Just in case anyone is confused, this is NOT #2. 2's chassis is M.I.A.CowboyGeneral (talk) 23:57, July 19, 2019 (UTC)
- According to the Adam Anderson (who is quoted at the Monster Truck Photo Album site, which is run by Dennis Taft, who knows the Andersons personally) yes, it is. Being Adam took the lead on the restoration of GD2 a few years back, I'll trust his word on it. Oknazevad (talk) 19:00, June 17, 2020 (UTC)
- To be clear, #2 and #5 ARE seperate chassis right? #5 just used parts from #2 after it was turned from a race truck to a swimmer?
I will rejoin Facebook soon and I will ask a few people who have been studying this issue for years. Taft's site is good for pictures, but it is full of errors and misinformation. Dennis Anderson has mislabled #4 as this truck when he sold it. From what I know, only parts from #2 were used for this truck. #2 is most likely long gone.CowboyGeneral (talk) 03:00, June 22, 2020 (UTC)
- The timeline to my understanding is this: #2 Race Truck, #3, #2 under reconstruction for Currituck Sound, #4, #5 Race Truck built on a seperate frame utilizing parts of the old #2 Race Truck (distinguishable by the paintjob and red linkbars), meanwhile #2 was still its own separate entity with its swimming gear, then #5 was retired to the Dungeon and we got #7. #2 was also at the dungeon where it sat for 25 years until Adam restored it around 2017. #3 Became Inferno and went its own way, #4 was sold, and we know the rest from 7 onward (until Pablo's False #5, which is its own issue). #2 and #5 were always seperate, 2 went from a Race Truck to a Swimmer while #5 was its own shortlived race truck built similar to #2. I dont see what the confusion is, out of anything I'd expect the Currituck Sound truck to be mistaken for #5 except that's not the case. Jason Dean (talk) 23:08, June 28, 2020 (UTC)
- From what I've been able to glean from further research, my understanding is that #2 was pretty beaten up by Dennis's crazy driving style, and saw many part swaps in its short life, including completely replacing the original steel body with a fiberglass replica because it was easier to fix. The truck was fully retired after it was damaged beyond feasible repair when its frame rails snapped into two pieces after a bad crash at an event outside Syracuse, NY, in September 1990. With #3 already under construction, and it being the newer tube-frame, four-link design in order to keep up with the new trucks with such designs, Dennis just waited until the new year to debut it.
- However, parts from #2, including the running gear and mostly intact replica fiberglass body, were used with a new, lighter-weight frame to construct a special leaf-spring truck for use in the Carrituck Sound crossing charity stunt performed over the July 4th weekend in 1991.
- Afterwards, that truck was modified for race use and became known as Grave Digger 5, as Jack Koberna's franchised #4 had debuted earlier in 1991. (And Jack's truck was definitely #4, because it was the fourth to debut, despite Dennis mislabeling the frame as #5 when he signed it some years later.) Number 5 was driven (mostly by Dennis's brother Les) for some events in late 1991 and early 1992, during which time the street-legal display truck #6 also debuted. But because it wasn't really meant for race duty, and because the next tube-frame truck, #7, were ready to debut, #5 wasn't used for very long, and it wound up being used as a display piece at the shop for many years, and occasionally wore other bodies for display purposes, including as Goldberg (Anderson) (meaning a real Digger played a fake future Max-D!) So, yes, the Sound-crossing Digger is what became Digger #5, and it is not really Digger #2, even though it used parts, including the fiberglass body, from it.
- Then, in 2016, Adam spearheaded a project for students a local technical school where they rebuilt #2 to its original specs using another Willys truck frame identical to the one originally used to build #2 and as many original parts as they could get together, including the original steel body which they still had. That restored #2 is what's at Digger's Dungeon now. The frame from #5 is now in private hands.
- Of course, then there's Pablo's first Grave Digger form 1993 to consider. It was actually his two-year old Jus' Show N Off #2 using the fiberglass body from #4, as Pablo essentially took over the franchise that Jack had been running for what was supposed to be a short term-deal but which became a decades-long relationship. After becoming a full-time franchisee in 1995, Pablo debuted a new truck for himself, which was properly numbered as Grave Digger 10 from the start. His first Grave Digger doesn't actually have a number, as it wasn't actually a full-time Digger, but Pablo has been called a former driver of #4 because of the reuse of #4's body, though bodies don't define truck numbers. (Indeed, when Pablo retired from driving, Jim McShea, the artist who these days hand-paints every Grave Digger body, painted a trophy fish with a Grave Digger design as a retirement present for Pablo which included the numbers for his truck, and he listed #4. See McShea's Instagram here.) Pablo's truck has also been incorrectly called #5, which might have to do with Dennis's mislabeling of #4's frame, or the Digger team's own misunderstanding of the relationship between #2 and #5 (the same one I used to hold).
