When he was young, Dave Rife kept making his street truck bigger and better.
But there came a time when the Michigan resident had to make a decision.
“In 1990 they passed a new law in Michigan that you couldn’t be that high,” Rife said. “My truck was so high it was either go bigger or take it apart. I didn’t want to take it apart, so I built a Monster Truck.”
Now, the 53-year-old Rife, of Fowlerville, Mich., is a 29-year veteran of the Monster Truck realm. He has been married for 33 years, and joined the Traxxas Monster Truck Destruction Tour about a year ago.
Rife currently drives the 1,500-horsepower machine called “Craniac,” which has an unusual story behind its creation. Traxxas is an Oregon-based company that makes remote control toy cars (RC). In almost backward fashion, the Craniac RC car preceded the life-sized version.
“They wanted us to duplicate it,” Rife said, “so we had it digitally scanned and it was enlarged and a bug styrofoam mold was made and covered with fiberglass. The concept is amazing; you couldn’t get any closer to one of those RC cars than this.”
His dad wasn’t too keen on Rife being invited to do first Monster Truck show.
“They said they couldn’t pay me and that I could just run,” he said. “My dad told me I was crazy if I did it. I went and I won one round of racing.
“That was it. From then, things took off.”
Now Rife owns seven Monster Trucks.
“My dad told me I’d never make a dime at it,” he said. “Now I have employees, semi-trucks and trailers, and it’s a business.”
Rife (who also has a construction business) said his children and grandson have grown up around Monster Trucks, and he loves everything about being a part of the sport.
“It’s so great to be able to do something you love and do it with your family,” Rife said.
Thanks to Monster Trucks, Rife gets to see much of the world, including the Missouri Ozarks, where he was part of two shows last weekend in the arena at the Houston Area Chamber of Commerce Fairgrounds. He has performed all over the U.S. and in many other countries, including Chile, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Canada.
As a result, Rife and has made friends in many places.
“This deal has taken us to so many places I never would have gone to,” he said. “I’ve met so many great people and become close to a lot of them.”
Rife said he loves the fans of his sport, and how much appreciation they show.
“But I don’t think a lot of them understand the amount of work that goes into this,” he said. “You know, everyone wants to see trucks flip over, but the amount of money you spend to fix something after a roll-over is astronomical. Our goal is to go out and get as close to that as we can without actually wrecking.
“That’s when we get excited.”
Rife said the only way to get the full Monster Trucks experience is to witness it first hand.
“You might have seen it on TV, but it’s way better in person,” he said. “There’s no other motorsport where you can get as close to the action to the point where you can feel it, smell it and almost reach out and touch it.”
Even after almost three decades of doing it, Rife still gets a rush when he’s smashing cars or flying high in his Monster Truck.
“I tell my wife I don’t really have a job,” he said, “but I’m just living. It’s still exciting to me now.
“I equate it to being an alcoholic and being paid to drink.”