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There's something about a big truck crushing small cars that makes your inner kid come out.

For 75-year-old Don Maples, he's a kid again when one of his dozens of VHS tapes is in the VCR player and he's reliving the glory days.

On those tapes are hours of his career — a career he loved for decades.

Maples, a Huntsville native, built and competed throughout the 1980s with Samson 1, a bright red, 14-feet-tall, 10-ton Chevy Silverado.

"At one point, it was the No. 1 truck in the world," Maples said. "When it first started, people hadn't seen anything like this."

Maples hand-built the truck designed to crush cars and take names, and that's exactly what he did with it, all over the country.

"I've been to every state in the United States," Maples said. "Every colosseum, metrodome, superdome, Madison Square Garden — you name it, I've been there."

Maples' signature move was one he invented: backing over cars.

"I was the first one to ever do that," Maples said.

Years of backing over cars, pulling sleds and impressing crowds across America has earned Maples a spot in the .

"I almost made it a bunch of times," Maples said. "They called me and said I'd been voted in."

The induction ceremony is Nov. 11–12 in Indiana. Maples plans to travel there and attend.

Samson 1 is in a private collection in Japan.

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