>> so how did you get started playin mtm2?
You asked for it, Psyco.
It was a cold and snowy night in early December, the year was nineteen and ninety-eight. The events of that evening eventually touched the lives of many people around the world -- it was the night I downloaded the Monster Truck Madness 2 trial version.
Just kidding. Actually, it was in early December of '98 that I got the demo, which was pretty much the first 3D accelerated game I'd tried on my newly obtained hardware. When I fired up the demo with all graphics settings to the max I was awestruck, not only did it look awesome in it's 3D rendered glory, the truck physics and the limitless terrain blew me away. Some time later I came to the conclusion that this was without a doubt the greatest game I'd ever seen, and it pretty much fulfilled an idealized video game wish I'd had when I was young (a cool vehicular sim in a world without borders).
I played the demo for countless hours throughout the holiday season, it was a pleasant time. I explored the Farm Road world doing every trick I could possibly think of, enjoying the truck physics and driving around in race cam view enjoying the graphics (I still drive around using odd views just for kicks). I knew from the start I'd buy the game when I got the chance, but it wasn't until March 1st 1999 that I did so, with three months and many hours of Farm Road already logged.
Knowing I would eventually buy the game I had already scoped out some community sites before I bought it, so I knew very well there was much to be had beyond what came in the box. The very day I got home with the game I was searching out fan sites and downloading files, I was playing customs before I'd even seen all of the stock tracks. That early pursuit made the stock tracks look flat and lame by comparison, they just couldn't compare to the addictively "extreme" terrain of the customs.
I was sucking downloads through my 28.8 modem for many days, enjoying the heck out of those user creations. In less than two weeks I had begun construction on a webpage showcasing the best tracks I'd downloaded, featuring some "best of the best" (mostly Spider, Yeastman, Zoon, and Nrrivas). I abandoned the project soon after starting it but I have to laugh now at having started such a thing within two weeks of getting the game.
I downloaded Traxx just one week after installing the game. I expected track making to be some technically complex pursuit that wouldn't be worth the trouble of learning, boy was I wrong. Traxx made things incredibly easy, I'd guess that within an hour I had carved a few bumps in some terrain and written a pod. When I drove on the terrain I'd just created with some mouse clicks it was really quite a thrill for me and I was instantly hooked, the possibilities bloomed in my mind and I set out to plan a grand rally, hehe. One month later I had a couple minutes of Behemoth Rally complete (over period of nine months it turned into an epic twelve minute rally with plans to make it even longer, but it was never wrapped up and has never been seen to this day).
I must note that I dropped out of traxx school well before getting my degree, I understood the concepts and left it to pursue terrain work and texture experiments. Carving terrain was fun and custom texturing was icing on the cake. Before my first month with the game was over I had experimented with TxBIN and made flat models out of textures (trees, fences) which led into my first ever 3D editing with BinEdit. It was a busy month for sure.
I remember starting out in the mtm community on the Traxx forum, there was a great bunch there, in fact Phin was one who greeted me there on day one. About three months later I met up with Emma, a sweet person who made sweet tracks. Needing a name for myself I looked through my old dictionary for winter themed words (the season I was most fond of), I saw 'winterkill' and decided to go with it. I never used the name outside of the MTM and 4x4evo communities, but since there were other people (and a heavy metal band) out there with the name, and due to having grown tired of it anyway I eventually shortened it to Wint.
Note: I pretty much wrote all of that in early '02 for this thread but never posted it, and since Psyco is digging up old threads... 
..but 
Then I decided to search for online movies about Monster Trucks, and that really kick-started my relationship with these behemoths! Then disaster struck. I couldn't find my MTM2 CD! I searched high and low, side to side, but couldn't find it. A couple more depressing years without my beloved MTM2. Then, in March 2005, I took the plunge and got a new one off eBay! I visited lots of sites, looking at all the showroom trucks fresh for donwload, but couldn't play them. Now, I could! And that very copy of MTM2 sits in my CD rack right now, and it's the astonishing game it is. Back when I started, it was filled with stock everything, but now, it's filled with car-crushin' drags, pulse-pounding trucks from the likes of Slickster, RobbyH14, and Meth. Not to mention lots of great freestyle tracks. I LOVE YOU, MICROSOFT!