Minor Point #1: Stranglehold had a really tough night of racing
You want to talk about having your work cut out for you…
Stranglehold started out the evening of Third Night in last place (along with Damage, Inc). In the bracket that was pulled, Stranglehold ended up facing the third place team in the first round, Full Throttle, the second place team in the second round, Orange Crush and the first place team in the finals, Reckoning. There is literally no harder path to the night’s trophy than Stranglehold had. They were a last place team when the bracket was pulled and they had to face the top three teams in the league to win it all.
On the other side of things, Orange Crush started the night in second place… and merely had to beat the two teams that were tied for last place at the start of the night to get to the finals. Two winless teams that were tied for last place at the start of the night.
As they say, anything can happen on any given, uh, Saturday night.
Minor Point #2: Reckoning got really lucky
I wrote about this before and I do so again here. In their final match up against Stranglehold, Reckoning’s two runners, Brian Anderson and Steve Gursky Jr. were quickly put on life support. In the first lap, Anderson lost his steering and Gursky Jr.’s car lost one tire and was having issues with another tire. At this point in time, Reckoning’s two crushers, Chris McGuire and Steve Gursky Sr. were still in good shape; their cars were didn’t have any discernible damage to them and were running well. In spite of this, neither McGuire or Gursky Sr. ever switched roles and collected enough laps to pass Gursky Jr. for the team lead. McGuire did do about a lap at one point in time, but then turned off to crash into a Stranglehold car.
If Gursky Jr. hadn’t willed his car to make it three plus laps on two and a half tires, blowing up his engine in the process, Reckoning would have lost handily.
I suppose the mark of a good season is one where the breaks go your team’s way, but this looked to be a relatively easily fixable problem that neither of Reckoning’s two crushers deemed necessary. As I said, Reckoning got really lucky.
Minor Point #3: It was not a good day to blow your radiator
With temperatures in the high 90s during the day and what felt like 145% humidity, this was not the day to blow your radiator. Different drivers have explained to me that when your radiator blows, it gets very hot and very steamy, very quickly. The consensus is that experiencing this is akin to being in a sauna… where you can’t see your hand in front of your face.
Naturally, the first radiator to blow on the evening belonged to Mel Noble Jr. Yes, the Headless Hold’s Man. Noble Jr. was in turn 2, simply sitting there as wave after wave of white steam poured out of his radiator and into his cab, his face sweatier than ever before. He didn’t even try to move because he was holding a Full Throttle car in place against the wall.
At this point in time, I think I’m going to stop using the word ‘insane’ and ‘crazy’ to describe on field actions. Instead I’m going to start referring to them as something that Noble Jr. would do.
Minor Point #4: Orange Crush has a very intense attitude.
I’m not sure whether many people pay attention to the cars when they pull onto the track for the beauty contest, but I did so before Third Night and feel like I learned something: Orange Crush has a very fierce, competitive attitude.* Lest people forget, the track conditions Second Night ranked somewhere between peanut butter and glue. More than half the beauty cars got stuck at some point in time, ultimately casting an unseemly glow onto the racing that was about to take place.
* I suppose this could be filed under ‘duh’, but I noticed it and thought it was intriguing.
Third Night, the first chance anyone had to see how cars would perform on the (hopefully) new and improved track was during the beauty contest. And so I paid very close attention to the cars as they drove out onto the track.
One thing struck me about this was that Orange Crush’s beauty car came flying out of the staging area with more attitude, noise and speed than any other team.
By far.
The Orange Crush beauty car is unmistakable and unforgettable. It’s the brilliant orange limousine that looks like it would transport Hell’s version of Paris Hilton. With the Orange Crush skull on the hood, those large, gleaming silver stacks curling out of the hood, a well drawn skull and cross bones on the front license plate, a driver who knows how to push the accelerator to get the car both loud and fast, seemingly dozens of people hanging on in their bright orange T-shirts and occasionally two guys in costumes and bad wigs, that beauty car is scarier than The Exorcist, The Shining and Megan Fox’s post Transformers movie choices combined!
It’s easy to understand how Orange Crush has such an intimidating reputation; their beauty car looks like it may have participated in several felonies on the way to the track. That’s good stuff!
Minor Point #4.5: Finding pictures of Orange Crush’s limo online isn’t that easy
I always like to fact check the things I write wherever possible. While describing the Orange Crush limo, I wrote what I remembered to be true. Then I went looking for pictures online to confirm what I’d written. And finding photos of that limo from the front isn’t that easy.
I immediately when to the Orange Crush facebook page and found that it has one photo of said limo… from the side.
