Freestyle

Freestyle is a competition that takes place during most monster truck shows, usually as the last competition of the show. During freestyle, trucks are given a time period, usually of 90-120 seconds, on the arena floor, where they can hit any of the obstacles, including crush cars, vans, buses, and dirt ramps as they want. This gives the trucks opportunities to perform special tricks, such as slap wheelies and donuts, which are typically not part of the rest of the show (although some smaller events do hold wheelie and/or donut competitions).

history
The credit for the creation of freestyle can be at least partially given to Dennis Anderson, the driver of Grave Digger, who came up with the idea of bringing the truck out as a bonus, or encore, for the audiences, especially for trucks that were eliminated in early rounds of racing and could return for their fans one more time. In early shows, such as the Motor Madness World Finals "0", for example, freestyle was merely considered an "encore" performance, meaning nobody would actually receives competition points for putting on freestyles. However, as the idea of freestyle became more and more popular, it eventually became accepted to include freestyle as a main competition for all monster truck shows.

Scoring methods
Some smaller shows incorporate the use of the "cheer off" method, where the crowd will cheer when a certain truck is listed off that has freestyled. The truck that has the loudest cheer would be the winner of freestyle. This method, however, has generated some controversy in the sport, as some fans claimed that often times more popular trucks, like Grave Digger for example, were given victories much more often than other trucks due to biased or inexperienced fans.

Larger shows, including the World Finals, use a number of judges to determine the winner of the event. Each judge gives the freestyle a score of 1-10 (which included 0.5 decimals beginning with World Finals 15), then the numbers were added up, determining the driver's score. Often times, usually when six or more judges are involved, the announcers will eliminated the highest number and the lowest number, then add up the remaining numbers. Some celebrities participate as judges, while others are picked during the pit party prior to the show.

Criteria for points given for a freestyle include
 * Using the full allotted time: The more time that was used by the driver, the higher the score.
 * Maintaining speed and momentum throughout the run.
 * Aggression in hitting obstacles
 * Height, length, and verticality of jumps
 * Use of specific tricks, such as slap wheelies, donuts, etc.
 * Avoid putting the truck in reverse, unless it is to gain momentum for a spectacular jump or to actually go over an obstacle backwards (a stunt that drivers likeMike Vater, driver of Black Stallion are well known for).
 * Getting the truck out of situations which would otherwise result in a crash (commonly referred to as"saves")
 * Spectacular moments (can often add significantly to the score of an otherwise unimpressive run)

Criticisms
Freestyle is not universally popular among those in the industry, notably Everett Jasmer (notable for USA-1). There are several criticisms of the competition. Among them is that, as a judged competition, freestyle is not legitimate motor sport because it is not racing, and that it adds to the reputation of the sport being more of a show than a competition, similar to professional wrestling. Many also feel that pressure from both fans and promoters has forced drivers to push their trucks beyond their limits and too often is a breeding ground for crashes and excessively risky maneuvers. Branching from this is the criticism that freestyle is exclusively to create the crashes and roll-overs that casual fans enjoy, and events like the World Finals tend to reinforce the argument with multiple roll-overs and even trucks driving over each other. However, recent emphasis on using the full allotted time and scoring bonuses for making saves rather than crashing are reducing the trend.