along like having someone with a fire extinguisher to put the fire out after the motorcycle driver rode through it. The final race was not announced and after the trucks ended their pass the announcer was unsure and had to ask an event member if it was the last. This left fans questioning what just took place.
Overall most fans enjoyed the show and hope to see a better-prepared announcer, a better flow of the show, and as many or more monster trucks.
