SPEAKER_01 0:10

Good evening everyone. Welcome to Inside Monster Jam, the official Monster Jam podcast. I'm Scott Jordan. My guest this week just won his fifth straight Monster Jam Series championship on the Freestyle Mania Championship series. So let's fire up the Zenny Optical Hotline and go to North Carolina and welcome in the man, Gravediggers, Weston Anderson. Weston, welcome back to Inside Monster Jam. Congratulations on your fifth series win.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Thank you, brother. Thank you. It's uh it's always good being back on here. What was it, 365 days ago we were on this sucker, and now here we are back again. Uh five back to back. Holy smokes. I don't I don't know what to say about it. I'm gonna make you do all the talking on this.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Hey, what I'm here for, I always tell everybody that not only do you get an automatic bid to Monster Jam World Finals when you win your series, but you get an automatic guest spot on inside Monster Jam. So it's like a you know, you get you get the big prize and then you also get the little prize to come on my show again. Um, let's talk about that, man, because you continue to break that glass ceiling. You continue to make history with every championship win. No rookie had ever won a championship series, no one had ever won two, three, four, now five to start a career. That is an unbelievable accomplishment um and and a record that may never be broken. Do you um do you do you know the importance of of what you're doing, or for you is it just business as usual?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

No, uh I I I've realized now after after series championship to series championship to series championship five five over. It's uh it's a big deal, man. It is a big deal. And and uh, you know, whenever we're out there, we're running on the road, we're uh we're doing all of these events, you you kind of get a little bit lost in the sauce. Whenever you do uh you do 60 events back to back for 20 weeks straight. And um, I honestly I still don't feel like it's really set in truly what we've done yet until I got back home and I got to set eyes on my whole family and them congratul congratulating me and uh my dad, man. Him him crying and hugging me. That uh yeah, that right there really kind of sunk it in and showed me how how big it was what we did. It was something that it's been something that I've been pushing for my whole life to drive a monster truck, obviously. Uh gravigger at that as well. And you know, I came in came in my rookie season and I had never really touched a monster truck. I haven't. I had been in the megatrucks, and that's a that's a completely different world. That's a completely different racing style. But because of that background, because of me and my dad traveling around doing what we did for as long as we did, it uh it definitely slung shot me. I feel like it uh it gave me a little bit of an advantage coming in as that rookie. I I knew how to handle the truck in situations, I knew knew how to control the truck within boundaries, and it kind of set me up for success. That and uh I got stuck with the best of the best crew from from the very beginning of my career. I've had the had the best technicians on my truck, and and I can't thank Monster Jam enough for that. They uh I think they know that we're gonna go out there and tear some stuff up or we're gonna do some winning while we do that, and we need a we need a good crew on our back, and we got one of the best right now.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

You definitely came in uh as one of the highest profile rookies uh in in Monster Jam history, but you backed it up from day one, and that's not an easy thing to do. When you are placed with lofty expectations uh in sports, a lot of times athletes fall short of meeting them, and rightfully so. But you literally walk through the door and hit a grand slam on your first weekend, man. So, you know, five years later, I you know, do you feel that those expectations uh have been met, have been exceeded, or are you still setting expectations for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I'm still setting expectations for myself. There's uh the series championships, there it takes a lot of grit to win one, but you also have so you have so much uh you have so much time during that span to get that win. You have time to mess up, you have time to do very good. And uh I think the next one, the one that we all know what it is, Monster Jam World Finals. Uh I think that's the next biggest step for me. Fingers crossed as always, fingers crossed as always. And it's just gonna take one of those times of having good luck at that event. It's gonna, it's gonna take that crazy freestyle that I'm hitting every single ramp and thinking maybe I'm not gonna land it and the truck's gonna land. And I don't know if it's gonna be this year, next year, ten years from now. I say it every single time. I say it every time, and it's uh it's just a matter of time at this point. That's that's where uh that's where I'm going towards. I wanna I really want to get that championship, the freestyle racing, whichever one it could be. But uh right now, you know what? These series championships are pretty fun. They're pretty fun to they're pretty fun to get up under your belt. And uh, I definitely do feel like I have a big target on my back. I had a huge target on my back this year. You know, we had some of the greats, Brandon Telechka, Tony Oakes, Fernando Martinez, Chucky Packin's a rookie, and he's doing stuff in that truck that I didn't even do my rookie season, and just shows how much Monster Jam has progressed in the past five years. And uh yeah, I I don't know. It was a it was a tough season. It was a very tough season. They gave me a run for my money, and we didn't have that huge point gap like we usually did, and uh, we kind of just picked it right up there right at the very last second and locked in that championship a few weeks prior to the end of the tour.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, I know it's it was it was a little hard when you're not leading by 479 points uh you got you gotta earn you gotta earn one. Um, you were challenged this year, and I thought I thought that was great. And we'll talk about world finals because you know I have to ask you about it. You and I have that thing back and forth. I always have to ask you if this is the year. I'm gonna save that for for a little bit uh later in the episode. I do your your brother Ryan talked to me, he uh he had a quote that um was fascinating to me. He said that there are times that he's felt that winning a series championship meant more than winning a world finals championship, just because, as you said, you have to grind for event after event after event. It's a culmination of many different weekends. And he said anyone can be great on one night. Um, but you have to be great multiple nights to win the series. So uh, you know, that that that that grit that you have to display um for a full season, would you agree with that statement? I think they're both very important, but he he said they're just times. Yeah, he just said there's times that he's felt that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

