While the Scooby-Doo truck isn’t alone in familiar cartoon and comics characters that have appeared in Monster Jam over the years – a brief listing of others includes Batman, Iron Man, the Tasmanian Devil, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Wonder Woman – it is certainly one of the most recognizable out on the track, as it comes complete with large ears, an outstretched slobbery tongue, big fuzzy tail and familiar teal collar.
This has made the Great Dane-sized vehicle a fan favorite, because as driver Linsey Read pointed out in a phone interview with Dog O’Day earlier this month, everyone has seen one of the Scooby-Doo shows or movies at some point, creating an instant rapport.
Read has been driving the Scooby-Doo truck since 2016 after she made a splash while racing in a pre-show warm-up event at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.
When not wheeling a colossal vehicle around the track, Read can often be found wrangling the joyful chaos that comes from a household of pets, or going on adventures with her daughter, stepdaughters and sprint car racer husband.
While Monster Jam usually has the Stadium Series Red, Yellow and Green, Arena Challenges 1-4 and an international series, for 2020 and 2021 they’ve had to pare back the schedule to a single Stadium Championship Series, though more tours are tentatively scheduled for later this year. Events are shown via tape delay on the NBC Sports Network.
(Editor’s note: The following interview questions have been slightly rearranged for better readability.)
Dog O’Day – What is the experience of driving the Scooby-Doo truck like, as far as representing the brand of such an iconic cartoon character in the motorsports world?
Linsey Read – I love being able to represent Scooby-Doo! I think it’s a really cool truck because everybody knows who Scooby-Doo is, whether you’re a little kid or you’re 50 years old, EVERYBODY at some point has watched Scooby-Doo and they know it. The best thing Monster Jam did with that truck is that they made it look just like the character – I always tell people that it’s so cute because I have the ears and the tail that waves around as I go around the track – it’s just a really, really fun character, not just for kids, but also for adults, too.
It really is! Do you have a favorite character, just personally?
Hmm…Scooby-Doo himself is probably my favorite. I watch it all the time with my daughter, she’s hooked on that show right now, so it’s really cool that I get to share that experience with her as well.
That’s really cool. How did you get your start in Monster Jam?
I was a huge fan of Monster Jam growing up, and I used to go to the show in my hometown (El Paso, Texas) all the time, and I saw drivers like Candice Jolly in the Monster Mutt Dalmatian go through, and I saw Nicole Johnson in the Scooby-Doo truck, and they really just inspired me to go out there and try to live my dream, even though I’m a female in such a male-dominated sport.
I had a unique opportunity to drive a tough truck for the Monster Jam event, though – what we did is we took a street-legal truck out on the Monster Jam track and kind of did like a halftime show [of racing] for them, and did it two years in a row, the second time I ended up getting second place and I was like milliseconds behind the first-place guy, and I had some of the Monster Jam drivers come up to me and tell me that I did a really phenomenal job, and they all asked me if I’d want to consider driving Monster Jam trucks? I was just thinking, like “Wow, they’re just saying that, nothing’s ever gonna come from it,” but I ended up sending my resume to them and that got the ball rolling, so I ended up testing for them, I went to Monster Jam University for training, and then I got my spot in Scooby-Doo.
Linsey Read, driver of the Scooby-Doo truck, talks about the various discipines of Monster Jam.
Dog O’Day – Have you always been a car person, or previously involved in motorsports?
Linsey Read – I haven’t! The tough truck challenge was the first time I had ever done any kind of event in motorsports, so I was kind of just thrown into it. I absolutely love motorsports and wanted to get into it, so I crewed for a stock car team in dirt track racing, but I’d never gotten an opportunity to drive until then. So I’m kind of new at the whole driving thing, but I feel like I’m picking up on it pretty quick, and I’ve just been living my dream ever since.
You were the Freestyle world champ a couple years ago?
I was! So in 2019 it was my first opportunity to be part of the Monster Jam World Finals, and I started in what’s called the Showdown, which is like a last-chance qualifier to get into the actual World Finals to compete in the racing and the Freestyle. So I was up against seven other drivers, and we did racing, I ended up being the first female driver to win a Showdown competition, so I got to advance into the main stage, and I ended up with the Freestyle win as well! It was great!
And Freestyle is the tricks element, with big jumps and wheelies?
Yep! Freestyle is two minutes for us to basically go out there and show off what we can do, we can hit whatever jumps we want to hit, we can backflip, I’ve done cartwheels…you can do basically whatever you want to try in that two minute’s time to showcase your talent.
And then there’s also the racing element and the Skills element as well, right?
Yes, for our Stadium Series we start out the show with bracket-style racing, from there we go into the Skills, and the Skills Challenge is basically – you’re either trying to get a nose wheelie going, where you balance on the front two tires, you can do it the reverse way and balance on your rear two tires, bicycles, just your standard wheelie, so many different things you can do in the Skills Challenge, and it’s up to you to figure out which ones you want to try to wow the crowd in the moment.
You mentioned that you got to the World Finals through the Showdown, How do most of the drivers qualify for that?
They choose us throughout the tour, they watch us, how we drive and interact with fans and everything. I ended up finishing third in my tour, really high up in the rankings for it, and with all the other ones that they chose for it, so it’s basically the drivers who have really succeeded throughout the year, so they put them out there so we can try to make it to the big show with all the heavy hitters.
Do you have a favorite of the three disciplines?
I love Freestyle. That’s probably a lot of people’s favorite, because that’s where you really get to go out there and go as fast as you can, full throttle, hit those big jumps – and what I love the most, no matter how crazy I get out there on the track, it’s just hearing the crowd chanting and getting up out of their seats and being so excited, and I love to see people get so pumped up for my runs.
