Race of the Night: Mean Green Machine vs. Full Throttle

There were several important races on the evening.  The two most important were in the second round when Reckoning had a chance to clinch the season title against Orange Crush, and in the finals when Mean Green Machine battled tooth-and-nail against Orange Crush to secure their first night victory in more than ten years.  To put this period of time in perspective, the last time Mean Green Machine won a night, Britney Spears was still considered incredibly hot, tourists flocked to the New York City to dine at the restaurant atop the World Trade Center, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were still married and Cruise was viewed as a sane guy who women wanted to bring home to their fathers.  So, yeah, it’s been a while.

That said, I think the race of the night was the first race of the evening when Mean Green Machine took on Full Throttle.  The reason for this is simple: I was more entertained watching this race than any other on the evening; a truly fascinating statement given that the Kyle Shearer Lap Running Experiment began in Bad Company’s first round race against Stranglehold.

Full Throttle might have lost to Mean Green Machine here (and to Stranglehold in the first round of Third Night) but they are an absolute joy to watch on the track.  They have smart drivers—including the ever-crafty Ron Johnston, a rapidly rising favorite of mine—and race incredibly hard.  Watching Johnston on the track is akin to watching Steve Nash play basketball.  Both men know more than enough wily veteran tricks to help their team out and are absolute magicians at the little things.  Johnston’s successful attempt to push the Mean Green Machine’s Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt behind the chalk line across the turn 4 track entrance was strategic genius.*

* Vanderbilt’s car was not DQ’d though because, unbeknownst to Johnston and scores of other drivers, the rule had changed prior to the night’s races.  No longer were cars that were pushed beyond the chalk line done for the race.

On the other side of things, Mean Green Machine is the most hittingest, pedal to the metalest team in the league, to coin two new words in the span of a sentence.  Ryan Decker is one of the most aggressive drivers in the TDA and has absolutely no fear about crashing into anyone at any speed.

Decker is so fearless, violent and destructive on the track, I’m about one more all-out race by him away from making a page called “Ryan Decker Facts” where readers will be able to learn that Chuck Norris jokes are based off of things Ryan Decker has done, that Decker once won a TDA race and drove so fast he went back in time eight minutes, that Rockstar Games pays Decker residuals for basing their game Grand Theft Auto on his driving and that he successfully sued Black and Decker to stop making vacuums by reasoning that nothing involving the word ‘Decker’ could ever suck.  (If anyone has more Ryan Decker facts, please e-mail them to me at tracksideat66@gmail.com).

The result of these two teams meeting in the first was a long, very well played, extremely entertaining race.  You know a race is going well when you don’t want it to end, and such was exactly the case here.

Upset of the Night: Mean Green Machine defeats Orange Crush

This didn’t quite feel like that big of an upset but, on paper, it was. Mean Green Machine entered the night a handful of places behind Orange Crush… and then went out and beat them in the finals.  I’m not going to dwell on this because on the track—where it counts—Mean Green Machine looked every bit as powerful and well put together as the best teams in the league, a designation that now includes them, as evidenced by the standings.

Most Outstanding Driver: Mean Green Machine’s Team

I will be the first to admit that this is something of a cop out, but, if a given football team’s defense can be the player of the game on Fox, this works here.

The truth is that, while thinking about which individual to give this award to, I got stuck.  Ryan Decker won the first race, John Clemmons won the second race and Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt won the third race.  Decker also did some solid crushing on the night, Clemmons was a Smurf’s hair from taking the checkered flag in the finals and Vanderbilt and Zac VanAllen were both integral parts of Mean Green Machine’s first two wins.  Everybody on Green did so well, I couldn’t settle on just one driver.

One element of Mean Green Machine’s performances that I did notice, however, was that they worked very well as a team.  Clemmons may have been a quarter of a lap from the finish line when he got stopped, but Vanderbilt was right behind him.  A similar situation unfolded in their second round matchup against Bad Company.  Vanderbilt was in the lead and passed by Clemmons in the last lap.  It seemed moreso than anything else that this teamwork was what propelled Mean Green Machine to their first night victory in ten years.

