"It's just an oversized golf cart," Devin Jones affectionately describes his truck.
That golf cart is 10 feet long and 12 feet wide. That golf cart is a monster truck -- named The Barbarian. The truck is finished with 6-foot tires.
"All you see is tires," Jones says. "And it's loud. Everybody can hear it all the way across town."
Jones will drive the Barbarian up and over the dirt in Springdale's Parsons Stadium this weekend in this stop on the Monster Truck Racing Super Series.
Jones of Miami, Okla., found himself spinning in the dirt, when he and his father built, then rebuilt, a friend's Tough Truck. "Then I ended up buying an old-school monster truck in 2007," he says.
Jones now drives in about 45 shows a year and is a favorite driver of the Springdale monster truck fans, he says. He has won the local competition several times, and his freestyle performances earned him sixth and seventh places in a San Antonio, Texas, show in January. He also "delivered a strong performance with some big air and slap wheelies at the Monster Jam World Finals Freestyle Challenge in Houston," according to his website.
In Springdale, The Barbarian will take on the Defender, Overboard, Sudden Impact and Shock Therapy in "head to head, no holds barred, side by side, wheel to wheel and Chicago-style racing competition," according to the website of the Rodeo of the Ozarks, which sponsors the event. Fans will see freestyle driving and a monster truck wheelie contest.
Pro ATV quad racing and Tuff Trux also will be part of the show.
A free pit party -- from 6 to 7 p.m. Friday, with valid event ticket required -- allows monster truck fans of all ages to meet the drivers, get autographs and see the monster machines up close. And the monster Coyote Hunter gives fans their own taste of the dirt as they take a ride (not included in ticket price) in their own monster truck.
"It's just an oversized golf cart," Jones describes The Barbarian's ride. "It moves every which way. You never know where you're going to land."
-- Laurinda Joenks
NAN What's Up on 05/29/2015