Minor Point #5: Families did things together
Third Night was almost family night at Route 66. Father and son teammates Wally and Nick Hartung helped take Stranglehold to the finals where they went up against another father and son set of teammates, Steve Gursky Jr. and Steve Gursky Sr. Father and son, Charlie and Levi Turnbaugh both lost in the first round on Seek-N-Destroy and Full Throttle respectively and, to top it all off, cousins Johnny and Pete Ryan were disqualified together in Orange Crush’s race against Damage, Inc. One can only imagine what would have happened if Dave Swan’s son was racing or Rich Wilson hadn’t retired after First Night.
Minor Point #6: Six drivers on a team seems a bit, I don’t know, much.
I’ve always found it interesting that teams occasionally have more than five drivers on their roster.
In 2010, Stranglehold had so many drivers on their roster, I didn’t know where to begin following them… so I just stopped. If I didn’t know who was in a car, I just guessed it was a Noble and moved forward. Nobody thought much of this.
In 2011, Orange Crush added Pete Ryan to their roster, bringing the total number of drivers on their team up to six. Nobody thought much of this though either. It’s possible the addition of a sixth driver impacted the on-field chemistry of the team a little, but no one could say for sure. It seemed simply like something that would actually be a good use of the platitude: it is what it is.
Then Third Night happened. Two of Orange Crush’s drivers, Johnny and Pete Ryan, were disqualified and ejected… and Orange Crush still had four drivers with cars to race.
Forget, for a moment, whether either Ryan should have been disqualified from further races—especially Pete Ryan—and just consider that driver disqualifications are designed to penalize teams for alleged wrongdoing. And even with two drivers thrown out, Orange Crush didn’t skip a beat.
I want to be clear: Orange Crush did nothing wrong by having six drivers on their team. It shouldn’t even be couched in those terms, actually. Orange Crush was more on the ball than usual in having six drivers on their team; they effectively had two back up drivers. And this came into play Third Night and helped them out immensely.
Two things I’m pondering about this:
1) What would have happened if a team has five drivers and two are disqualified? Can someone else race in place of the DQ’d driver(s)? Are the drivers’ cars disqualified too? And,
2) If my team is in third place going into Fifth Night, here’s my new plan: I am going to add eight drivers to my team. I’m going to send four of those new drivers into the first place team’s pits and four of them into the second place team’s pits. Then, my new, ahem, drivers are going to start fights with all the first place and second place teams’ drivers. Everybody will get ejected for fighting and I’m will be looking at a complete and total replacement lineup for the first and second place teams that would go up against my normal lineup, complete with a backup driver.
That sounds absolutely ridiculous, right? Well, it’s absolutely ridiculous and legal according to the way the rules are written right now.
I think a very simple solution is to just mandate that a team can only have five drivers on its roster for any given night of racing. Who those five drivers are could change every night, but only those five drivers would be eligible to drive.
Minor Point #7: Bill Mcmahen won against Stranglehold… and didn’t know it
This may have been the most amazing feat of the night. Stranglehold runner, Bill Mcmahen, took the checkered flag against Orange Crush in the second round in one of the biggest upsets of all time… and didn’t know it.
As McMahon informed me, he didn’t learn of his accomplishment until he was being interviewed by Speed Channel.
Minor Point #8: 58, 21, 20
When “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht came to the line against Mean Green Machine, there were 58 inches between his B-pillars.
After Vollbrecht’s car was smushed between his teammate, Steve Gursky Jr., on his driver’s side and Mean Green Machine driver, Ryan Decker, on his passenger side, there were 21 inches between his B-pillars. It was such a tight fit, Vollbrecht couldn’t even raise his arms to signal for help.
I later measured Vollbrecht’s shoulders; they are 20 inches wide.
Minor Point #9: The Trophy Girls hit a new low
Reckoning won their second night of the year Third Night. As is the custom, their drivers and support staff met on the track near the flag stand to celebrate, take photos and receive their trophies. This is the part of the evening where the Trophy Girls, in their Foot Locker uniforms, trudge out into the mud to be photographed with the winning team.
Two Trophy Girls walked out there—still wearing shoes that don’t have shoelaces in them—and positioned themselves on top of the Reckoning car.
And then one of them pulled out her phone and began texting people.
Jubilant celebrations were taking place all around her, Speed Channel was interviewing Steve Gursky Jr. and the fans in the stands were cheering… and this Trophy Girl sat there in the middle of it texting.
I love the fact that the Trophy Girls can’t even be bothered to participate throughout the entirety of THE FIVE-MINUTE TROPHY PRESENTATION!
Minor Point #10: Mean Neon Green Machine is back… and their shirts match their cars
I look at Mean Green Machine as the Oregon Ducks of the TDA. Their color schemes are constantly changing and no one can ever be sure what to expect. Sometimes they show up with camouflage on their cars, sometimes they show up with forest green. Third Night, they showed up with a bright, almost neon green color scheme… that perfectly matched their almost neon green T-shirts. Well done, Mean Neon Green. Well done.