Monster Jam World Finals X (Also written as Monster Jam World Finals 10) was the tenth-annual Monster Jam World Finals, held on March 27-28th, 2009 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event featured a twenty-four truck lineup, and was broadcasted on the Speed Channel after the event took place. Tom Meents in Maximum Destruction earned his eighth world championship by defeating Alex Blackwell in Captain's Curse in racing. Meanwhile, in his third full season of competition, Damon Bradshaw in U.S. Air Force Afterburner won the world freestyle championship with a score of 36.
The track used for World Finals X featured a van stack with a car pad in the formation of an "X" shape, as well as a camper in the far end zone. The left side of the track featured a triple jump, along with a Jack in the Box-sponsored graffiti box van. The center of the track featured a step-up jump, which was later used as a backflip ramp for an encore. The right side featured a double-valley jump with a fountain jump in front of it.
Mark Schroeder driving Chad Tingler's Grave Digger for practice.
An image of the original layout for the green ramp.
Special World Finals paint schemes[]
The paint scheme that was featured on Avenger this year was a special "Scuba" paint scheme, which was created to honor driver Jim Koehler's famous act of jumping into the fountain obstacle after his freestyle performance. Meanwhile, this event marked the first official appearance of Nitro Circus, which made its debut during the freestyle competition with Travis Pastrana behind the wheel. Two other special trucks and designs that made their first appearances were featured exclusively in the pit party. The first was Obsessed, which made its official debut as the new teammate to Rick Swanson's Obsession. Meanwhile, Kelvin Ramer's Time Flys received a new black paint scheme, which was first used exclusively for this event.
Results[]
Qualifying times[]
Donkey Kong - 16.50
Bounty Hunter - 16.53
Taz - 16.56
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 16.56
Maximum Destruction - 16.63
Monster Mutt - 16.66
Blue Thunder - 16.90
Safe Auto Minimizer - 16.94
Pastrana 199 - 16.97
El Toro Loco - 17.00
An Escalade - 17.07
Air Force Afterburner - 17.13
Brutus - 17.25
Captain's Curse - 17.28
Monster Mutt Dalmatian - 17.35
Madusa - 17.37
Superman - 17.40
Batman - 17.65
King Krunch - 17.65
Grave Digger - 17.66
Avenger - 17.66
Destroyer - 17.72
War Wizard - 18.15
Stone Crusher - DNQ
Racing[]
Round one[]
Madusa vs. Stone Crusher
Pastrana 199 vs. Superman
Grave Digger vs. Air Force Afterburner
Avenger vs. Brutus
Destroyer vs. Captain's Curse
An Escalade vs. King Krunch
El Toro Loco vs. Batman
Monster Mutt Dalmatian vs. War Wizard
Round two[]
Donkey Kong vs. Madusa
Safe Auto Minimizer vs. Pastrana 199
Maximum Destruction vs. Air Force Afterburner
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Brutus
Captain's Curse vs. Taz (crashed)
Monster Mutt vs. An Escalade
Blue Thunder vs. El Toro Loco
Bounty Hunter vs. War Wizard
Round three[]
Madusa vs. Safe Auto Minimizer
Maximum Destruction vs. Brutus
Captain's Curse vs. Monster Mutt
Blue Thunder vs. Bounty Hunter
Semi-finals[]
Safe Auto Minimizer vs. Maximum Destruction
Captain's Curse vs. Blue Thunder
2009 Monster Jam World Finals 10 Final Race-0
Championship race[]
Maximum Destruction vs. Captain's Curse (crashed)
Captain's Curse Crash Incident[]
The damaged stands after the Captain's Curse crash.
During the Championship Race, Captain's Curse violently tumbled into the stadium seats and landed about 15 feet from spectators and only about 10 feet from a camera operator. Though the cause of the crash for several years has been believed to be the result of a stuck throttle, YouTube user Who's Ready for Monster Jam (who was in attendance at the event) revealed in a November 2024 video that the actual cause of the crash was due to faulty brakes on Captain's Curse and the negligence of officials.
After Alex Blackwell had won his Semi-Final race, he discovered that the truck's brakes were red hot and they needed at least five minutes to cool down in order for him to run a safe race. However, the officials ignored this request and sent Alex out for the Championship Race. It was during the race when Alex realised that he was unable to stop the truck, which was going a full speed, and he deliberately flipped the truck to avoid crashing head-on into the wall; this impact would have severely injured Alex and multiple spectators in the front row. Luckily, the truck only landed in a section of the stands that was closed off for safety reasons and no spectators were injured and Alex himself was unharmed. Only the fences of the stands were damaged and these were later repaired. However, the nature of the crash still had repercussions.
Due to controversy circling monster trucks after 2 unrelated deaths just two months earlier, FELD Motorsports would censor the crash in both the SPEED TV broadcast and DVD release of the event. Commentary on the SPEED broadcast merely glossed over the crash. Despite this, various live footages of the crash were uploaded to YouTube not long after the event; one video in particular earning over 4 million views. A few months later however, a European broadcast of World Finals X, known to have been shown in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, featured the crash with no form of censorship, making it the one and only time the crash would ever be featured on television. On the broadcast, Scott Douglass would acknowledge the crash through pre-recorded commentary.
After this incident, dumpsters were placed in front of the back wall for all subsequent World Finals events at Sam Boyd Stadium.
