In the Goldberg truck, Meents quickly dominated all other competition, and in both 20, he successfully won the Monster Jam World Finals.Īfter the 2001 season, the WCW unfortunately went out of business, meaning that Monster Jam could no longer use the name Goldberg for Meents’ truck. In 2002, Meents first came up with the name “Maximum Destruction,” but decided against changing his truck’s name immediately, as he believed that the name “Maximum Destruction” would be seen as disrespectful in the wake of the recent 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2003, however, Meents finally changed the name of his truck from the “Team Meents” Monster Truck to Maximum Destruction (later also known as Max-D). The truck also received a new paint job, adopting the decals of riveted steel and orange flames that are hallmarks of the truck to this day. With Meents at the wheel, the Goldberg Monster Truck first debuted at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the home stadium of the WCW. There, Meents drove the truck to victory over all of its racing competitors and finished second in the new freestyle competition that Monster Jam had just debuted. Meents was given the chance to drive the Goldberg Monster Truck, a vehicle named for WCW Champion wrestler Bill Goldberg.
He had become one of the most popular monster truck drivers of all time after beginning his career in mud racing during the 1980s. Through the 1990s, Meents drove many popular monster trucks and proved his worth by defeating many famous trucks in competitions, including legends like Grave Digger, Bigfoot, and Carolina Crusher. In 2000, Meents was offered the opportunity to represent a deal between USHRA Racing (which owned and operated Monster Jam) and WCW Wrestling, which wanted to promote many of their famous wrestlers with customized monster trucks.
The monster truck which would eventually be known as Maximum Destruction was first created in 2000 by driver Tom Meents, a native of Paxton, Illinois.