30 Years Ago, El Paso’s Sunland Park Held a Monster Truck Show

Yes we all know the monster trucks love coming to El Paso, Texas; sometimes we see them appear at the El Paso County Coliseum,

And of course every year Monster Jam comes to the UTEP Sun Bowl.

The first time monster trucks came to El Paso, Texas was in 1989

But that wasn't the only place we've seen the monsters race in El Paso. Back in the summer of 1989, the Sunland Park Racetrack held a monster truck rally that was broadcast on television...

The TNT channel (later the TNN network) had a show called "The TNT Renegade Monster Truck Challenge" where they would tape & later broadcast monster truck races. During the early days of racing, they made a stop at the Sunland Park racetrack & filmed the races over 2 days: Friday June 2nd & Saturday June 3rd of 1989.

Some of most noticeable trucks that were at the race were Mad Dog, Night Life & USA-1. Even fellow Texas drivers Jeff Dane & a young Pablo Huffaker (before he became a Grave Digger driver)

Now usually the episodes in the 80s/early 90s would be broadcast & most likely long forgotten... but thankfully the episodes HAVE been saved & uploaded onto YouTube for everyone to see thanks to channels like Pulling Reference Rewind & many others.

And yes... that does include the races they recorded in El Paso.

(maybe you'll find yourself in the crowd back in 1989!)

And yes that includes both days. You can even see some beautiful shots of Mt Cristo Rey and the Franklin Mountains in the background.

The favorite truck to win that day was the reigning champion USA-1, which he did. Both days.

I’m not sure why they never came back to race at Sunland Park but it’s cool that they did at least once and it’s forever captured on tape.

Hopefully we can find & uncover more events in El Paso from back in the day. If anything, it's just a trip seeing what El Paso looked like back the

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