Monster Jam confirms local truck and driver line-up

This year's Monster Jam line-up consists of no less than eight super-sized trucks that will battle for supremacy across specially prepared dirt playgrounds that take about 20 hours to construct using a specialised group of people known as the Dirt Crew.

The dirt in question — approximately 40 tons of clay/sand mix that gets compressed down onto the field of each stadium — is crucial to the success of every Monster Jam event and as such a whole lot of planning and science gets thrown at it to make sure it's 100% up to scratch. 

Putting these gnarly courses to the test will be the legendary Grave Digger (driven by Matt Cody), Max-D (Blake Granger), El Toro Loco (Brandon Arthur), Earth Shaker (Tony Ochs), Blue Thunder (Camden Murphy) and Megalodon (Charlie Pauken). Representing the fairer sex will be Myranda Cozad in Monster Mutt Dalmatian and Chelsea VanCleave in Zombie. 

The competition part of Monster Jam is split into two formats. The first is side-by-side racing, which sees two trucks out at the same time. Lasting roughly 20 seconds, this is traditional bracket racing where the first truck to cross the finish line with the least amount of penalties is declared the winner.

In the freestyle section, each driver gets two minutes to bump, jump, doughnut and backflip their way across the course in an attempt to squeeze the most points from the fans — those in the stands and watching online.