- So, to make a long story short, Digger #2 (1989) -> Digger #2 destroyed in crash (Sept 1990) -> Digger #3 debuts (Jan 1991) -> Jack debuts Digger #4 under franchise (1991) -> Special sound crossing Digger built using parts from #2 (July 1991) -> Sound crossing Digger converter to Digger #5, Digger #6 (the street-legal display truck) debuts (late 1991) -> Digger #5 retired, #7 debuts (1992) -> Digger #8 debuts, Pablo uses Digger #4 body on Jus' Show'N'Off #2 (1993) -> Digger #9 (the first ride truck) debuts (1994) -> Pablo debuts Digger #10 (1995)
- Thinking on it now, think this page should be titled "Grave Digger 5", be the only one of that title, and explain the origins of the truck with the sound crossing, and how it reused parts from #2, but isn't actually #2, while the confusion regarding the number can be explained here, the Grave Digger (Just Show'N'Off) article, and the main article. Oknazevad (talk) 03:22, August 13, 2020 (UTC)
- My apologies but your error (and mine as well as everyone else's) is that #2 swam Currituck in 1994. That means that whatever ratio of #2 was utilized on #5s frame in 1991, and then whatever was left of #2 (including the original Steel body) gathered dust for 3 years until Currituck. So no, #5 is not #2 being restored to race specs AFTER Currituck, #5 is #2s race specs being recycled on a new frame BEFORE Currituck, and by the time Currituck happened, #4 and the true #5 retired, Pablo's chassis was on the cusp of retiring, #7 and #8 were still running, #9 was built, and logically, the Currituck Sound chassis should have been considered #10 or #11, but it WASNT, because it was recognized that the Currituck chassis was #2, and #5, being built on a new frame, was indeed nothing other than #5. He shoots. He scores. Swish. And that's the game.
- Yep, I had the date wrong of the sound crossing. Makes it even more clear that 2 and 5 are separate trucks, and that Pablo's truck is not 5. That said, considering that 2's original frame was totaled after the 1990 crash, and not repairable, and 5 was built with a similar frame and by 1994 that frame was intact if retired, I wonder if the truck that crossed the sound was actually the frame from 5 with the original steel body from 2. Damn it, now I've got to go hunt up Dennis Anderson and ask him. Time for a road trip to North Carolina. Then again, maybe that's not such a good idea with the whole COVID thing. It'll have to wait. Oknazevad (talk) 14:46, August 13, 2020 (UTC)
- Looking into it further (mostly on Adam's Facebook page, being he was the one who spearheaded the #2 restoration work), my speculation is totally not correct. The restored 2 actually uses the frame with coil-over springs built specifically for the water crossing, and indeed is really a restoration of the water-crossing Digger, which does have the original steel body from 2, but not much else, as the suspension and fiberglass replacement body were reused on a new frame to build #5, while the wrecked frame was sold off for scrap (though apparently was kept intact and supposedly still exists). So the real question is not whether #5 was #2 (it's not, it just reused some parts and a replacement body shell), but whether the aquatic Digger really counts as #2. As far as Adam is concerned (and I quote him here) "it's all that is left of two so it is #2". Either way there's only one real #5, and that's the subject of this article. And Pablo's first Digger is definitely not #5, and isn't really even #4, despite using that body. It has no number. Oknazevad (talk) 16:28, August 13, 2020 (UTC)
- Yep, I had the date wrong of the sound crossing. Makes it even more clear that 2 and 5 are separate trucks, and that Pablo's truck is not 5. That said, considering that 2's original frame was totaled after the 1990 crash, and not repairable, and 5 was built with a similar frame and by 1994 that frame was intact if retired, I wonder if the truck that crossed the sound was actually the frame from 5 with the original steel body from 2. Damn it, now I've got to go hunt up Dennis Anderson and ask him. Time for a road trip to North Carolina. Then again, maybe that's not such a good idea with the whole COVID thing. It'll have to wait. Oknazevad (talk) 14:46, August 13, 2020 (UTC)
- My apologies but your error (and mine as well as everyone else's) is that #2 swam Currituck in 1994. That means that whatever ratio of #2 was utilized on #5s frame in 1991, and then whatever was left of #2 (including the original Steel body) gathered dust for 3 years until Currituck. So no, #5 is not #2 being restored to race specs AFTER Currituck, #5 is #2s race specs being recycled on a new frame BEFORE Currituck, and by the time Currituck happened, #4 and the true #5 retired, Pablo's chassis was on the cusp of retiring, #7 and #8 were still running, #9 was built, and logically, the Currituck Sound chassis should have been considered #10 or #11, but it WASNT, because it was recognized that the Currituck chassis was #2, and #5, being built on a new frame, was indeed nothing other than #5. He shoots. He scores. Swish. And that's the game.
to quote jim kramer in one of his fan portal interviews, who gives a shit?