02.02.2008
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 Female driver makes inroads in monster truck
Female driver makes inroads in monster truck 2/2/08   Quote:
The Coloradoan, CO
When Jennifer Campbell goes to work, she suits up in a one-piece jumpsuit, tucks her long blond hair under a helmet, secures a neck brace and five-point harness. Campbell drives a monster truck - a 12-foot high, 12,000- pound beast with 66-inch tires and a moose on the side - that makes her 5 foot 10 inch frame look petite by comparison.
When she straps herself into that driver seat, she's in complete command of the truck that flies, churns, grinds and growls.
"When I'm on the floor (performing), I know that I'm the safest one out there, but I get nervous," she said in a telephone interview as she prepared for Friday and today's shows at the Budweiser Events Center.
"My biggest fear is being a letdown and looking stupid ... because no matter what you do in the truck it feels like you're doing something big. But then sometimes I'll watch a video of it and think, 'Wow, that was lame.'"
Being a woman in a small community of 100 to 120 mostly male drivers is a novelty, she admits, but often pays off. "It varies a lot per region," she said. "Sometimes I get things handed to me because I'm a girl and people automatically cheer for me.
"And sometimes the women are all, 'you go girl' and 'girl-power' ... for the most part people think it's really cool."
Campbell and her husband, Brad, a fellow monster truck driver, drive for Big Toys Racing, their own independent team that owns two monster trucks.
The newlyweds - married only since July - met at a show in their hometown of South Prairie, Wash.
She answered a want ad for someone to do marketing and promotions for a motorsport.
He was putting on a show in South Prairie. They met, went on a date and eventually married.
The couple spends 48 weeks a year on the road trucking from show to show.
At the time, Brad Campbell had another guy driving on his team.
"We were in Oklahoma and the guy called and said he was not going to make it," Jennifer Campbell said.
"So I strapped myself in and I've been driving ever since. It was a little scary at first."
Days later she was jumping motorhomes, buses and cars, doing wheelies, doughnuts and races.
She loves the wheelies best, she said.
Driving down the road in their 93-foot trailer that holds two monster trucks and sleeping quarters, they look like a train, Jennifer Campbell said.
The couple passes the time on the road stopping at "every Six Flags amusement park they drive by," visiting car museums and occasionally going shopping.
"We're pretty unexciting," Campbell said. "We wake up when we want. We go to sleep when we want."
It may not be a lifelong career, depending on whether they want a family, but she expects to keep driving for another 10 years.
"I love it and it's fun and I get to be with my husband and we get to do things that we love together."
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs....TOMERSERVICE02 | |
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