So, Mean Green Machine, your entire team was the Most Outstanding Driver… and I’m comfortable with that.

Team on the Rise: Mean Green Machine

Yeah.  Duh.

Mean Green Machine’s midseason pickup, Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt, is a roster addition who is performing so well and with such poise, he deserves to be mentioned with the names of Rick Sutcliffe, Rasheed Wallace and Randy Johnson as the midseason acquisitions of all time.

Team on the Fall: Damage, Inc.

Damage, Inc. started out Fourth Night in sole possession of last place.  They haven’t won a single race on the year and, if memory serves correctly, they haven’t come close either.  As I wrote last month, it’s hard to have a last place team falling, but Damage, Inc. again seemed up to the task.

When the first round matchups were announced, Damage, Inc learned it was going to face off against Reckoning.  It was a perfect opportunity for them to come out, fight hard and show their mettle against the league’s first place team.  Well, Damage, Inc came out and showed their mettle… but not in the way anyone was hoping for.

In order to help out Orange Crush, Damage, Inc removed two of its drivers from the lineup, Rich and Matt Wilson, and replaced them with Orange’s Crush two crushers, Tom “Brickman” Lewis and Pete Ryan.  Lewis even supplied his own car.

I’ve been trying to come up with another analogy in sports to compare this situation to, but I can’t come up with a good one.  Damage, Inc willingly gave up on their season and their own team development to help another team to try to repeat as champions… and they failed at this too.

Most Violent Player: Orange Crush’s Tom “Brickman” Lewis

I talked to Orange Crush’s Tom “Brickman” Lewis after the races on Fourth Night and asked him one question: “What did you eat today?  You were racing crazy angry out there!”  He smiled, waved off my question and began talking about helping his teammates and what he did wrong in the finals against Mean Green Machine.  Lewis is a somewhat reticent interviewee and I didn’t bring up his amazingly, bone-crushing night of hitting again.

Here, however, I am able to shine light on one of the night’s true highlights: Lewis’ crushing.

It started against Seek-N-Destroy when Lewis took out two of their cars in short order in two furious hits between turns 2 and 3.

Lewis quickly hopped into an orange wagon to take on Reckoning while racing for Damage, Inc.  Lewis was the proverbial thorn in Reckoning’s side and, although Damage, Inc lost, he made the race as tough as he could for Reckoning, surviving crash after crash to continue battling.

In the second round against Reckoning and in the finals against Mean Green Machine, Lewis did what he could to tie up his opponents’ runners and, whenever possible, take them out in a hail of sparks and crunching metal.  For this, Lewis truly earns the label of Fourth Night’s Most Violent Player.

Hit of the Night: Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht takes out Damage, Inc’s Dave “Repo” Swan

There were a lot of good hits Fourth Night: Orange Crush’s Elmer Fandery somehow defied physics and managed to crash into Reckoning’s Brian Anderson and get his car on top of Anderson’s for a short while, Fandery’s teammate, Tom “Brickman” Lewis blasted two Seek-N-Destroy cars and a third Orange Crush driver, Pete Ryan, managed to smash Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht’s passenger side door into Vollbrecht’s right side.  However, these hits all paled in comparison to the one Vollbrecht delivered on Damage, Inc’s Dave “Repo” Swan.  When Vollbrecht was done with Swan, Swan’s car had two wheels on the wall.  Two side wheels.  And in my book when a driver can push a car onto the wall sideways (Sideways!), he gets the hit of the month.

In the first lap of the Reckoning and Damage, Inc race, Swan was sliding around the outside of the turn 2 tire near the wall.  Vollbrecht hit the gas and before anyone had any idea of what was happening, Swan’s car had its driver’s side wheel stuck on the wall.  Swan climbed out of the car a minute later and, for once, the driver was doing the right thing by getting out of the car.  If anyone had hit him, intentionally or otherwise, Swan’s head would have been at bumper level, which is not a recipe for anything good.

