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Lee O'Donnell pulls off the first ever landed front flip in Monster Jam history.
Lee O’Donnell admits that he didn’t expect his monster truck to pull off a front flip when it did during the Monster Jam World Finals.
While the driver of VP Racing Fuel’s Mad Scientist had been trying to accomplish the feat, the stunt ultimately was not planned.
“We were trying to accomplish a front flip,” said O’Donnell in a telephone interview with FOX Sports, “I had tried a maneuver in Detroit a few weeks earlier and it didn’t work out so well. But right after reviewing some footage and thinking if we had had a different ramp, there was something there, we knew we could get a front flip out of it.
“Now with that being said, I didn’t think it was going to turn out the way it did. I thought we were going to kind of ride the slap-wheelie, hit the ramp, go to the front bumper and then back to the wheels again. That’s what we thought was going to happen, and then obviously we had a little bit too much speed, so it kind of worked out for the better.”
The front flip took place in the closing stages of O’Donnell’s freestyle run at the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. He had already done a backflip off a container and was pleased with the way his run was going.
“I’d done a backflip off the container maybe the move or two before and I could feel the crowd and they got pumped up over that.
“The only thing I remember going through my mind [during the front flip] was the mud that was all on the floor was now all over my shield and I was worried that, when I landed, I wouldn’t be able to see.”
O’Donnell’s run didn’t last much longer after his flip, and he soon found himself hanging upside-down in his truck with the safety crew running up to him. Fortunately, O’Donnell was able to walk out of his truck without any injuries and he went up into the crowd to high-five the fans.
“After the run I had run up into the stands and was getting high-fives from everybody,” recalled O’Donnell. “[Then] I ran to the other end where my kids were sitting and I ran up to them and gave them a big hug.”
However, while O’Donnell had wowed the crowd and his family with his performance, he had yet to seal the deal on the win at the World Finals. His score was a solid 9.355, but Neil Elliott in Max-D almost topped the charts after reversing up a backflip ramp, rotating through the air, and landing on all four tires. However, it was only enough for a 9.316.
“Neil Elliott, he’s one of the best, if not the best out there,” said O’Donnell. “The maneuver he did, nobody had done before so I knew it was going to be close. His run was really good but I think it’s just the wow-factor. My wow-factor was one in a million, so it was like no matter what anyone else did, I was not sure it was going to beat my score but you’re worried until the last truck, the last guy, the last score, you never know.”
O’Donnell’s stunt has garnered many reactions on social media, and even he says that while he’s watched it 1,000 times himself, not quite sure how he pulled it off.
“Everybody says ‘I’ve watched it 100 times,’ and I’ve watched it probably 1,000 times, and I still can’t believe it and I’m like ‘alright, how am I ever going to do that again?’
“I’d like to thank my family, they’re the ones that are my driving force, especially my kids, they love what Dad does, and all the fans out there that have just been spectacular these last few days.”
Coverage of the Monster Jam World Finals on the FOX Sports family of networks begins April 9.
