When Trucks Fly | Hacker News Reader

When Trucks Fly

newyorker.com

54 pointsacdanger70 comments

When my son was about 5 I started taking him to monster truck shows. I don’t know why, exactly. He’s always loved cars and spectacle, I suppose. We went to about a dozen all told, driving yearly to Maple Leaf Monster Jam in Vancouver, BC.

I always wondered, “Who goes to monster truck shows?” In my experience, it’s mostly that — guys taking their young kids. There were many young girls at the shows we attended, and some female drivers.

They do _really well_ at fan service. All the drivers know their job is to give people a thrill, and that the trucks are ultimately disposable. It’s a lot more engaging than sitting and watching a couple hundred laps of F1 or stock cars.

Surely the difference is that F1 is a sport, and Monster Trucks are entertainment ? Not better, just different.

If you go to watch the Harlem Globetrotters you're getting a very different experience from a good NBA game, but that's not because one of them is doing it better, they set out to be different things.

Or wrestling (the martial art) versus Professional wrestling (a theatrical performance). Like yeah, I guess it is more entertaining when an angry wrestler smashes a chair over the Owner's head, but they practised that over and over, they used a chosen chair. If he later "wins" the fight it was scripted, they decided on that outcome up front and maybe the "loser" got a Hollywood gig so he's being written out soon anyway. Whereas the guy who got Olympic wrestling gold was really fighting those other guys - under some strict rules it's true, but there was no script, if they were better they'd have beaten him and they'd have the medal.

> Surely the difference is that F1 is a sport, and Monster Trucks are entertainment ? Not better, just different.

There is a middle ground, called super truck, which is (predictably, and perfectly) most popular in Australia that is about both spectacle and sport. It's an intensive race (requiring the shutdown of urban areas, like F1) but it also seems like pure uninhibited childish joy, ala monster truck. I would not be surprised if in 10 years it is a staple of childish fun in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkiV59cdR3M

That looks like a watered down overly cleaned up sanitized asphalt city version of the tamer sections of the Black Diamond Kalgoorlie Desert Race (or Finke Desert Race).

https://youtu.be/V5R7Tfa4Vyo?t=339

There is no doubt that it's co-opting baja or rally, but it's bringing the sport and suspensions (so to speak) to non-arid places. It's almost a manifestation of Excitebike but with 3000lbs baja trucks on F1 tracks. I love it, personally.

Each to their own, in the Kimberley and later the Pilbara I used to ride a dirt bike 30km to high school every morning, same back in the afternoon.

The early attachment to off road sticks with you :)

> Each to their own,

> I used to ride a dirt bike 30km to high school every morning

I true bogan. I appreciate that.

I appreciate the typo, although Asimov's title would be I, True Bogan.

As for myself, sure, save for small details such as having all my teeth, a degree or three, a few million SLOC of geophysics code, and back end credits for a few S&P modules and other odds and sods about the web.

Stadium Trucks has been a thing in the USA for a long time. I don't know if Stadium Super Trucks would be considered a direct descended of it, but they are very similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXnwYG0R3rc

I suppose one could say that sport would still be sport without the crowd, but then most of the premise might fall apart and competition would be different, smaller scale, money based on bets perhaps. For better or worse the entertainment of others often defines sport as opposed to hobbyist competition. Monster Trucks and Pro Wrestling just don't bother with the aspect of real competition, but real competition is usually arbitrary anyway.

F1 is a sport but it was more of a sport years ago. Regulations are getting stricter and stricter, only one tire manufacturer, many standard parts including most of the electronics. They spend millions on optimizing tiny details because there is less and less to do in areas where they used to make huge differences year over year in the past. Basically they nerfed the sport but they are selling it very well, much better that at any time in the past, at least outside Europe and especially in the USA. So F1 is going in the direction of becoming a show. I guess that the organization running F1 would love to end up with a much quicker open wheel version of NASCAR. They'll have to get through IndyCar first, with a limited choice of chassis and engines.

The difference between sport and entertainment is when the outcome is decided. In entertainment it is up front, in sport it is at the end. The strictness of the rules is irrelevant.

