How to seriously hook up a loyal fanbase in a few easy steps.

TV on? Check. VCR finished rewinding? Check. Press play, and after a few low-key credit screens, the action starts hot and heavy. A couple minutes in and things keep getting better and better.

“Hi there, I’m Don Breitweiser, driver of BIGFOOT #2. Let’s take a look at earlier years of BIGFOOT in action!”

While not the most prolific truck & driver combination of the 80’s Team Bigfoot roster, ‘ole Donny B. and BF2 put plenty of old iron to bed in their day.

Remember that?

If you’re in your late 30’s or early 40’s like myself; and if you loved monster trucks in the 1980’s like I did; and if your parents or legal guardians owned a VCR machine; and if they called the toll-free 1-800 number to order you a copy of the hottest new monster truck home video around, for only $24.95 plus Shipping & Handling, then you might have been the proud owner of the epic-ness that was the “BIGFOOT In Action” home video (after waiting two to six painstaking weeks for delivery, of course).

Let’s be honest, the original “BIGFOOT In Action” VHS home video release always has been and always will be the coolest in the BIA series. With relatively excellent production values (especially compared against subsequent releases), a killer, perfectly-80’s stock-music soundtrack and a tidy-but-punchy 30-minute run time full of….well….action, the original BIA is a classic that all “true” BIGFOOT fans should own functional copies of (and VCRs to watch said copies on!)

If you had this as a kid, your childhood was awesome. Ok, so maybe not a guarantee that your childhood was awesome, but at least this tape was awesome.

As kids, monster truck videos like BIA were welcome, rewindable doses of ridiculous big-wheeled propaganda; and to be certain, we eagerly lapped it up. Me? I happily lapped up my supply of MT video tapes like a sun-baked and parched Palm Springs labradog mix who’s recently discovered that not only is the water hazard at the adjacent country club golf course surprisingly potable (and refreshing), but that the shade and well-manicured grass under the nearby deciduous trees is a spectacular spot to drop off some sizeable dog logs (extra messy to clean up, thanks to the spendy wet food it’s owner loads her Escalade up with weekly at the nearby Pet Oasis). Hopefully that paints some kind of hyperbolic picture for you of just how effing cool these tapes were back then (and still are today.)

Fictional dramatization of what might have been happening at the aforementioned Palm Springs-area golf course.

While the OG BIA tape will always remain the greatest in the series, I would like to selfishly suggest that the fifth iteration in this saga might qualify as the second best, not on the merits of its production value or scrip-writing but instead on the quality of it’s visual content. If you’re one of the fortunate ones to own a copy of BIGFOOT In Action 5: The Vault Edition (and a working DVD player to enjoy both discs with), then you’re likely very aware of the intoxicating blend of rough and raw footage it contains, culled from the so-recently-alluded-to BF video repository. If BIA-1 was a fun, easy-going, no-strings-attached date-afternoon down on the cobblestone-lined streets of St. Chaz with that new fling you’re absolutely smitten with, then BIA-5 is what you’ve discovered once your new fling has asked you to house sit for them while they were away on a quick business trip. And maybe while they were gone you successfully picked the lock on the door to their mysterious downstairs crawlspace they told you “not to worry about.”

“The Vault Edition” DVD case wrap, designed by yours truly.

Upon completion of your quick B&E refresher course, you discover that their crawlspace isn’t so much a dungeon for hiding sketchy plumbing and wiring code violations but is instead a dusty and nostalgic pleasure pit of previously unseen, forgotten, or once-deemed-unimportant footage ranging from scratchy Super-8 home video reels to high-end, pro-porno-grade BetaMax gems that would make even The Man In The High Castle void himself with giddy joy (if he was into this sort of thing.) Like newly discovered proof that Earth had once been visited by ancient astronauts sent from a millennias-old civilization to catalogue all ag-tire-based entertainment forms on our planet, BIA-5 hits you with waves of vitally important BF footage but with very little in the way of pomp, circumstance, or unnecessary mood lighting except for the Fifty Shades of Blue all around you.

In between gigs with various BF trucks, this is about what my work station would typically look like while harvesting footage for The Vault Edition. Honestly, the reel-to-reel stuff scared me to tinker with; and the BETA and VHS tapes and their respective players were often troublesome, sometimes requiring me to actually take the unit apart and fix/clean it before I could continue my work.

