A fire has dealt a devastating blow to a Canadian monster truck team.
Kathy Wills and her husband Ged Barcroft of the Sheer Insanity Monster Truck from Medicine Hat were woken up Wednesday by their dog barking alerting them to the blaze. They lost the shop, tools, personal vehicles and two monster trucks.
“The shop was engulfed in flames,” Kathy Wills said. “All our blood, sweat and tears for years and years that have gone into it and it’s just all gone.”
“There was no saving anything at that point.”
The Sheer Insanity team travels across North America performing. In 2010, the pair were awarded Monster Jam titles.
“There are going to be a lot of kids that will be devastated. We have a lot of kids that come to every show,” Kelly Matsen-Zora, an employee with Sheer Insanity, said.
Wills is the only female Canadian driver who is an owner-operator. Her bright pink truck is a show of support for breast cancer awareness.
“It’s devastating. They help out so much in the community,” Matsen-Zora said. “From every show that we do, a portion of the funds that are raised go towards breast cancer research.”
The building and most of its contents should be covered but Wills said insurance does not cover the two monster trucks.
“You can’t insure monster trucks,” Wills said.
Wills said most heartbreaking of all is the couple lost two family pets.
“I have two shop cats that have been in our shop since the day that we bought the property that we adopted from the SPCA and I don’t think that they made it out,” Wills said.
The fire is not believed to be suspicious but there’s no word on how it started.
With files from CHAT TV Medicine Hat