I disagree. I could run a full baseball game and then ignore all parts of the game and instead decide the winning team at the end with a coin toss. I would hardly call that a sporting outcome.

Well..

We what we really want us to watch the real angry wrestler/boxer actually go for the owner.

Or... We want to see the entertainer/wrestler fight a real match for once. Or Elon Vs Zuck.

We're hard to please.

I have no interest in seeing any of those things.

casual reminder from an un-cool diesel engine mechanic, these trucks are exempt from most state, local and federal emissions regulation by definition. You can be exposed to not only Methanol and Diesel exhaust but particulate and aerosolized forms of the fuels as well. If there is a fire you can be exposed to soot wax and ash. if the venue is indoors, thats nearly five hours of exposure.

some of the largest monster trucks are also the noisiest and can approach nearly 125 db. if you bring your kids you need to bring ear protection and teach them how to wear it.

eye protection (if youre seated close) is also a pretty good idea. again, the regulations for a monster truck rally are near nonexistent. they are fun to attend though.

Ear protection is hugely important here and at races. You need to get it and bring it and wear it.

And wear it properly.

The cheap foam earplugs work very well, but they have to go surprisingly far up inside your ear, and be held in place for longer than you think while they expand.

Sounds like a respirator or gas mask is also important.

It could be, but in general humans are pretty good at recovering from non continuous exposure to gasses and chemicals (except radiation).

But hearing can be broken in an instant.

Maybe, but I think it's better to avoid sitting in a closed space for hours with non-emissions-controlled engines running.

Ear protection is certainly warranted, but how many kids wear their air pods at max volume? It's only 105db or so, but still right in there.

125 dB?

Just “dB” is unit-less. It’s like saying the sound pressure level is “6”.

Peak noise levels have been measured at 139 dBA st these shows.

https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1990/rt9...

If mechanical things interest you at all, go see a Monster Truck show. Go see these things move. Go pay for a full seat “that you’ll only need the edge” of.

It’s pure mechanical spectacle, and, like most other mechanical things, recordings don’t do it justice. It’s just not the same. Hear them, see them, feel them, watch them move and fly.

Will you go back? Become a lifelong fan? Unlikely, but your inner child will thank when you start giggling.

"Monster truckers obsess over distinctions among types of dirt the way vintners obsess over terroir."

Are the author and publication trying to sound as condescending and uppity as possible? Honestly, this reads like the kind of thing that "Frasier" mocked so perfectly about upscale sophisticates living in a bubble.

I was never a big fan of monster truck rallies, but it's easy to understand what was so fun about them. Articles like this that deign to explain the finer points of monster truck rallies (while using esoteric references to wine sampling) for their audience of sophisticates tell me just how useless publications like the "The New Yorker" really are anymore.

I'm genuinely confused by what you're outraged by here. The average New Yorker reader knows more about wines than monster trucks, so they're trying to put it in terms that will make sense to their readers.

If anything, the article reads as the opposite of pretentious to me: it makes it clear that monster trucking isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels, but a sport where things like the exact composition of dirt is critically important.

I feel like an article that starts with "A monster trucker is the kind of person who has a favorite type of dirt." is trying to say something about "the kind of person who has a favorite type of dirt", and fans thereof, and its not positive.

The whole article reads to me with the same smug superiority as an Onion article about, well, self-described sophisticates enjoying things with a smug sense of superiority[0]. The thing curiously absent from the article is any sort of enthusiasm for the subject matter. Its all very clinical, and seems at best bemused about other people's enthusiasm, without anything to suggest why that enthusiasm might be justified.

0. https://www.theonion.com/ill-try-anything-with-a-detached-ai...

You know who else has favorite kinds of dirt?

Farmers.

Gardeners.

Potters.

Kids who have ever been in the wrong sandbox.

Sorry, I think your interpretation is incorrect.

... but not, you know, urban sophisticates. There's nothing to tie a gardener's experience of dirt to a monster truck driver (or fan). There's nothing to tie a potter's experience of dirt to a monster truck driver. The way farmers are discussed in the article, I submit that the writer doesn't know, or care to know, any of those either.

