Ready, set, race: Monster Trucks rev up for a showdown at the Rio Rancho Events Center

RIO RANCHO — If you hear the sounds of revving engines and the roar of a crowd at the Rio Rancho Events Center, don’t worry, it’s just monsters — monster trucks, that is.

Begin the new year watching the Toughest Monster Truck Tour vehicles battle for glory during a two-day pit stop at the Rio Rancho Events Center on Friday, Jan. 10, and Saturday, Jan. 11.

Six monster trucks will take fans back to the old-school monster truck days, promising all of the stunts, flips and flying dirt fans could ask for.

Ready, set, race: Monster Trucks rev up for a showdown at Rio Rancho Events Center

“The Toughest Monster Truck Tour is always on dirt, unlike some other monster truck events in the area,” said Kelly Hess Goldman, event promoter. “We’ll be bringing in 80 dump truck loads of dirt to build lots of big dirt jumps that include old-school crush cars and racing that involves lots of turns, which is often just as exciting as the freestyle ... You can’t make an event this exciting without the dirt.”

The weekend line-up includes a variety of monster trucks. Dirt Crew, driven by Jerry Beck from Indiana, features a customized 2015 Dodge Ram designed to look like a dump truck and includes a fully custom chassis.

This year, a brand new, never-before-seen monster truck named Cyber Attack, based off of the Tesla Cybertruck model, will give fans a thrill.

Other trucks featured at the show include a 2007 Ford F-250 painted to look like an alligator, Smashosaurus the dinosaur truck, Blockhead the block-building styled truck and The Veteran, a monster truck tribute to those who have served in the military.

With the pit pass, guests can gain access to the pit party, where they are able to walk on the dirt and see the monster trucks and talk to drivers before the show begins. Guests who visit Melloy Dodge Ram Fiat, 9621 Coors Blvd. NW, can receive free pit pass tickets while supplies last or $15 at point of purchase.

Each monster truck will race against each other to determine who is the ultimate winner of the night. Instead of a traditional race where trucks line up in a straight line and head toward the finish line, trucks will race in a circle.

“The cool thing about that is it makes it more exciting and sometimes trucks roll over during the racing,” Goldman said. “Our drivers will absolutely tell you there’s a much higher degree of difficulty with our event and the drivers are really competitive.”

The event is family-friendly, and children are encouraged to scream to their hearts’ content as they decide which monster trucks are their favorite.

“What’s great about it is the majority of our audience is people that have kids in elementary school, so there’s a lot of kids,” Goldman said. “We always make the joke, ‘You’re not in school, you’re not in church, you can have a good time and scream and yell as much as you want.’”

Monster trucks aren’t the only things fans can expect to see at the show. Freestyle Motocross (FMX) — where a team of three riders go over large ramps while performing tricks and flips in the air with a motorcycle — will be part of the event.

“Honestly, it’s the skill level of the drivers and the way we build our track is for them to show off those skills, that makes our show different,” Goldman said. “Everybody is competitive and we encourage the competitiveness.”