BIA-5 was a passion project for me while I was at BF and I’ve said before in other posts and in a couple interviews when the topic came up, that I’m incredibly fortunate I was given the sort of leeway required to root around through so much of the company’s video library. Today, as an almost-40-something adult with kids and a very professional job, I would likely approach the same opportunity VERY differently….complex spreadsheets, an organized plan of attack, some serious Unibomber-meets-MUFON-type attention to detail bordering on the fanatical. Back then however, as a 20-something utility infielder for BF infected with a driving obsession for all things Old School Monster Trucks (OSMT), things were different. It felt as though they had just handed the pharmacy keys to the violence-prone transient down the block who talks to himself while crushing a lukewarm plastic 40 of OE (no brown paper bag or anything) while ambling about with more than zero shoes on, but definitely less than two. I don’t recall that there was ever any method to my madness, other than just trying to sample as many different video formats and years of footage as possible. It was pure, unadulterated consumption (while still accomplishing the important task of digitally capturing the best bits, of course.)

Much of my time sorting through The Vault came after-hours or on days off when I wasn’t on the road with one of the BF trucks. I hadn’t yet been assigned permanently to a specific truck in 2010, so that year as a utility/relief driver I gigged at least once with BIGFOOTs #1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15; basically damn near all of them! As with the trucks, the same with The Vault: when you’re me in your 20’s and this opportunity presents itself, what else do you do but grab the situation by the ***** and wring all you can out of it. Basically, order some effing pizza, grab some beers and dive right in with both nostrils wide open, hoovering up the whole experience for all that you can. With The Vault, it was borderline-unchecked enthusiasm that I had to truly work hard to contain, so as to present a semi-normal/professional facade on the outside.

There were certain labels I would find on various tapes in The Vault that would cause my heart rate to spike, often simple hand-written shorthand featuring immensely exciting keywords that I could barely wait to watch. Dried and peeling sticker labels with phrases that sounded like code-word football playcalls: “BF4 JMK”, “SRO BATTLE 8 TRUCKS”, or “USA Arrowhead KCMO 92” would get me more excited than a British intelligence officer decoding the first wave of Nazi ciphers thanks to the newly decoded Enigma Machine. A monster truckin’ Alan Turing meets footage of Alan Tura’s Goliath; ’twas like that folks, I’m not even kidding.

One of my favorite menu screes that I designed for The Vault Edition, featuring an epic photo of BF11 by my good friend Andrew Pellegrine, shot from the overhead catwalk of the Landers Center arena in Southaven, MS in January of 2010.

To be very frank, compared to my video watching​ skills, my video editing skills are a sort of Sam’s Choice or Shasta version of what a real video editor can do. So while I offered as much solicited (and unsolicited) production advise as I could during The Vault project, people who actually had the time, patience and a slightly more-than-elementary understanding of video editing handled that side of things. I do have to say that to this day I dearly wish that Colby Marshall (aka BMPS Studios, one of the best independent MT content creators in the industry) could have done the video work on this piece; that might have been about the only thing missing from it in my opinion, apart from a better soundtrack. I recall us settling on a generic hard-rock stock music soundtrack because at the time that felt like the right thing to do (plus it was expedient and fairly cheap), but in retrospect I would have tried to give each segment a soundtrack that better suited the era that the footage was from, which also would have paid better homage to BIA-1 I think.

I should like to point out that beyond simply harvesting the raw footage from the Vault like some sort of deranged retro-tech farmer running on an incomprehensible mix of craft beer, Provel-glazed thin crust pizza and the occasional spike of caffeine from a Starbucks “energy” drink, I also utilized my limited Photoshop abilities to manifest my vision for this project in the form of the case/cover art, menu art, disc labels and the like. The “vault” theme made obvious sense, but the artwork had a feel and vibe to it that I carried across multiple other BF projects that year. I’m not sure if this was me subconsciously trying to maintain some continuity across all of the projects I took on for the team’s 35th Anniversary that year, or if it was simply just the sum resulting from an equation made up of my limited skill level, the limited time I was able to spend on these projects and limited creativity. Viewed in hindsight some 14 years later, I have to admit I’m still reasonably satisfied with most all of it.