Irony of the Night: Mean Green Machine’s Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt took the checkered flag against Orange Crush

Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt* used to race with Ryan Bleuer, Tom “Brickman” Lewis and Johnny Ryan on the Junkyard Dogs teams from a few years back.  Last year, when Bleuer got married, Vanderbilt drove for Orange Crush for a race (Fourth Night of 2010).  Fast forward to a year later, Vanderbilt took the checkered flag against Orange Crush in the finals, driving a car that actually thanked Orange Crush on it.  Ah, sweet irony.

* It’s still weird to me calling this man “Vanderbilt”.  I’ve never heard him referred to in conversation as anything other than “Kahuna”.  Ditto with Steve Vollbrecht being called anything but “Speedy”.

Mr. Persistent: Stranglehold’s Nick Hartung

Drivers rarely, if ever, give up on the track.  However, that said, there are certain drivers who do seem to disappear at times and others who seem to constantly being going, going, going.  After a few laps were completed in Stranglehold’s first round race against Bad Company, Nick Hartung found himself as the sole moving Stranglehold car.  It was up to him to try and stop Bad Company’s Jason Ritacco from collecting the necessary five laps to win.  And try and stop Ritacco Hartung did.  Time after time, in the front straightaway and in the back straightaway, on the north side of the track and the south side of the track, Hartung did battle.  Hartung even once managed to knock a teammate of the wall in turn 1 before turning back and smashing into Ritacco again.

Hartung has made some very impressive driving strides this year and this tenacity is serving him well.  When I asked him about his one-on-one duel with Ritacco, Hartung laughed and explained sarcastically, “I was just trying to give myself another concussion.  Those hospital beds are comfortable!”

 The “Well That Was Quick” Award: Bad Company’s Joe Snow

Bad Company’s “Big” Joe Snow spent all of about five seconds racing in the first round.  He pulled off the line, targeted Stranglehold’s Wally Hartung like a laser guided 70s round howitzer outside of turn 1 and approached him at a speed close to Mach-5.  However, Snow missed Hartung, much to Hartung’s family’s pleasure, hit the wall and sat for the rest of the race.

If Snow had connected with Hartung, it’s entirely possible and somewhat plausible that he would have driven through the car, crashed through the wall and stopped somewhere in Damage, Inc’s pits.

The Late Hit Award: Bad Company’s Kyle Shearer

Bad Company’s Kyle Shearer had one of the latest late hits that I’ve ever seen.  It wasn’t just a few seconds after the checkered flag had been dropped, it could have been a minute afterwards.  If the hit was in a movie, the man he hit, Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt, would have been in the pits eating a sandwich, looked up and then watched Shearer hit his car.  It was a truly comical length of time after the race had ended…

…and it wasn’t Shearer’s fault at all.

Here’s how it came about: about three seconds before the Bad Company vs. Mean Green Machine race ended, the scoreboard showed that #17, Vanderbilt, was the leader.  Shearer keyed in on him from his position across the field and finally managed to smash into Vanderbilt between turn 3 and 4.

The only problem was that 17 wasn’t, in fact, the race leader.  That was #19, John Clemmons.  The scoreboard had it wrong.  And Clemmons had almost crossed the finish line by the time Shearer started targeting Vanderbilt.

So any and all talk about the “dirty” hit that Shearer put on Vanderbilt should stop.  Now.

The Busiest Driver: (tie) Orange Crush’s Pete Ryan and Tom “Brickman” Lewis

Orange Crush’s Pete Ryan and Tom “Brickman” Lewis pulled off a rare, but not unheard of feat during Fourth Night: they raced in four races.  Three for Orange Crush and one for Damage, Inc.  More interesting still, Ryan and Lewis finished up 2-2, winning against Reckoning and Seek-N-Destroy and losing to, well, Reckoning and Mean Green Machine.

Ryan and Lewis drove in the third race of the first round and then grabbed their helmets and went right back to the staging area to drive in the fourth race of the first round too.  Four races on the night and two, back-to-back in the first round made them truly busy men.