CATCHING UP: KIRK DABNEY ACHIEVES 20 YEARS IN THE BUSINESS
Many of you are familiar with Kirk Dabney as the driver of the Overkill and Monster Patrol Monster Trucks for Paul Shafer Motorsports. However, you may not be aware that this man is a seasoned veteran that his celebrating his 20th year as a Monster Truck Competitor. Also, he, along with his brother, Kevin is responsible for many Monster Truck firsts.
Kirk began his career in Monster Trucks in 1984 in similar fashion to many other people at that time. His first Monster was built to help promote his Carolina Custom Off-Road shop in Fayetteville, NC. However, Kirk’s first Monster was actually not a truck, but rather a car. Kirk and Kevin built Blue Thunder, a 1968 Camaro that started on 5-ton axles and five and a half foot tall Goodyear turf tires. The Camaro body was mounted to a Dodge truck frame and had a Dodge 440 engine and 727 Torque-Flight, transmission. The engine featured a tunnel ram intake with dual carburetors and nitrous injection system. However, soon after its public debut, the Dabneys converted Blue Thunder to 66” x 43” terra tires. Blue Thunder was the first Monster Car to be built. However, using a car body as the vehicle’s basis was not the only innovation that Blue Thunder Featured.
The Blue Thunder Monster Camaro was themed after the popular Blue Thunder movie that featured a high tech helicopter. As such, Kirk’s Blue Thunder had many high tech features as well. The main control for the vehicle was actually a tiller stick from a helicopter. The stick controlled the front and rear steering, the tilt front end, and the activation of a nitrous system all with one hand.
Blue Thunder also featured an innovative suspension as well. Instead of leaf springs it utilized air bags with a four-link suspension. Although air bags had been in use prior, Blue Thunder was the first Monster to utilize a four-link suspension. In conjunction with air bags, the Dabneys utilized a hydraulic shock at each corner so that the ride height could be adjusted. In fact the so called amazing “green knob” regulators, that other teams have recently taken credit for innovating, were used by the Dabneys to control the hydraulic flow to these cylinders back in 1984. Blue Thunder’s radical appearance and performance made it an instant hit on the USHRA series.
In 1986, the Dabneys built a new monster, Mega Force. However, they continued to divert from popular trends as Mega Force used a 1985 Nissan extended cab pickup body. Mega Force had it’s own share of stunning features, most notably its size. The truck stood 14 feet tall due to the 80-inch tall Firestone tires that it used. The body also featured a tilt bed. Another interesting feature was that Mega Force used two Small Block Chevy engines, one under the hood and one in the bed. The motor up front was a basically stock 350 and used to maneuver around the pit area and the motor in the bed was a fire-breathing, supercharged, alcohol-injected 377, with 1100 horsepower, that was used for performances. Mega Force utilized Clark 20 ton axles from a military forklift. It was the first Monster Truck to use Clark planetaries.
Because the Clark axles were a traditional pinion arrangement instead of high pinion, like the Rockwell 5-ton, the Dabney’s built a right angle drive system that used the axle turned 90 degrees with the pinion facing up. A right angle gearbox was mounted on top of each axle and transferred the transfer case outputs into the differentials. Ultimately, the Dabneys started using the Clark Planetary ends in conjunction with 5-ton Rockwells and were the first to do so. In fact their decision to try the combination came about quite by accident. Some teams had already begun to match 5-ton Rockwells to Rockwell planetary ends, but those setups required custom axle shafts to be made. Therefore, many teams could not afford to adapt to planetaries by going that route. However, one day, the two brothers were working in their shop. Kevin was working on Mega Force and Kirk was working on Blue Thunder. They both had their axle assemblies apart and parts were laying around on the shop floor. When they each went to put their axles back together, they found that they couldn’t tell the difference between the Clark and Rockwell inner shafts. Thus they decided to try mating a 5-ton center section to Clark planetaries. The first truck that they did this for was for a customer who owned the Gentle Ben Monster Truck. The Dabneys built several other axle sets for many other trucks as well. Thus the ever-popular Clark/Rockwell hybrid axle was born.