A hundred percent. One hundred percent. There's uh anybody can be a hero on one night, and you you you see that uh you see that in sports, you see that you see that anywhere, man. You see it in all sorts of racing. You you go out there, you watch a football game, someone throws a Hail Mary and they win they win the Super Bowl for their team. That's uh they were good, but they were only good that one throw, that one play. If uh if you wanna if you want to try and go back to back and try and keep that try and keep that uh that achievement on your back or wherever the you want to keep throwing them trophies on your shelf back at home, you have to be great more than just that one time. You have to you have to push yourself, you have to stay locked in with what you're doing over and over and over again. And uh that's something that we've became really good at. I'm very consistent whenever we're in the trucks. And uh that's what's that's what's inevitably gotten me the the five series so far is that consistency in the trucks and the consistency with my team, letting them know when the truck is messed up or what is going on with it, what it sounds like if it's if it's about to be broken. If we don't know if it's gonna break it this event or the next event, but the transmission may be slipping a little bit. There's there's a lot more that goes into it than than a lot of people do realize.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Now, did you have any type of uh relationship with Chucky Pawkins? Because that seems like a natural partnership there. You talked about him, you're you're both second-generation drivers, sons of gravedigger legends. He's a high-profile rookie. You were a high-profile rookie. So what was that relationship like with you and him this year?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