There's a lot of words expended on how the people who are already fans get excited about some event. But the thing I was waiting for was the writer to express some excitement himself. Its always held at arms' length. Bits like

>The appeal has a certain timelessness: people have always liked really big stuff, particularly of the unnecessary variety. Stonehenge, pyramids, colossi, Costco. For perhaps obvious reasons, this is usually a male impulse.

or more damningly

>It was the experience of seeing something amazing and slightly ridiculous, something you’d have never thought of yourself, like a dog juggling knives. I understood the hugging impulse.

and

>As they rumbled by, grown men yelled at the top of their lungs, and a bachelorette party in front of Nudie’s Honky Tonk took videos.

really make it clear that the writer wants us to know he's not one of them, and you, the average New Yorker reader, should not try to find common ground with these people. He doesn't change his tune until the final segment, where he drives one of these trucks himself. Until then, its just bemused descriptions of other people's excitement, and its hard not to hear some second-hand embarrassment in those descriptions.

Here’s a video on a similar “redneck phenomenon” with respect and admiration shown to what is happening: https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8

I read it as sympathetic and supportive.

Exactly, and we have Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe as good examples of how to write this kind of thing. Zach Helfand isn't fit to clean their typewriter keys.

"isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels"

The article never made reference to "inbred yokels". It didn't have to. It can couch its descriptions in the language of coastal elites who supposedly know more of wine and polo than they do of simple things like truck rallies. And while it's ostensibly explaining how "sophisticated" the sport is, the readers will fully understand the "isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels" part.

I wouldn't characterize my response as one of outrage. But I do find it off-putting and pretentious.

"It can couch its descriptions in the language of [its primary audience]." This is a weird critique.

That's fair to say, and I don't deny being a little hostile toward snobbery and pretension. I always have been. However, I also don't think [its primary audience] is quite right. I think [its primary audience's self image] is a little more correct.

Yes it's a total myth that more readers of The New Yorker would know "wine people care about soil" than know "monster truck people care about dirt."

>But I do find it off-putting and pretentious.

If you let someone make you feel guilty about the things you like, then there's a bit of self reflecting that should be done.

> the language of coastal elites

For someone wanting plain language, it's surprising that you say "New York Jews" this way.

The New Yorker was founded to reflect a WASPy perspective, its celebrated founder was of rather humble background and chased that. And how many Jews, historically, were among the American elites playing polo? Your comment is well out of order.

I don't think of New York specifically or Jews at all when I see the term "coastal elites."

I think of wealthy business owners on the east and west coasts. Venture capitalists. Managers at software companies. Politicians. Just high paid and/or influential people who think highly of themselves and others in their cliques.

ctrl-f "jew" no hits.

"but a sport where things like the exact composition of dirt is critically important."

Let's not swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction either...

Tut-tut, my good sir, condescension is the raison d'être of The New Yorker.

There is nothing condescending about that analogy. Debatable whether "terroir" is esoteric, but even without knowing about winemaking you can understand the point that the quality of dirt is of surprising significance to monster truck rallies.

And an article which aims to spread cross-cultural appreciation for a fun, harmless event is not useless. What is useless is unconstructive negativity.

I have to question how "surprising" the significance of dirt composition is. The characteristics of dirt and mud (and the tires themselves) will affect all aspects of how the truck behaves and handles. How is it surprising that one who enjoys the activity would be deeply invested in the very ground on which everything happens?

If the article actually was trying to spread any kind of real appreciation for monster trucking or why they're so much fun, I would be all for it. However, it reads like some outsider describing observations of an untouched tribe in the jungles of South America. No matter how much they write of their interesting findings, they're not trying to convince any of us to give up modern life and join the tribe.

Someone who has never thought about off roading or 4x4s may be very surprised that the dirt matters so much because they have never thought about it. So it sounds like an important topic to address for the audience of the New Yorker.

I have to question how "surprising" the significance of hardware configuration is. The characteristics of CPU and mobo (and the RAM sticks themselves) will affect all aspects of how the computer behaves and handles. How is it surprising that one who enjoys the activity would be deeply invested in the very silicon on which everything happens?

