Budweiser Gardens is revving up for an action packed event this weekend. The Maple Leaf Monster Jam tour is here this Saturday and Sunday. Twelve-feet-tall and ten-thousand-pounds, these machines are ready to race through the track and rip up obstacles.
Cam McQueen will be one of the six racers competing. He started racing motocross at age 11 and says “both my dad and my brother were into all kinds of motors and racing.” The love of motor sports was passed on to McQueen at young age and says it’s where his passion stems from.
McQueen says got his foot in the door when he got a call from a friend about Travis Pastrana, an American motorsport competitor of MTV’s Nitro Circus, who was filming a dirt bike video. McQueen took the day off work to take part and when he arrived, he explained that “pretty soon I was finding myself jumping a couple of the jumps that nobody wanted to do,” and became tagged as the “guinea pig” by Pastrana and the crew.
From racing, McQueen transitioned into monster trucks when began doing the “Tuff Truck” competitions at half time during Monster Jam shows. The adrenaline junkie then became the first person to back-flip a monster truck in 2010 at a competition in Jacksonville Florida.
Since then McQueen became the 2012 Monster Jam World Champion and is now on tour competing for team Canada driving Northern Nightmare.
Holding it down for the girls on this tour is Quebec native, Cynthia Gauthier and Brianna Mahon from Illinois. Both girls come from a professional motocross background but suffered injuries that ended their career. To get the adrenaline rush back, they both landed in the front seat of a monster truck.
And when it comes to show time, the girls get ready to entertain. With the crowd cheering and the adrenaline pumping, Mahon says “half the time I don’t even remember what I did you just black out.”
Gauthier adds “sometimes I react and I don’t even realize.”
The two may be competing on separate teams, one on Team Canada and the other on Team USA, they both agree that this show will have audience members up and out of their seats. Mahon says “they sell you a whole seat, but let’s put it this way, you aren’t going to need it.”
You can catch McQueen, Gauthier, and Mahon competing in either of the two shows on Saturday or the show on Sunday. For tickets and more information you can check out the Budweiser Gardens website.
