What's up guys? Leslie Robbins here for Young Hollywood, coming to you from Angel Stadium. But no, we're not here for baseball. It is Monster Jam Time. Where this turns into that. Ryan, you are son of a digger, the driver of this monster. Now, there's a reason it's called Son of a Digger.

Yeah, yeah, my dad is that crazy old guy with the silver mustache. Dennis Anderson that created Grave Digger 40 years ago. So this is the 40th anniversary of Grave Digger. Break down what this insanity actually is, because you see it in videos, people come here, but you actually have to see these trucks up close and personal to actually like feel the energy. Yeah, absolutely. Like on TV, it's great. Kids love watching it on YouTube, but there's nothing. And it doesn't even have to be a kid. I don't care if you're 0 or 120. Grandma, the son, whatever. You are going to have a blast at Monster Jam. You're going to have an absolute, the best time of your life. The trucks roll in here in the stadium and we take over. Okay, so the horsepower is 1500 horsepower. Your normal vehicle, normal trucks, maybe got 300 on a good truck. The truck weighs 12,000 lbs. A normal truck is maybe 5,000 lbs. And these tires are obviously what makes it a Monster Jam truck. 66 inches tall, 43 inch pop one, but at the same time, when you pop it and keep going, the entire stadium just goes crazy. When I roll out of the tunnel, it's game on. Like, I don't care. I'm going to turn into a destruction machine. And I'm not stopping until the truck is just done.

Well, your energy is on point. Talk about these tricks that you guys do.

And basically we're doing tricks that uh, you know, for lack of better terms, we're treating these things like ballerinas. We're up on two tires, balancing on the front, the back, the side, even sometimes one tire, and then pulling out tricks that literally are just smacking physics in the face. We throw all caution to the wind. We know we're safe. We know we're good. We are just here to strictly put on the craziest show we possibly can. And there it is a competition, believe me. I everybody's gunning for me and the Digger truck. It's basically Grave Digger versus the world. So we're we're out to beat them. No doubt about it, but our main goal is to make sure that the seat you paid for, you're not using because you're on your feet just going ballistic. My dad, Dennis Anderson, the creator of Grave Digger, he was known for being the wild man. Back in the day, there was no freestyle, there was no skills. It was just racing of trucks. It was just like, who was fastest. But my dad was not about that. He was like, I want to hit the things backwards. I want to jump stuff wrong. I want to break stuff. And the people went crazy. So it really evolved into now what we have is freestyle.

Well, show me all of this truck.

Okay. So these big tires obviously are 750 lbs a piece, 700 lbs a piece, give or take. In this setting right now, 60 mph is going to be about topped out in this this setting right here, which is a lot. That's fast. And when you can hit a jump at 30, as steep as we have these jumps here this weekend, a jump at 30 mph, you're going to be going 40 foot in the air. Wow. And it's going to be insane. What? Obviously I have my flag. I mean, I got to represent my flag. And there's little flags. Just like this. The fans are swinging them around going crazy. We get them to do signs. If you want us to go big, put that thing in the air. If you want us to do a donut, spin it around, go insane. Fuel mileage. Pretty good size fuel tank. And for one, we run off pure alcohol. Last time I figured it up, I think it was about like 3 gallons we burn per mile. Yeah, it's it's I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest taking a road trip with it. And obviously, everything about this thing is just huge. Everything's built to be big, heavy, strong, durable, and and also quickly replaceable. There's plenty of times where we break during the show because we're always pushing trucks to the limits. We want to be able to fix that truck and get back out. We've actually replaced entire engines during the show, brought the truck back out and finished. It's it's don't get me wrong. When we are done, we are spanked. We're worn out, but the drive to make sure that these fans get what they paid for and they get to see the show of a lifetime is above all. I mean, that that is our goal 100% when when when my truck goes down, the crew is ready. They're in turbo mode to get this thing back together because they know the people want to see me. They want to see me go out there and go crazy. They want to see every single truck get everything, every chance they get to go out there and just go insane and show off, put on the best possible competition they can.

You are the driver of the most iconic monster truck out there, Grave Digger. That comes with a lot of responsibility.

Yeah, absolutely. It's uh, it's been an awesome ride. It's my fifth year driving Grave Digger. Uh, I've had a lot of fun. It's been, you know, it's big, uh, big thing to be a part of this team. You know, that's one thing. Uh, 40 years of Grave Digger this year. 40th anniversary back in 1982 is when Dennis Anderson created this beast and uh, I'm proud to pilot it every weekend.

How did you get to this point? Because not many guys can say, oh, I'm the driver of Grave Digger.

Yeah. So I just grew up doing off-road racing. Uh, met actually Ryan's brother that you just talked to, his uh, brother Adam, the oldest Anderson. Uh, he hired me to work at their shop for a summer as kind of like an internship and uh, a couple years later, I was behind the wheel of a Grave Digger truck. So, kind of crazy.

Walk me through this monster truck.

Yeah, so it sits on 66 inch BKT tires. So, they're taller than you, obviously. I'm just taller than them.

I see you got your little Grave Digger there too. You're at least taller than those. So, I brought this just because I wanted to like be cool. Yeah. But to actually see it next to yours is out of control.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, one of the coolest things about Grave Digger, uh, we'll skip past some other stuff, but this whole body is the only body in in the monster truck industry that gets hand painted every time. So one guy sits there and just paints Grave Digger bodies non-stop all day long.

So he hand paints this monster truck and then it gets demolished and ruined and he's got to do it all over again.

Uh, yeah, he basically spends 50, 40 to 50 hours painting a body and it may take me 20 seconds to ruin it.

Well, before you ruin it, let's see what you got here.

