Career
Dennis started out as a mud bogger with his original Grave Digger in 1981. This truck was a 1952 Ford pickup truck, later converted to a silver and blue 1951 Ford Panel Truck. At one local show, a scheduled monster truck failed to show up and Anderson, who already had large tractor tires on the truck, offered to crush cars in the absence of the full-size monster. The success of the vehicle led Anderson to pursue monster trucks as a career.
In 1986 Grave Digger underwent a transformation to complete monster truck and first received its distinctive black graveyard paint scheme. In 1987 and 1988 Anderson drove the truck primarily at TNT Motor sports races. In 1988 Anderson beat Bigfoot in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on a show taped for ESPN.
Anderson moved to Grave Digger 2 in 1989, with a new 1950 Chevrolet panel van body. TNT began promoting Grave Digger heavily, especially for races on the Tuff Trax syndicated television series and ESPN's Powertrax. This was helped by Bigfoot running a limited schedule in the 1989 championship. He was currently sixth in the standings in the 1990 TNT series when he decided to build Grave Digger 3 due to a wreck.
When TNT became a part of the USHRA in 1991, Anderson began running on the USHRA tour and debuted his first four-link truck, Grave Digger 3.
In late 1998, Anderson sold the Grave Digger team to Clear Channel Communications, leading to controversy and accusations of rigged races due to Anderson driving for the same company that runs the events. In 1999 he won his first championship in the USHRA series. In 2001, he drove Mr. Destruction into a wall of cars as a special stunt for the Louisiana Superdome show. Anderson won the inaugural Monster Jam World Finals freestyle championship in 2000, and scored a racing championship win at the 2004 World Finals. Anderson currently drives Grave Digger 20, which debuted in Minneapolis in December 2005, and in which he won another racing championship at the 2006 World Finals. Anderson has also won the 2010 World Finals Racing Championship driving Grave Digger 20.
Anderson is currently a co-host on History Channel's Around the World in 80 Ways.
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