Look, I can be plenty honest with myself, the BF organization and the BF fan base: I never set the world on fire as a BF driver, and frankly I never intended to. I really just wanted to be competitive and uphold the BF name while behind the wheel as I simultaneously lived out my biggest childhood dream. I never climbed behind the wheel of a BF truck and “did it for the fans”, like so many drivers claim to do (and no doubt some truly are, while others are just pandering.) I’ve always been just a fan, so I guess if I was doing any driving for the fans, it was mainly just for one very selfish one and I’m completely OK with that. I was simply trying to live out this crazy dream I had since age three or four, and I needed to see if I could actually get in there and do it. And guess what? I did. My driving with BF was never and will never stand out in anyone’s memories like the real greats have; I’m no Kramer, Brass, Runte or Tack and I shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as them no matter what I might have accomplished on track or who I might have beaten while I was at it.

After about eight months of working at BF (and very early-on in the Vault project) I finally got to make my first passes over cars in a BF truck, #11 to be exact, in Oregon City, OR of all places. Side note for a later article, BF11 was the first monster truck I ever fired up and drove, in 2003 just a few days after graduating high school in Cheyenne, WY. The opportunity was a graduation “gift” from BF founder Bob Chandler himself, supervised by none other than the highly-underrated former BF driver Eric Meagher. The very next day I would move away from Wyoming to Illinois to begin my career with Hall Brothers Racing, some six years before my time at BF would come.

HOWEVER….The Vault Edition? A freakin’ DOUBLE-DVD freight train of video goodness that many a BF fan had been longing to steal a peek at for decades (myself included)….getting that stuff released to the public was my one great contribution to the wonderful, supremely-loyal fans of this truck and team if ever I made one. It must be said, fair play to the management at BF for letting it happen in the first place, because goodness knows they didn’t have to. Back then in that building, old school wasn’t seen as being as cool as it now might be (I feel like there’s plenty of empirical evidence to support this claim with their veritable charcuterie board of old-school flavors they’ve re-embraced). I remember taking plenty of ribbing (and even some rebuking) from certain individuals in the company for the amount of passion I had for BIGFOOT’s history and the mountain of effort I put behind projects like The Vault and lengthy written history pieces on the early BF trucks. Really, my only regret was not having the time to get more of everything (video, photos, historical info, all of it!) out to the fans before my time came to a close with BF and I had to move on to greener (and more stable) pastures.

I tried to think like the super-fan I was, and ask myself “what would people really like to see us dig into?” on this DVD project; and while the answers to that are almost unending, the topics of BIGFOOT’s first rollover, the legendary Fastrax vs. BF7 showdown from Pontiac in 1989, and the incredible evolution of BF4 (which continues to this day thanks to a complete restoration) all seemed like key topics people would dig, especially given my access to both Jim Kramer and Bob Chandler at the time. The truth is, I could have filled 20 or more DVD’s with features like this had time, money, and peoples’ patience been no object.

Lastly, it should be said that all of us fans simply cannot thank the monster truck OG’s enough that really made BIGFOOT what it was back then. Honestly, without them spreading the good blue gospel back in the day there’d be no Vault and no need to empty it out for us all to enjoy. They sacrificed their bodies, their time, their youth and possibly even their chances at better fortunes to go out and build this brand’s legendary history; I hope to this day that projects like The Vault serve as a proper tribute to their hard work and sacrifices.

Editor’s Note: Copies of “BIGFOOT In Action 5: The Vault Edition” are exceedingly hard to find these days and have been out-of-print for many years, unfortunately. That said, I highly suggest giving the team’s YouTube channel a follow (@bigfoot4x4), where you can enjoy a fairly sizeable collection of footage that was captured for The Vault project, among other offerings. Apart from that, I’m told your best bet is to keep an eye on Ebay as copies will periodically pop up however they sell for a pretty penny, so buyer beware, and be ready. VHS copies of the original BIGFOOT In Action can also be found on Ebay from time to time, typically for a reasonable price depending on the condition. If buying old VHS tapes and players isn’t your thing, word on the street is the Internet Archive has a low-fi version of the international release of BIA, entitled “Monster Trucks In Action” available for your viewing pleasure. You’re welcome!