So it’s a lot of fun to drive, really fun to see the fans get so excited, and plus with Monster Jam, I think it’s really cool how we get so much fan interaction. For our Freestyle and Skills elements, we have a site called JudgesZone.com, and everybody in the crowd gets to log onto that, and after our run, they are the ones judging on a scale of 1-10 how good you are out there, so at the end of the day, the fans are the ones who pick the winners of those two events.
Wow, did not know that. That’s really cool.
I know, right? And on top of that, we also do our Pit Parties, where you can get that one-on-one interaction and ask them about whether it’s their first time going to the show or their 10th, you get to see familiar faces everywhere we go, you get to meet new people all the time, I just really love the fact that we get that interaction with them.
Monster truck driver Linsey Read, who pilots the Scooby-Doo truck, talks about the Monster Jam fan experience and life away from the track.
Dog O’Day – How has the pandemic affected the fan experience?
Linsey Read – It is a little more different, yeah. We don’t get to have the physical contact of the high fives and the hugs since we can’t be that close to each other, but we have made it to where they get a microphone and we get a microphone and we still get to talk with each other, have a conversation and selfies from a distance, but the fans still seem to love it, they seem to love that they can still get to go out and see the trucks because seeing them, even at a six-foot distance, is COMPLETELY different from seeing them run out on the track. You can see all the little kids walking up to it, and their eyes are gigantic as they’re seeing these enormous 12,000 pound Monster Jam trucks, you know? It’s really neat.
What are some of the differences in the actual driving between the different events?
So, for the racing element, it’s very technical, with the tight turns, getting your throttling just right, getting the jumps just right to where your truck will settle back on the ground and get to the next jump as quick as possible.
For the Skills Challenge, like I was saying, it’s all about balance, trying to balance that 12,000 pound truck on two wheels. It takes A LOT of practice, definitely trial and error to really get that down, but so many of us have been able to nail it and really get that balance aspect down, and it’s great to see the fans react when we’re able to do those moves just perfectly.
And for Freestyle, it’s definitely just…you’re trying to get to the next jump as quick as you can, get into a rhythm, be sure you’re making noise constantly as you’re driving around the track, you really have to get out there and look at the jumps to see how each one is going to react, where it could put you so you can line yourself up for the next jump.
Every element is very technical, but all of ‘em you have to drive a little bit different to get what you want to out of the truck.
So, for the racing element, it’s very technical, with the tight turns, getting your throttling just right, getting the jumps just right to where your truck will settle back on the ground and get to the next jump as quick as possible.
I know the pandemic has pared down the schedule of events this year and last, but in normal times, which tour are you part of?
So for my whole career up until this year, I’ve been a part of Arena Challenge 4, and with the arenas, it’s a lot smaller, we only have one plateau that’s in the center of the floor, and we have eight trucks that compete with each other. We do all of the same elements, so we still have the racing and the Skills and the Freestyle, but it’s on a smaller scale.
And I’ve been a part of that for five years doing the arena tours, so this year coming into the Stadium Series, I’ve had to adjust to the bigger floor, the bigger jumps, you know, everything is just bigger and better, so it takes some getting used to.
I’ve had to adjust to it a little bit, but so far I love it.
Away from the track, what are some of the ways you like to spend your time?
I have a 4-year-old daughter, so she is like, go go go all day, every day. She’s so active, and she loves motorsports as well, so she does quad riding, she just recently got a dirt bike, so she’s working on getting her balance on that. And then my husband drives sprint cars, and I’m his crew chief, so I get to take a turn on the wrenching side of things when he’s on the driving side.
Growing up, did you have any pets?
Oh, absolutely! I’ve always had dogs, and right now we definitely have an array of pets in our household. We’re definitely animal lovers.
Nice! What are some of the animals currently in the lineup?
Oh, gosh, are you ready for my list?! [chuckle] All right, we have…eight dogs, two cats, two ferrets, two hamsters, two rats, a parrot, a bunny and a mini pig.
It’s pretty awesome, and there’s always something to do, that’s for sure.
Sounds great! Do you have any favorite?
We mostly have blue heelers and pit bulls.
What are some of your favorite parts about being involved in Monster Jam? It seems really fan-friendly, and especially as a female driver, what would you say to inspire young girls who may see it and think “Hey, this is cool, and girls can drive, too? Maybe I want to do this when I grow up!”
One of the things about Monster Jam is that I feel like from the moment you purchase your tickets, from the moment you get there, we care 100 percent about the fans. We want to meet the fans, we want them to be as much as part of the show as everybody is as far as drivers and techs and all that, we want them to feel like they’re completely a part of it.
To be a female out there and to be able to show these little girls that they can do it, too, that’s definitely something that I hold dear to me. My daughter goes to so many of the shows, and so to be able to show her that not only can we [female drivers] go out there and be part it, but we can win titles and do just as much as the guys can, that’s a huge aspect of it.
But it’s not just for the little girls for me – it’s also for the moms in the audience. I currently am the only mother who is driving a Monster Jam truck right now, so to show them that you can be a mother and still be able to live out your dreams, that you can do things with your kids and be able to show them the girl power aspect of it, it’s so wonderful and so great to be a part of.
I love being able to see them [young girls] go through the [Pit Party] line and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom! That’s a girl driving the truck!” Instantly I’m their favorite and they’re cheering for me that night, it’s so wonderful.
For more information about Monster Jam, see their website for more details, and they can be followed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at the handle @MonsterJam. Linsey Read can be followed on Instagram at the handle @LinseyRead, and Dog O’Day can be followed on Facebook at Daily Dog and on Instagram at the handle @DogODayFS.
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