To remedy this problem, Chandler and his wife Marilyn, along with friend Jim Kramer, opened a shop called Midwest Four Wheel Drive and Performance Center in Ferguson, Missouri.

This modification drew attention and Chandler started making appearances at tractor pulls and car shows with his newly christened "Bigfoot" (so named for Chandler's heavy-footed racing style which caused frequent breakage of parts[2]) to show off the truck's capabilities as well as to promote his shop.

When Chandler began playing the video in his shop, a man promoting a motorsports event in Columbia, Missouri, asked him to duplicate the stunt in front of a crowd.

After initial hesitation because of the destructive image it would convey, Chandler eventually agreed to perform at the event in April of the following year in what is believed to be the first public car crush.

Promoters of truck and tractor pulls, such as SRO Motorsports (later the United States Hot Rod Association) and Golden State Promotions, noticed the exploding popularity of the giant trucks and began booking several to crush cars at their events, with the eventual result being the advent of side-by-side, drag-racing style car crushing events.

The fledgling all-sports television network ESPN also took note of the popularity of monster trucks in the 1980s and began showing events promoted by the United States Hot Rod Association and TNT Motorsports on a regular basis.

However, upstart rookie Rod Litzau, driving the USA-1 truck, gained momentum and passed Bigfoot in the standings going into the last weekend of the season in Louisville, Kentucky.

After losing the championship, the Bigfoot team made the decision to shift their focus less on competition and more on research and development in 1989, as well as running frequent events for the USHRA and USA Motorsports and a limited TNT Schedule.

After testing the vehicle for three months, driver Andy Brass debuted the eighth incarnation of Bigfoot, with the new frame and suspension, in late 1989.

The Bigfoot 8 chassis was briefly banned from the circuit on April 5, 1990, due to a rule clarification that only allowed leaf, coil, and coil-over suspensions to be run.

Also that year, Piant took the Special Events Triple Crown Championship, in addition to placing third in the USHRA's new point series.

Bigfoot ceased running events for the Monster Jam series in 1998 due to a dispute over involving licensing of video footage and pictures, and has not returned since.

Miceli drove the "Bigfoot 10" chassis until the end of the 2007 Major League of Monster Trucks (MLMT) season.

In order to comply with MLB's official vehicle sponsorship while being used by Firestone, the Bigfoot 10 chassis featured a Chevrolet Silverado body.

[4][5] In March 2012, Bigfoot formed a partnership with Robby Gordon to promote both his SPEED Energy Drink and his new Stadium Super Trucks racing series.

Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines was a 1985 animated miniseries produced by Marvel Productions as part of their Super Sunday anthology series.

A self-aware version of Bigfoot was one of the main characters of the animated series, The Power Team; it was included to advertise the NES game.

A Discovery Kids TV series called Bigfoot Presents: Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks was released in 2006.