A special thanks to Jamie Rush, Richard Jones, and Dallas Rogers for countless hours of help and support!

December 17th - Straight Up Racing Preparing for 1st Quarter 2012

Exciting things are happening at the Straight Up Racing shop as the team prepares for first quarter. Bill and Lorna have been making the annual rounds for Toys for Tots, trying to help some of those children in need to have a great Christmas. At the shop, things are progressing as both trucks are being gone through and readied for first quarter. The team will be welcoming back BJ Johnson to the helm of California Kid for the winter season, you can bet he'll keep Bill working hard to win in 2012!

Check out the Schedule to see where all we're heading as we run on the Monster X Tour and represent for the Monster Truck Mafia. Also we've started up a Facebook page for the team so head on over and hit the Like button for all the most up to the minute team news and updates!

November 22nd - Rock Star Finishes the Year In Dominating Fashion

The Straight Up Racing team would cap off a great 2011 season with back to back appearances on the Monster X Tour in Reno, Nevada and Portland, Oregon. Reno would be up first and Bill would get the weekend started off right with a wheelie contest victory and final round racing appearance. Bill was just edged out by Darren Migues in Bounty Hunter in the finals but would go on to turn in a great freestyle to take the win.

Saturday night would be much like Friday as Bill nailed down another wheelie contest win but while making a couple of extra hits for the fans, Bill attempted to cross thread the center van stack. He stood the truck straight up and down but it fell backwards, rolling onto the lid. The track crew rolled Bill back over and he did another awesome wheelie before breaking a rear steering pump. Bill would be out for racing but teammate Ed Miller turned in a solid effort in California Kid, making it to the finals before falling to Bad Habit. Not having rear steering for freestyle would be a problem for some drivers, but not for Bill Payne as he laid down an amazing run with slap wheelies and sky wheelies galore. When the dust cleared, Bill had swept wheelies and freestyle for the weekend.

As the tour moved on to Portland, the team readied for a big event - monster trucks hadn't been in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in many years so Bill was ready to give them a show. Despite tough competition from Bounty Hunter and fellow Mafia member Bad Habit, Bill would not be denied and would once again sweep wheelies and freestyle Friday and Saturday night.

What an incredible way to finish the season with Bill sweeping wheelies and freestyle for two straight weekends. This is very representative of Rock Star's season as Bill finished with 38.5 freestyle wins, second only to Jimmy Creten in all of monster trucks, and 33 wheelie wins, most of ANY driver in ALL of monster trucks. Thanks to our friends at TheMonsterBlog.com for tracking results from every monster truck event all season so that we are able to see how we stack up against the rest of the industry.

We're very proud of all we've accomplished this year and we're very thankful to all of our great supporters, sponsors and friends who help make it all possible. Stay tuned to the site for more news including our 2012 schedule, coming soon!

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