Freestyle order[]
Brutus
Madusa
War Wizard
Nitro Circus
Monster Mutt Dalmatian
Destroyer
Superman
Bounty Hunter
King Krunch
Batman
Avenger
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
An Escalade
Air Force Afterburner
Stone Crusher
Safe Auto Minimizer
Donkey Kong
Taz
Monster Mutt
El Toro Loco
Blue Thunder
Maximum Destruction
Grave Digger
Freestyle[]
Air Force Afterburner - 36
Bounty Hunter - 32
Brutus - 29
Blue Thunder - 28
Nitro Circus - 26
Stone Crusher - 26
Monster Mutt - 26
Taz - 25
Monster Mutt Dalmatian - 24
King Krunch - 23
Grave Digger - 23
Batman - 21
Donkey Kong - 21
El Toro Loco - 21
War Wizard - 19
Maximum Destruction - 19
Destroyer - 17
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 17
Madusa - 16
Safe Auto Minimizer - 13
Superman - 8
An Escalade - 8
Avenger - 4
Captain's Curse - DNC
Encore[]
Monster jam world finals 2009 Encore Max D BACKFLIP
Maximum Destruction's backflip.
After the freestyle competition, the car stack would be removed from the back of the middle ramp, revealing a backflip ramp. Tom Meents in Maximum Destruction would then come onto the track and attempt a backflip. While he would make a successful rotation, he would also make half of a second rotation, causing the truck the land hard on its rear and eventually crash-land on its roof. The pit party trucks would later come onto track and lap around it before the show came to close. The entire encore was never shown on the SPEED broadcast nor on the DVD for unknown reasons. Although not being shown, some driver interviews played during the freestyle DVD took place before or after the pit party encore, revealing some footage of it. However, Maximum Destruction's backflip would be featured on the European broadcast of World Finals X.
Other awards[]
Donut – Tom Meents - Maximum Destruction - Pensacola
Mechanic – Howie Daulton - Team Grave Digger and Team Captain's Curse
Trivia[]
2009 Monster Jam World Finals - Final Parade
Pit party trucks encore.
This event was the first World Finals to utilize 720p and HD quality for DVD releases. Despite this, the DVD was still limited to a 4:3 ration, resulting in the DVD having its fullscreen footage being squeezed into a square ratio.
Captain's Curse, Nitro Circus, and Grave Digger all crashed into the stands during the course of the event (Captain's Curse flipped violently into the stands after losing brakes in the finals, and Nitro Circus and Grave Digger both rolled onto the wall during freestyle). Captain's Curse's racing crash was omitted from the vast majority of TV broadcasts and from the DVD; Nitro Circus's and Grave Digger's crashes were only shown through onboard footage.
However, the European broadcast of World Finals X featured all three of these crashes with no forms of censorship.
Monster Jam WF X Intro video (by Mike Mcfarlin)
Original live version of the intro seen on the World Finals X DVD with different music.
The opening movie that is seen at the start of each World Finals X DVD's was actually played at the actual event before the opening ceremony. The live opening movie, however, featured different music from the DVD version. The first half of the intro with the drivers featured the opening segment of the Intro to Within Force's album "The Silent Force", where the DVD version featured suspenseful music with driver quotes. The second half of the intro with trucks and fans featured a shortened version of "Chain Links" from Saw 3, where the DVD version replaces it with an energetic rock tune, interestingly made to sync and mix with truck and fan noises well. These music changes were likely done because of copyright reasons.
The two trucks that sponsored each of the two racing lanes would go against each other in racing, however, they would ironically be put in opposite lanes, with the Built Ford Tough sponsored Blue Thunder being in the Advance Auto Parts lane, and the Advance Auto Parts sponsored El Toro Loco being in the Ford Trucks lane.
Adam Anderson became the second reigning world finals champion who was unable to defend their respective title the following year, due to an injury sustained in racing. He joined Pablo Huffaker on that list.
Adam Anderson was injured after crashing into a tree in Thunder Alley during racing. Later, his substitute in Taz, Chad Tingler, suffered a dislocated shoulder after a hard hit in freestyle.
This would be the only World Finals competition appearance of Randy Moore and War Wizard.
Originally, the triple jump on the left side of the track was a double jump with a disconnected jump stack. After the photos were taken, the disconnected jump was melded into the double on the last day to change it into a triple stack.
Very interestingly, especially considering how popular clearing the triple was the previous year, Linsey Weenk was the only driver to have actually backed up from the front of the triple and attempt to clear the triple. He came up a bit short of fully clearing the ramp.
Although Linsey Weenk was the only driver to back up from the front of triple to attempt and clear it, Chad Tingler in Taz also attempted to clear the triple. However, he did not back up for the triple and he also sent it from the backside of the triple instead, flooring the throttle while driving onto the ramp after getting shut off for a moment during the run. He would come closer than Linsey, though not fully clearing it, hitting the front bus of the triple.
This would be the last freestyle appearance for King Krunch. He returned the following year, but could not freestyle, due to a crash in racing.
The bark split open on the tree Taz collided with. The tree survived the incident, but was removed several years later.
During Friday practice, Stone Crusher clipped the triple jump and rolled completely over and back upright.
This was the second of three World Finals where the fastest qualifier (Donkey Kong) lost in its first race.
Only War Wizard was the new truck to the event, as Brutus and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle had been absent for a year, both previously competing in three previous World Finals each and Madusa returning after having competed in all of the first 6 World Finals.
This would be the second year in a row where the world racing champion would defeat the world freestyle champion on the way to their championship.
This World Finals was notably the only one to have changed multiple of the trucks theme songs, being Bounty Hunter: "The Enemy" by Godsmack, Destroyer: "Free" by Powerman 5000, El Toro Loco: "Gimme the Mic" by Limp Bizkit, Nitro Circus: "Inside the Cynic" by Stone Sour, War Wizard: "Awake" by Godsmack and Monster Mutt sharing Monster Mutt Dalmatian's theme.
This event would be Superman's only televised appearance in the 2009 season, as his other events were either European broadcasted or non-televised.
Along with this, Superman would also never have a full freestyle shown all season, because his WFX run was shown as a highlight along with the other trucks on SPEED.