Replacements in italics mine to demonstrate that we aren't that different from the wine and dirt lovers.

> I have to question how "surprising" the significance of dirt composition is

It's surprising to people who have never thought about it before. So about 99.9% of the population.

And if you disagree with that characterization of the average person ... how strongly do you feel about the difference between a 7-speed automatic and an 8-speed automatic car? Or the importance of wood grain orientation in your picnic table? Or the exact type of steel used in your cutlery? How about the difference between a cavendish and a manzano banana?

These details affect "literally everything" about those items. Yet most of us never think about it because we already have enough other things to nerd out about.

I don’t understand what you’re considering as uppity as it was probably the only highbrow analogy in the entire piece, the rest being pretty accessible and readable. Also you’re evaluating a line from the ... New Yorker which you consider useless, may as well stick to Popular Science if you want just the facts and a little less literary exposition.

This is the same tired critique that people on HN bandy about every time a New Yorker article is posted: “just get to the point!”. If they did it would just be a lot less fun to read.

It’s true though. I say this as someone whose family members used to compete in mud bog competitions (not quite the same as monster trucks, but in the same genre). They’d walk the track and chose tires and set weight balance based on the mud conditions.

There are two separate themes linked to soil in the article: the use of dirt for the shows; and the use of soil education in agriculture, that led to agriculture shows, that, in turn led to sideshows, that led to monster truck shows. I thought it was quite clever that they were unconnected, and yet both linked to monster trucks.

The pretentious tone seemed to gently mock the readers and the perceived elitist nature of the New Yorker, rather than the monster truck enthusiasts, so more like the show Frasier, rather than the self-awareness lacking titular character within the show.

> tell me just how useless publications like the "The New Yorker" really are anymore.

Are you sure you’re familiar with what The New Yorker is? It’s not really a news magazine, or anything like that. Its own description says, “journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry.” But “journalism” here is not like what you get from traditional news sources. The New Yorker is to mainstream journalism what Wes Anderson is to action movies. You don’t really read The New Yorker to learn what’s actually happening in the world. That doesn’t make it “useless”, because that’s not its goal.

> Are the author and publication trying to sound as condescending and uppity as possible?

It's the New Yorker. That's the whole purpose of the magazine.

I gave up my subscription to the New Yorker years ago due in large part to this 'sophisticates' problem

Meh, pretty ritzy and elitist compared to poor performers:

World Famous Figure 8 Trailer Race - Last Ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_0pVCigebQ

That's the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.

Is it? What's the ideal strategy? The pole truck gets stuck in traffic. There are several early opportunities to get ahead if you time your moves correctly. What are the rules? Do you get bonus/handicap for the length of your trailer?

The opportunity to devise an amazing strategy to compete and win an activity doesn't make the activity inherently good or bad.

Something difficult can still be overwhelmingly stupid.

I think you’re overthinking it.

I have trophies to prove it.

Back in the day they would use old school buses. Cathartic.

Yeah right? I’m blown away.

Monster truck engineering, suspensions, dual drive trains. :drool:

Where's the Monster Cybertruck with hub motors??? talk about unsprung mass!

I always thought you wanted to minimize, not maximize, the unsprung mass. So putting giant hub motors on would kind of defeat the goal, no?

I remember watching an interview with a monster truck engineer and he said it was challenging suspension design because it was the only motor sport where the unsprung weight was greater than the suspended weight. It’s a while different approach.

Interesting! The tires are very heavy! and they aim for many traditional motorsports goals, lightweight and fast...

Thats my joke, would love to see a vehicle of that design, I imagine its dangerous but funny? Would fit right into monster trucks.

Monster trucks are the closest we’ll get to mechs in this world. Massive machines engineered for crazy acrobatics and piloted by fearless drivers. If Japanese were Americans there’d be more anime about futuristic monster trucks rigged with weapons engaging in spectacular vehicular battles.

https://archive.is/DjPjo

Insufferable East coast elite gawking discretely at the plebs, nice.

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