After a bit of a rough start to 2015 Steven Sims and the Hooked Monster Truck team went east to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta for the second round of the Monster Jam Fox Sports 1 Championship Series. With a freshly repaired truck Sims was ready to unleash the Hooked and show a sold out crowd of 60,000+ fans what they could do.Round one in Houston was a frustrating night with an unexpected rollover, and a great save that left Hooked unable to compete in freestyle, but crew chief Tommy Powers got Hooked ready for action once again as they arrived in Atlanta. The fans in Atlanta are some of the most die hard Monster Jam fans around and they packed the floor of the Georgia Dome Saturday afternoon for the Party in the Pits as nearly 18,000 fans turned out. As the house lights came down, the sell out crowd roared for the stars of the series as the night’s festivities were set to get underway.
The night started off with qualifying where it would be a father-son face off as Steven Sims would go against his dad Steve Sims during their qualifying round. Steven always wants to get a shot to beat dad even if it’s just in qualifying, but this time it would be dad getting the upperhand. Initially Steven would qualify 9th and be slated to go into the Obstacle Course challenge, but breakage to fifth place qualifier El Toro Loco would bump Hooked into the top eight racing bracket. Round one put Steven against top qualifier Damon Bradshaw and Monster Energy and the Young Gun Sims proved he could hang as he gave Bradshaw everything he could handle with a good race but wasn’t able to defeat him.
As the first truck out to freestyle, Steven and Hooked came out on fire to set the tone for the night’s freestyle competition with an exciting performance. While it wasn’t as long as Sims would’ve liked, he certainly announced his presence and got the fans cheering for Hooked. Steven hit the track right away with a high flying leap over the middle of the track and went right into a fast paced freestyle. One big air jump lead to another, and around the 40 second mark is when a bad bounce put the truck onto two wheels. Steven hit the throttled and turned right in an attempt to save the truck, but ran into a freestyle jump before saving it. The truck went skyward and sailed over upside down and into the ground in spectacular fashion. It was a wild rollover but it got the 60,000 strong crowd on their feet and cheering. The truck was a little battered but mostly okay, and Steven emerged unscathed.
(Photo By: Eric Stern – MonsterJam.com)
From Atlanta the team heads south to Tampa, Florida for round three of the Monster Jam Fox Sports 1 Championship Series at Raymond James Stadium. Be sure to catch the Atlanta event on Fox Sports 1 next Sunday at 11:00am EST/8:00am PT!
(Photo By: Dave DeAngelis – MonsterJam.com)
