A Smashing Good Time at the Monster Spectacular

Photos by Andre Gagne

Tonight the ultimate sports and entertainment spectacle comes to Ottawa’s Canadian Tire Centre. Monster Spectacular is an action-packed live show where the world’s most popular and powerful monster trucks will compete, including Overkill Evolution, Bounty Hunter, and Black Stallion. The event will also feature freestyle motorcross, a professional speed bike stunt show, modified ATV races and BMX riders.

Ottawa Life Magazine attended a car-crushing display yesterday where we got the first look at what crowd-pleaser and second generation monster truck driver, Mike Vaters II, is going to bring to the arena. As 2015 Monster Jam World Freestyle Champion and 2014 Monster Jam Young Guns Shootout Champion, Mike Vaters II is driving himself to the top. He will enter the arena in Overkill Evolution, a 10,000 pound 4×4 truck with state of the art 3D compute engineering and a Coan Powerglide transmission.

None other than Mike’s father, Michael Vaters, will be behind the wheel of Bounty Hunter. “My dad has been doing it for 35 years and I’ve been driving professionally for the past 5 years,” Vaters said.

Prior to monster trucks, Mike Vaters II was committed to freestyle motorcross for 10 years where he was able to really make a name for himself. He claims that it was then, after getting his own identity that he crossed over into monster trucks. “Once I crossed over into monster trucks it gave me my own identity and the next generation fans coming in.”

Vaters told Ottawa Life Magazine that he is most excited about winning on Saturday. If his demonstration for the media is any indication of the degree of destruction that’s going to occur Saturday night, then we are nothing if not sure that Overkill Evolution will provide the ultimate fan experience for all those attending Monster Spectacular at the CTC.