It was uh it was great, man. You know, Chucky, he may be quiet whenever you first get to meet him, but once you get to know him, Little Chuck turns into Little Chuck. He's uh he's a prankster out on the road, man. And and then you were even from going from behind the scenes, being friends with him to out on the track. I hated racing with him because he was so fast. He was so fast. He is he's such a good driver. Racing, he was fast, two-wheel, he was combo and he was throwing crazy combo, was doing so good freestyle, he was trying to jump bigger than me, and then I had to go out there and one up and be in Gravedigger. And uh it was I'm extremely proud of Little Chuck, man. From from where he came from the very first weekend uh to where he is now is tremendous growth. He's doing he's doing things in his truck that I couldn't do my rookie season. He's uh he's playing with the laws of physics. He's playing with the laws of physics in these trucks, just like his teammates Little John and and John Sr. Everybody on Send at Motorsports, man, they're they're killing it this year. And Little Chuck, he's uh he is already a force to be reckoned with in his first season. He's he's gonna be a problem in the future. But right now I'm gonna keep him on my side. We're uh we're buddies on and off the track. And I did I did some leaning on him this year, he did some leaning on me, and anytime that I could give him any advice, or anytime I could push him to go bigger, go harder, I would because uh that's what that's what makes you that's what makes you go harder, that's what makes you progress to the next step, is is stepping up and being the hero sometimes, or sometimes failing. And it was crazy. He went out there and he was the hero every time. He would go out there, I'd say, Come on, Chuck, jump that truck bigger, do this, jump to that, jump, do a jump, do a moonwalk, and he would just go out there and do it like a robot. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I gotta deal with this guy now for the next 25-30 years. And but uh, but I'm excited. It's it's gonna be it's gonna be great. I hope that maybe one day we could have a friendly rivalry on and off the track uh 20 years from now and look back at his first season and go, holy smokes, dude, look at where you're at now. He's uh he's gonna be a world champion. It's just it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, speaking of trucks, you got a new truck this year. Any growing pains for you when the season started to uh get your feet wet and sort of get your your stuff dialed in there?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Absolutely, absolutely. There was a little bit of growing pain, and uh it was seen on it was seen on all sides of the team, from the mechanical side to the driving side. Uh just trying to get used to a new truck. I drove the Gravedigger 37, I drove the wheels off that thing for four years, and it was a it was a loose rig. It was a it was a rig that could take just about anything you threw at it. And then we jumped in this brand new truck, Gravedigger 45, that being, and it uh it was a very smooth rig, but it was a little too new at the very beginning. We had to get it broke in a little bit. So uh after a few crashes, after adding a few black bars into the thing, we uh we got our feet up under us, we got our shock setting set right, and I kind of figured the truck out a little bit easier. I figured out the style I needed to drive in this new chassis, in this new truck on the on a completely different tour that I was on from last year, as well as that uh different tracks, and it took a little bit to get our feet up under us. But once we did, once we got the mechanical side figured out, shaking all the bugs out of the truck from it being a brand new build, and once we got it landing right and taken off, once it once it once it was right, we uh we took off with it. We took off with it.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Let's talk about your freestyle mania championship series teammate Noah Bachin. He uh like you, a very high-profile rookie. But this uh fans, if you have not checked out a freestyle mania championship series event, go to YouTube after you watch this show, watch it. It is awesome. It combines the best of Monster Jam with the best of Freestyle Motocross, and you have this team format, and Team Gravedigger came out on top. But Weston, you you know, and we talked about this, the pressure of coming into Monster Jam as a rookie. Now you have this kid Noah who comes in and he is now tasked with helping you win another series championship, and the kid just hit a home run. So talk about that relationship with him.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

It was honestly enough. I'm glad that you touched that we were both rookies being Gravegigger whenever we came in because uh we kind of honestly we started the same way in our rookie seasons, if that makes sense. We had uh we had a few weeks where we it took our it took us some time to get our feet up under us. But once we got our feet up under us, we took off running, man. We took off running. Uh Noah, he was he was fresh back on the bike after being off of it for a long time, being off of it for a while, and he uh he didn't feel quite as comfortable at the very beginning. And then once we got through that first weekend, he got to see what freestyle mania was, what the legacy was that he was riding for. We uh we took off from there, man. He uh he came up with a new trick called the Cliff Clicker, and that singular trick was the turning point for Team Gravedigger. We went from being number two on tour to being number one and being number one by a few many, by a few points at that. And uh it's a crazy combination move. I'm not even gonna spoil it for anybody, yet I want them to see it in person. Uh eventually one day, if they could ever see Noah Bach and ride, because he's truly he's a he's a wild guy. He is, he throws moves that none of the other FMX riders were even wanting to try. And it uh I really appreciated it because it was getting us, it was getting us that number one spot every time, man. And if it wasn't for that one move for Noah going out on a limb and saying, Oh god, I need to pick it up here, we wouldn't have this series title under our under our belts right now. I think it would have I think the ending would have been a little bit different. And uh it's it's crazy to see how much of a success story Noah is from where he came from to where he is now, man. It's it's amazing we're we're going in front of these sold-out crowds, and he's he's killing it out there. He's he has people standing on their feet whenever he's done riding. And I would tell everybody every single weekend, if you don't know Noah Bachin, you're about to. Because he's gonna he's about to blow your minds away. And and I can't thank him enough. And even even off of the track, that's uh that's where the real team team bonding came in into play. We uh we go around uh a different city every single weekend on on these monster jam tours, and we we made the most of it every city that we went to. We had fun, we went out and we got to see new places, do new things, and uh and Noah, me and Noah, we were always right there side by side. It was uh it was a very great friendship that we built up, and he's uh he's gonna be a friend until the day I die. And uh yeah, I have nothing nothing but nothing but good things to say about Mr. Noah Bacchett himself.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

