AUGUST 2020 | ENGINEBUILDERmag.com 25
KRYSTEN ANDERSON
DRIVER, MONSTER JAM | GRAVE DIGGER
A
s a professional athlete, you’re always under the microscope. There’s pressure from your team, the fans, and typically, the athletes
themselves are their own biggest critics. That’s plenty of pressure to perform at a high level. However, Krysten Anderson is in a league all
her own.Krysten is the only daughter of monster truck, Monster
Jam and Grave Digger legend, Dennis Anderson. She’s
the sibling of Adam and Ryan Anderson, both of whom
are Monster Jam World Champions, along with their dad.
And, she was also the rst female driver for the Grave
Digger team. To top it all o , she had never been behind
the wheel of a monster truck until she was 18.
“I had a very rough rst year, I’m not going to lie,”
Anderson says. “I was a rookie. I was driving Grave Digger,
which is basically the most iconic truck in Monster Jam
history. I had the pressure of being an Anderson and
my dad and my brothers had always brought the show
home all the time. ey were always some of the top
competitors. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to be good because
I’m an Anderson. I’ve got to be good because I’m driving
Grave Digger and everybody wants Grave Digger to do
good. I’m also out here representing all of the girls.’”
Krysten, now 23, has been driving the Grave Digger
monster truck for four years. She got her opportunity right
out of high school at 18 years old.
“ ey were going to add another arena tour to the
Monster Jam eet and to our circuit,” she says. “ ey
needed a Grave Digger driver. ey had never, ever had a
female drive Grave Digger before and they thought who
better than Dennis’ only daughter Krysten. I realized this
was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a lot of people. I
would be so stupid not to reap the bene ts of this path my
dad had paved for me. I didn’t want to look back at and
say, ‘Dang, I should have done that.’”
Krysten auditioned with Monster Jam and tested the
truck, which was the rst time she’d ever driven one. From
there, she had to master the di cult stunts on the y.
“We have no choice but to learn on the y and learn
these tricks, because if you’re not honing these skills in and
learning these tricks and doing this or that, then you don’t
have a dog in the ght,” she says. “You’re not a competitor.
I had to learn at a very aggressive rate.”
Now that Krysten has become a more well-rounded
driver, she has her eyes on becoming one of the top women
in the sport, and one of the top drivers in Monster Jam in
general.
“Within Monster Jam, we’re not men and women in
the sport, we’re drivers and we’re competitors and that’s it,”
she says. “ e females compete on the same platform, in
the same competition, in the same trucks, with the sameamount of time as the males doing the sport. I think that’s
awesome because it’s all an equal playing eld.
“One of the main goals that I’d like to accomplish is
to retire with at least one world championship under my
belt. It would also be really cool if before I retired, I could
have an opportunity to drive my own truck. I’d like to
create some Krysten Anderson fans and fans of me and my
truck.” EBOn top of being a talented monster truck driver, Krysten
Anderson is also a talented artist and graphic designer. She
even created the graphics on her brother Weston’s and dad’s
mega trucks, Bog Hog and King Sling, respectively.
23-32 eb.aug20 Women in the Industry.indd 25 8/7/20 8:29 AM
Naresh Jariwala