Two things I’d like to note before getting to the First Night Minor Points:
1) I live-tweeted the First Night of racing. You can read this at www.twitter.com/truedestruction It’s great if you like things 140 characters at a time. You do not need to have a twitter account to read this; you do, however, need to have a twitter account to follow the Behind the Destruction twitter feed, which I, of course, recommend all of you do. I’d love any and all comments or suggestions you might have on the First Night’s live-tweet (up to and including, “You need to pull your head out of your ass.”). I enjoyed doing it, even though I was asked repeatedly what game I was playing on my phone. I will be doing it again Second Night, incorporating whatever suggestions I receive into the mix.
2) My phone number is 310.498.1680. If anybody has a problem with anything I write, they can always feel free to call me or text me those thoughts. I welcome feedback and dialogue with people. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not always right, but I aim to own up to that whenever possible. I will be including this number and my email address at the end of every article I write.
Minor Point #1: Mean Green Machine’s Ryan Decker? We May Have To Come Up With an Award Higher than MVP For Him
About the only thing Mean Green Machine’s Ryan Decker didn’t do on the track First Night was help change the flat tire of a bus load of orphans that broke down (and given the way the kids flocked to him in the pit party, it’s entirely possible he did it there). The league’s reigning MVP turned out a performance First Night that was truly marvelous. He was aggressive when he needed to be, subtle when he needed to be and did whatever his team needed to help it win. And he did it all with a bad back.
Decker’s long battled back problems and the Friday before First Night, it started acting up to such a degree that he didn’t think he’d be able to race the next day. Prior to the first race of the year, he assured his girlfriend that he was feeling better, popped a couple of pain pills and took to the track to deliver as game-changing of a series of races as a driver can have without actually grabbing the checkered flag.
My favorite move of Decker’s came in the first round when Mean Green was racing Stranglehold. Decker saw Green’s runner, Matt Pierce, coming down the back straightaway and a cluster of white cars that was kind of/sort of stuck in Turn 3. Decker hit the accelerator, smacked into the car of Stranglehold’s Bill Mcmahen and pushed him out of the way, thus opening up a lane for Piece. Decker then feverishly began motioning to Pierce to drive through the newly formed hole by Turn 3.
Decker made great adjustments all night long—he had a bead on Full Throttle’s Jay VanAllen in the finals, VanAllen slowed down and Decker changed course on the fly without losing speed and still managed to hit VanAllen—took out a number of opponents’ cars and always made keeping his runners clean his majority priority.
Now that’s what I’m talking about! From now on, that’s how you drive!
Minor Point #2: Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht Had One Hell of a Move to Start the 7 vs. 3 Race
Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht lined up in the first spot opposite The Junkyard Dogs’ Ryan Bleuer. When the green flag dropped, Vollbrecht didn’t shoot forward, he hit the gas and quickly turned in front of Bleuer. Brian Anderson was in Reckoning’s second position and he sped passed Vollbrecht and Bleuer and began collecting real estate unmolested. I hadn’t ever seen this approach to stopping Bleuer used and was surprised how effective it was at slowing him down at the beginning of the race.
Kudos to Vollbrecht for seeing the opportunity and taking it. “I knew it was a possibility,” Vollbrecht told me about the maneuver, “But it wasn’t exactly planned. It just worked out great.”
Indeed.
Minor Point #3: Apparently No One on Orange Crush Likes Orange Crush’s Tom “Brickman” Lewis
It’s been a long time since I saw one driver get hit by all three of his teammates during the same race, but Tom “Brickman” Lewis (63) managed this rare feat in Orange Crush’s opening round loss to Damage, Inc. He got blasted by Art Scarbro, cremed by Ron Tyrakowski and then hit by Elmer Fandrey. I dare say that Lewis was hit harder by all of his teammates than he ever was by Damage, Inc.
Minor Point #4: Insurance Issues Rule the Day… Except…
When I spoke to former TDA owner Teresa Gabriel in 2010, she told me that she paid approximately $5,000 a night for medical insurance. If that seems like a lot of money, it’s because it’s going to insure men who are purposely crashing cars into one another. When I keep that in mind, it seems a lot more reasonable.
I have no specific information on this, but I’m guessing the TDA’s insurance contract either came up at the end of the 2011 season and the rates sky-rocketed or, more likely, it is up for renewal at the end of 2012 and the TDA knows that the rates will sky-rocket unless something is done about the number of claims that are being filed.
I mention this because the TDA is very focused on keeping claims down this year. There was a meeting of team owners where insurance issues were discussed and it was also a topic of discussion during the first drivers meeting of the year. Rumor even had it that Damage, Inc’s Rich Wilson wasn’t going to be allowed to race due to multiple insurance claims in the past. (Rumor turned out to be wrong and Wilson did, in fact, race).
In an effort to make the races even safer (and to hopefully lower the number of claims being filed), the TDA changed the rules in the off-season so that any driver’s door hit—like the hit that sent Damage, Inc’s Matt Wilson to the hospital for a battery of tests in 2011—would result in the team being disqualified.
Safety first!
However, during the course of the night, it appeared that another change had been made: when TDA officials want to stop a race THEY NOW ARE WALKING OUT ONTO THE TRACK WAVING FLAGS!!!
I first saw this during the Figure 8 race after the parade lap fiasco. Wanting to restart the race,* officials turned the cherries on and began waving their red flags. When these actions didn’t grab the attention of the Figure 8 racers who, rather logically, weren’t expecting the race to stop just as it was beginning, officials began walking onto the track to get the racers’ attention.
* Can you restart something that hasn’t been technically started?
Despite the fact that they were wearing bright, neon green T-shirts, the officials were lucky they weren’t killed. No driver in his right mind would ever expect to see a person on the track and the Figure 8 racers were understandably shocked to see a person in front of them in the mud. The official who was in the middle of the track ultimately ended up running to the front wall and jumping onto it, while the official at the north end of the track took refuge between two stopped cars, both men scared but safe.
If the TDA is really worried about the insurance claims being filed, maybe they should also address the absolute idiocy of having their officials walk out onto the track during a live race in an attempt to stop it. I feel certain that the costs of an official on the track getting hit by a speeding car would far outweigh any driver related claims that were suffered during a race.
Minor Point #4.5: One More Thing About Insurance
If the TDA’s preeminent concern is truly driver safety and well-being, there are better ways to deal with this than mentioning insurance concerns to the drivers.
In previous years, the drivers have been, at best, loathe to receive medical treatment. Last year, a driver literally broke his back during a race… and refused to consult with the on-site medical staff. It wasn’t until the next morning that he finally decided/realized that something was seriously wrong and it had to be dealt with. And this happened before the drivers knew that insurance claims might damage the sport they love.
Mentioning these insurance claims to the drivers is, in effect, encouraging them to never report anything to the medical staff. If there is a blacklist and a driver found out he was on it, I could easily see him picking up his own detached leg, Saving Private Ryan style, hopping off the track and arguing that there was nothing wrong with him just so he could race again in the future.
The new management of the TDA has been good about tweaking issues that need to be tweaked and hopefully this too will be addressed in the future.