I think uh this series uh challenged you a little bit more because of of the of the team format, and you rose to the occasion. And I always say that when it comes to winning, whether it's in in sports, in the playoffs, or winning a world championship, the battle-tested teams are the ones that rise to the occasion in the biggest spotlight. And I think this year you're going into world finals a little more battle-tested than you have been before, and I love your chances this year, man. You have gotten better every single world finals, and I think this year you are uh not that you weren't a contender before, but I think you are a true contender to win that first world championship. So going into Salt Lake City, do you feel that Freestyle Mania has really elevated you as a competitor to compete for that world championship?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

100%, man. It was uh it was a it was a slugger from the beginning to the end, and I never thought it was gonna end in a good way. Uh that meant that the competition was great on our tour, and and it was uh it was it was a it was a big one. We had a lot of a lot of uh issues dealing with the new truck that we had to get through, and that's that's with any truck that you build. There's always gonna be there's always gonna be the lemons in there. And uh we took the lemons, we made lemonade. Chandler West is one of the baddest dudes on the wrenches, and uh I know the truck is gonna be ready. I think I'm gonna be ready. You know, this year has really taught me a lot more than I thought it was going to being with the people that I was with. Uh Tony Oakes, Brianna Mahan, Fernando Martinez, Chucky Paul, and everybody was so fast in racing that I had to pick up my game in racing. And it uh it was a turning point from me going from the spazzy side of my racing to throwing the truck in the corner and having my fingers crossed hoping that I'm not gonna hit the turnpole or flip over to the calculated smooth drifting through the corners. And the new truck is uh the new truck feels really good for racing. I'm feeling really confident for racing in uh this year for some reason. And then the truck is gonna be an absolute tank and freestyle, I think. It's gonna be it's gonna be good. I there's been many times this year I've tried to crash the truck and I just couldn't because it would keep landing back on the tires. And and that's uh that's one of those aspects you need in that world finals run, freestyle-wise, to to get the win. And you see uh you see Adam out there in his new Gravegigger truck running the same chassis, and he's almost jumping out of the stadium every week, he's jumping so big, and he gets home. I'm like, dude, what is it? What does that feel like? He said the truck is landing great, the truck is doing great. So I'm gonna probably piggyback off of my big brother a little bit. I'm gonna get some of his settings just because we haven't been on those big floors yet. We haven't been jumping 40, 50 feet in the air with this truck yet. We've been jumping 25 feet in the air, so I'm gonna steal his shock settings for freestyle. But I'm feeling really good coming in this year, man. It's uh the team is the team is feeling good. I think Noah Bakken is gonna be out there cheering me on. Anytime I saw him on the sideline, it always lit an extra fire under me. It made me go extra hard. Uh the whole team is gonna be out there. I'm gonna be reunited with my brothers and my sisters and all my friends, and that's gonna push me, that's gonna push me to the limit. This year, I think I'm I'm going big or going broke. And uh hey, whatever it is, it is. We're gonna walk out of there zero or a hero. And either way, I'm happy. We made it back again. That's that's all the that's that's all I needed to prove is that we could make it back. We could win this series again, no matter no matter what tour it's on, no matter where we're going, we're uh we're gonna be uh we're gonna be a we're gonna be a force to be reckoned with until the very end.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I think there's some marketing ideas there. Your sister has blonde to the bone. You could just be going big or going broke, Weston Anderson. I can see a t-shirt right here. Exactly, exactly. Well, listen, man, congratulations on another series championship. Well deserved, and uh can't wait to see what you do in Salt Lake City.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yes, sir. Thank you, brother. Uh, all I could say is everybody be everybody better be ready. It's gonna be it's gonna be big and and hopefully we're walking out of there with some hardware this year. I know I said it last year, may have jinxed myself, but hey. We're gonna win this thing this year. Fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

The gauntlet has been thrown down. If you want to see Weston Anderson try for a world championship, get your tickets to Salt Lake City at monsterjam.com. That is your freestyle mania championship series, series champion, gravediggers Weston Anderson. That's all the time we have for the Monster Jam studio. I'm Scott Jordan. Thanks for watching Inside Monster Jam, the official Monster Jam podcast.