“You’re going to catch some air,” says Tristan England, driver of the JCB Digatron Monster Jam truck, the subject of this year’s Christmas road test.

This was unexpected. If you’ll excuse the behind-the-scenes indulgence, sometimes we get a brief go in a Christmas road test vehicle, sometimes an extended run, but often – if it’s, say, the Space Shuttle – no go at all.

Our first nose around the Digatron was in JCB’s test and demonstration quarry in Staffordshire, which is full of sharp immovable objects and very much ‘no go’ territory. But, suggested JCB, if you can come to the broad expanse of Monster Jam University, that can be amended. Watch our video above to see how we got on...