1986 brought about some changes to Blue Thunder as well. SRO, the promoter behind the USHRA convinced Kirk to spruce up Blue Thunder’s image. Thus Blue Thunder became Thunder Beast. The car’s body was repainted a brilliant red base coat and Fred Brumann, originator of the “Grave Yard” paint scheme on Dennis Anderson’s Grave Digger, was hired to add custom mural work and lettering. Thunder Beast was also given a set of Clark planetaries added to it’s 5-ton axles and was modified to run on 73 inch Firestones to make it even more visually impressive. The engine and transmission were also updated to a Donovan and Turbo 400 so that the drivetrain was a closer match to the make of the body. However, Kirk had teething problems with the new combination and Thunder Beast did not generate the fan following that was predicted because the machine’s identity seemed to have been lost during the transformation from Blue Thunder to Thunder Beast. Kirk soon abandoned the concept and used the axles and tires to build a new truck, the Duraliner Giant.
Built in 1987, Duraliner Giant was perhaps the most traditional truck the Dabneys had built to date. However, it was indeed a Giant as the 1986 Ford Pickup body stood over 13 feet tall. Kirk had negotiated a sponsorship with Duraliner and campaigned the truck as the Duraliner Giant for three years. Duranliner Giant received updates along the way as the body was changed to the ‘87-’88 body style.
However, by the end of the eighties, Monster Truck competition had turned into all out racing. By 1990, Kirk had decided that he needed to change to fit the needs of the industry. So he sold the Duraliner Giant to an individual in Kentucky who now runs the truck as a ride truck called Kentucky Thunder. Kirk then purchased Scott Hess’s Bearfoot racer leaf spring truck. He rebuilt this truck into the Giant. Kirk kept the drivetrain but built an all-new chassis to the exact dimensions of Hess’s Bearfoot frame. However he ran a Ford body to keep the following he had generated with his Duraliner Giant fans.
In 1991 Kirk decided to expand his operation by purchasing Steve Hess 2nd Nitemare Monster Truck. This was also a leaf spring truck that Kirk eventually renamed Thunder Struck. Kirk competed with Giant and Thunder Struck on the Thunder Nationals circuit in the early nineties.
However, in 1993, Kirk decided to enter the tough Penda Series that took place at Special Events shows during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. Kirk purchased the Nitemare race truck from Steve Hess and campaigned it as Nitemare and as USA-1 for a short time during the ’93 season.
In 1994, Kirk bought yet another truck, Marty Garza’s Extreme Overkill. This was perhaps the most sophisticated truck ever to be built with its low CG chassis and swing arm suspension. (See the Overkill feature on the Monster Trucks home page.) Kirk campaigned Extreme Overkill for the next three years winning many events along the way. In 1997, Extreme Overkill was updated to the new F-150 body style and given a new paint scheme.
At one point, Kirk had three different teams with himself driving Overkill, Bobby Zee driving Nitemare, and Roger Grate driving Thunderstruck. Eventually he sold the Nitemare and Thunder Stuck trucks and purchased another truck to make into a second Overkill. For a short time in’97, Kirk campaigned both his Garza chassis Overkill and his Patrick chassis Overkill together until the Garza chassis was sold to Paul Stender in 1997.
In 1998 Kirk teamed up with Paul Shafer Motorsports to run his truck as a Monster Patrol. Kirk has worked for Paul ever since and is extremely happy with the support that Paul Shafer Motorsports gives him.
That support shows in the all-new, state-of-the-art ORI Monster Truck that Kirk recently built. This truck, backed by PSM utilizes some the best components currently available in the Industry as well as many innovative chassis and suspension geometry concepts.
The ORI truck can be found on display at Kirk’s new off-road store, in Alabama, as well as Off-Road Center franchises. This leads us to the latest development in Kirk’s career. It would seem as though Kirk’s career has come full circle starting in off-road customizing to becoming a full-time racer and now getting back into off-road customizing again.
Kirk has recently started Extreme Chassis Works, in Russellville, AL, which builds custom Street Monsters for customers. Kirk has built many custom 4x4’s and even some pro-street trucks over the years. In fact his personal vehicle is the beautiful extended cab Ford Superduty pictured below.
After having to practically re-engineer an OEM frame and suspension to get the desired lift that his customers’ usually wanted, he decided to begin building all tube chassis and four-link suspensions that use a customer’s OEM body. These chassis and suspensions are replicas of the full size Monsters that Street Monsters emulate. Extreme Chassis Works does make Monster Truck chassis for competition and ride truck purposes as well and will even build you a turnkey competition truck if you want.
Kirk continues to run the Monster Patrol on a full time basis as well and has a full schedule booked through November. Also, Overkill fans shouldn’t worry because Kirk says that plans are in the works to bring back the Overkill name into competition once again.
Kirk has watched the Monster Truck Industry evolve from its beginnings to what it is today, all from within the business. It’s always great to see such a talented competitor say in this industry and it is indeed better for having Kirk involved in it. We look forward to what he and his team come up with next!