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, monster truck, this right here is what the the chassis is basically. It's all all the green bars and everything, that's the chassis. You got shocks that are uh, nitrogen filled shocks. We can actually, uh, spin this valve right here to adjust them. So if I jump the truck really big and it it was like, it hurt, I can adjust it to make it not hurt. But you got to you got to, it's a fine line between adding pressure and doing the turns. There's like a, there's a fine line there. So, body is actually all fiberglass. So it doesn't take much for it to start ripping once it once it starts, when we crash and everything. So, obviously, this is the heart of the beast right here. It's a 540 big block Chevrolet, 1500 horsepower. Uh, it's got a supercharger and a blower on it. So, it's uh, it's pretty crazy. Coolest thing about a monster truck in a lot of people's eyes is this right here. So, the front axle is exactly the same as this. So this has a tie rod, which the front, well, you know, steers like with a steering wheel. The rear steers just like the front does. But we don't have two steering wheels. So it actually runs off a toggle switch on the inside of the cab. It's electric over hydraulic. And it's this self-centering device that helps us the most right here. So, rear tires turn, you hit the toggle switch. If I want to go left, I turn the toggle left, they'll go like that. When I let go of the toggle switch, the tires will automatically come back straight. I don't have to make sure they're coming straight, all because of this self-centering device right here. So, pretty cool. Two two steering axles, front and rear.

So, son of a digger has a specific horsepower, weight. Yours is pretty much the same thing just aesthetically different.

Yeah, so honestly, it's all the trucks are almost exactly the same. So, uh, yeah, just if you took all the bodies off, without without mine being green and his being blue, uh, all the black all the black chassis would look exactly the same with the bodies off. So, it's just body mounts and the body itself that makes each one of them have their own characteristic.

And the talent of the driver.

Absolutely. You got Yeah, you got to you got a a good-looking truck, you got to make it talk out on the track, absolutely. That's what the fans come to see.

So how do you make it talk? What's your specialty?

They love backflips. I I would have to say that's probably their favorite. So, as long as, you know, you don't want to go out and hit a backflip like the first thing in freestyle, you want to kind of wait until the end of your run. So as long as your truck doesn't break before you get to the backflip, you got to hit a backflip every time. Plus you'll never win freestyle in a stadium event like this without hitting a backflip. So you got to hit it at some point.

What do you think? I have to take a moment because I'm actually sitting inside Grave Digger. This is like an iconic moment right now.

Absolutely. Put the steering wheel on if you want.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so just kind of shape it up. There you go.

This is every child's dream.

It is. Yep. I'm lucky to live it every weekend.

Do you know that? Do you know how lucky you are?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

What are you thinking when you're behind the wheel of Grave Digger?

It's uh, like I it if you're going to do any thinking like theoretically like that, I guess, uh, you do it before because once you get to moving, it's just complete chaos.

Okay, I was in there, but you want to start this bad boy for me?

Yeah, I think I could do that for you. So here we are in Anaheim, Angel Stadium. There used to be a baseball field here, but there's a ton of dirt. But you guys don't bring the dirt. The dirt's here waiting for you. That's right?

Yes, it's been waiting for quite a long time. We're so excited to be back here in Anaheim. Our fans here love the show. I mean, the event is going to be action packed from the very first moment to the end for the entire family.

The cool thing about this dirt is you guys rip apart the baseball field. The Angels, they get new dirt, a new field every season because of you guys.

Yes, it's incredible. So they have a pristine field every time we leave, Monster Jam leaves its mark and the Angels are always looking good out there on the field and we're looking good here out here on the track. I mean, these the dirt crew does an amazing job bringing all this dirt in here to transform Angel Stadium into our playground, really. And I'm telling you, the fans are going to pack this place. The atmosphere is electric. I just can't wait for tomorrow night.

Now, it is a playground. Talk to me about the stunts and the tricks that you do. Break it all down for me.

Oh my gosh. So first we do Monster Jam racing, which is like a bracket race. All 12 of us get to race head to head two at a time and you break it down to the fastest two and then the winner of the last race is crowned the racing champion. Then we get into our skills competition, which is wild. You never would think in a million years you could balance a 12,000 lb monster jam truck on front two BKT tires or the rear two or even the side two. So that's a competition the fans get to vote for on JudgesZone. com. And then to cap off the event, freestyle, which is everybody's favorite. We get two minutes to rip this track apart out here with these trucks, 1500 horsepower. You got to put your right foot down to the floor every time you can. So, we're doing backflips, wheelies, big air, donuts, you name it. So, it's just an all-time fun family event. I'm so glad to be back here. It's been too long.

What you do for a living, sir, is every young child's dream.

It was my dream. I was that kid. I was 6 years old, my mom took me to my first event. I fell in love. From that moment on, I knew this is what I wanted to do and I'm living the dream. 11 years in now and I'm still loving it like it was my first day. I always loved anything with four wheels. I got involved with radio control cars at an early age and I still call it my favorite hobby to this day and that's actually how I got noticed. I was at a a big RC event at the home of Grave Digger, Digger's Dungeon and Monster Jam official just happened to be there. He didn't even know about our event. It was on business and he said, man, if you can drive an RC car that good, I could probably drive the real deal. They gave me a shot in test field. Literally, a week later, I was in the test field driving one of these, living out that childhood dream and uh, four years later, I got hired on professionally to go pro. That was in 2011. Fast forward now 2022. Got a lot of trophies, got a lot of accolades, been all over the globe.

Unbelievable story. And for any other young little boy out there that wants to live this dream, because you're glowing right now, it's unbelievable. How do they do it?

You just have to follow your dream, you have to work hard, make sure you surround yourself with the positive people, make good choices throughout life. And, you know, one one at one point you'll you'll catch that break. You just need that one break for the right person to notice you. Put yourself in that position. Never know who's watching. So you always got to be on your A game. And one day it'll happen.