James Trantina III (Born October 19th, 1985) is a monster truck owner and driver out of Sartell, Minnesota. He is best known for driving Tarantula, Rat Nasty and owning Triple B Motorsports. He has also promoted multiple independent monster truck shows at venues he owns/owned. Trantina owns nine tow truck companies as a part of Collins Brothers Towing in Minnesota.
History[]
James Trantina grew up a fan of monster trucks, with Monster Patrol being his most notable favorite. Trantina first got into monster trucks with the purchase of Holy Roller in 2016, which turned into Tarantula, but was eventually sold. This was followed by the purchase Rat Nasty in 2017, which was also eventually sold. For much of the late 2010's, the team would be working behind the scenes in the industry and putting on large independent monster truck shows in Bemidji and Elk River, Minnesota. Trantina would also purchase Granite City Motor Park in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, where he would host multiple monster truck events from 2020 through 2024.
In 2021, he bought the entire USA-1 operation from Everett Jasmer, including the name and the original two monster trucks. He also bought three trucks from Zane Rettew, being Pretty Wicked (chassis only), Bearly Tame, and Master of Disaster including the naming rights to the latter two.
On January 27th, 2022, Trantina would buy the entire Paul Shafer Motorsports operation from Paul Shafer, who had the team up for sale since 2004 at a starting price of $3,000,000 (although the price Trantina bought it for hasn't been disclosed). The sale included eight monster trucks, over a dozen monster truck names, multiple hauler semis and Paul Shafer's Mud Patrol (formerly Tom Martin's Super Trooper). That same year, Trantina would purchase Nitro Menace and Jail Bird from Darren Migues. A short time later, he would also buy the Xtermigator and Wolf's Head trucks and bodies (minus the names), from JR McNeal. Toward the end of the year, he would buy two more trucks from JR McNeal as well as the Ice Cream Man name, and the Quad Chaos/Holeshot name from Jerry Beck.
In 2023, Trantina bought Robosaurus.
In early 2024, Danny Torgerson would become a business partner with James Trantina after Triple B's trucks had been regularly competing at Torgerson's events since 2022. Torgerson would acquire the entire fleet of Triple B trucks and facilitate their appearances and schedules, as well as providing drivers and crew members of his own, with James maintaining ownership of the trademarks for the names, as well as Mud Patrol, two USA-1's, and Robosaurus. On May 22nd, James announced that he would be running for mayor of St. Cloud, Minnesota, yet was unable to make it past the August primaries.[1] In late August, James Trantina would announce his departure from the monster truck industry due to frustrations toward fans, employees, Triple B's budget, and others working in the industry, likely being what led to the transfer of power to Torgerson, but implied that Triple B would continue operating under its current power structure.
Trivia[]
- His team's website is triplebmotorsports.com
- James is a former late-model dirt track racer and also owns a pulling tractor.