By Megan Wehring
DRIPPING SPRINGS – The Dripping Springs Ranch Park (DSRP) is bringing back a favorite for some: monster truck shows.
After much deliberation at its regular meeting on Dec. 6, the Dripping Springs City Council unanimously approved a rental agreement for monster truck shows at the DSRP for Friday, Dec. 30 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 31, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Mayor Bill Foulds requested that the council bring the agenda item forward because in 2019, it was “fairly controversial” and he did not want residents, primarily those who live in Harrison Hills and Founders Ridge, to be caught off guard.
Due to concerns about the projected high noise, Foulds questioned the decibel level of the trucks.
“You use a decibel reader [and]most of the time you check it at 100 feet away, that way you don’t get ambient noise,” said Ed Beckley, owner of Checkered Flag Promotions. “Remember that monster trucks don’t run all two hours, they probably run a total of eight minutes out of all of that. … Probably at about 100 feet, they would run at about 110 decibels at the most.”
In 2019, city council only approved an afternoon event on Saturday, Oct. 26, rather than adding an evening show to the schedule. Mayor pro tem Taline Manassian said that she has some concerns about having an evening show this time around.
“Now we are talking about an evening event plus things on New Year’s Eve, which if it’s disruptive, is not going to be perceived well,” Manassian said. “It’s different when you have an event on a random Saturday in October. But to have something like this on a holiday where people are at home doing things that if it is troubling … I wish we would have seen this sooner because I can imagine there are neighbors who are not tracking our agendas in the middle of December and may not be aware that they need to voice concerns.”
Council member Geoffrey Tahuahua said that if the event was going to be held in an outdoor area, he would be even more concerned about the sound. But he would like to see city staff collect some data and information about the sound levels for future events.
Foulds said that there were several discussions the council had back in 2019 including the company scraping the arena to put in its dirt to make the event happen and the liability of the trucks.
“They will be using our footing and if they need to bring in any additional [dirt], it will be from our dirt supplier so it is the right ratio [and]our footing stays the same,” DSRP Manager Emily Nelson said in reference to the dirt situation for this year’s event.
Foulds added that, following the 2019 event, he spoke with a Harrison Hills resident who had no issues with the traffic or people, but the resident said he was “glad it’s over early.”
“But the neighbors who generally complain about the rodeo, quinceañeras, about this and that, I did not get any phone calls from them other than one neighbor who was complaining about the lighting,” Foulds said. “He is always complaining about the lighting of the DSRP.”
For more information about the event and ticket details, visit
"> www.nolimitsmonstertrucks.com/event-details-dripping-spring/.
