These are bits and pieces of information and behind-the-scenes stories that just don’t quite fit elsewhere. As always, feel free to direct your responses to me at chris at twenty seven and a half dot com, on facebook or contact me at 310.498.1680. The adjustment to the post-Jason Twite period is rougher than I expected.
Welcome Back, Mark Van Allen!
The TDA has evolved a lot in the last 6-8 years. I’m told by a lot of drivers that in 2006, you could run a stock engine and still be a team in the hunt for the championship. Nowadays, drivers are spending upwards of $6,000 on engines in an attempt to gain a leg up on the competition.
The last time The Locomotives’ Mark Van Allen raced in the TDA, he was going up against a lot of other drivers with stock engines who weren’t reaching speeds of 45 miles per hour on the track. He came back and, well, looked damn good in the process (after his initial first round attempt to line up parallel to the other cars at the starting line).
In the first round against Seek-N-Destroy, Van Allen was hit by Seek-N-Destroy’s Larry Younghusband. While this did slow Van Allen down some, he somehow managed to complete another half lap with Younghusband’s car attached to him. Van Allen won The Locomotives’ second round race against Real Steel and drove valiantly in a finals loss to Mean Green Machine.
That’s about as good a first race in ten plus years as you can expect. Maybe the future of the TDA is in the rosters of the 2002 teams. Who knows.
Ryan Decker’s Camouflage Worked
Mean Green Machine’s Ryan Decker painted one of his 80s round cars in camouflage to support the troops. The problem for me was that it worked. As Mean Green pulled onto the track for their second round race against the Junkyard Dogs, I couldn’t see Decker’s car. I turned to the person sitting next to me and asked, “Does green only have three cars?” “It looks like it,” he said. It wasn’t until Decker’s car got onto the track that we could separate it from the background. Well done, Decker!
They Call Him Sneaky for a Reason
I have no idea what the rule is on cars that have been pushed off or that have driven off the track during the race. I don’t know whether they are still eligible to race, if there is a waiting period for them to be eligible or whether there’s some third qualifier that dictates what happens. This is what happens when the rules change several times in the course of a couple of seasons.
Nonetheless, as a crusher, if you push an opponent off the track, it’s good for business. The one place that a runner can’t do a single bit of damage is in the exit lane. The Locomotives’ “Sneaky” Pete Ryan knows this only too well and, in the finals matchup against Mean Green Machine, pushed Green’s Andrew Sherman off the track. When officials told Ryan to back off and let Sherman return to the track, Ryan confessed he didn’t have reverse any more. He couldn’t back up!
It wasn’t until a minute later than Ryan’s reverse magically came back and allowed him to return to the fray. That is some crafty, wily, veteran stuff there. Well played, Mr. Ryan.
Speaking of Pete Ryan…
I think it’s always a feather in your cap when a league or sport literally changes its rules because of you. And this year, the TDA implemented what I’m deeming the ‘Pete Ryan Rule’.
Back in the day, I know a lot of guys made a habit of lining up in the fourth spot in the starting line and beginning to go backwards before the green flag was dropped. In recent years, however, Ryan has been the only guy continuing this practice. There were races last year where Ryan would have moved backwards a solid 30-40 feet before the green flag had even dropped.
This year, the league changed that. The green flag was not going to be dropped unless all the cars were stationary. And it held to form. I believe The Locomotives second round race against Real Steel was delayed slightly as the flag woman waited for Ryan to stop moving before beginning the race.
Now the debate can begin as to what advantage a driver would have by moving backwards several feet prior to the beginning of the race that was now taken away.
In My Country, It’s the Vodka That’s Expensive and the Lemonade That’s Cheap
While in the stands prior to First Night, I noticed that Route 66 had set up a vodka lemonade stand. A vodka lemonade was available for $8. (According to the Internet, Chicagoans alone call this an ‘electric lemonade’). For the kiddies, the stand was also selling straight lemonade… for $5.
This is a great bit of marketing. Because the track is making all of its money on the lemonade—did I mention it was $5 for a glass of lemonade? Those kids on the street corners have it all wrong!—it’s a drop in the bucket to simply pay an additional three dollars for a shot of vodka. I mean, what a deal?! Three bucks for a shot of vodka? That’s almost cheap!
Official Rosters… Or the Lack Thereof aka “We Miss You, Jason Twite!”
When I wrote up my TDA previews, I had to do so without official rosters. And it wasn’t like I was writing them in February; I wrote them less than a week before the season’s first race. The TDA website didn’t have all the teams’ rosters on it until a couple of days after First Night.
Thus, when I wrote up my thoughts on First Night, I had to go by number in several cases. Instead of referring to Seek-N-Destroy’s Dave Janjanin by that, I referred to him as #29. This did not sit will with some drivers who made it known to me that it was, in fact, Dave Janjanin behind the wheel of the #29 car. I appreciated this information more than they knew, because when I looked at the TDA’s official roster for Seek-N-Destroy, it contained not one, but two spelling errors on the drivers’ names… you know, unless Janjanin and Younghusband have been misspelling their own names for all these years.
So, if there are errors in my spellings of names or I have to go by a number once in a while, I apologize sincerely. Just keep sending me the corrections.
Seek-N-Destroy Pays a Classy Tribute to Photographer/Videographer/PR guy/Master of All Trades Jason Twite
I’ll let the picture do the talking. Good on you, Seek-N-Destroy!
Methinks a New Strategy Could Be In Order
The very first race of the season was between Damage, Inc. and Real Steel. The race was delayed by at least a minute because the driver of the #82 car, Larry Steel, wasn’t in it. From the speed with which Steel was observed running towards the car, he was nowhere near it.
I was seated near some Real Steel people in the bleachers and, while they weren’t actively worried about the Real Steel cars overheating while idling at the starting line waiting for Steel to join the race, there were a few terse ‘C’mon’s thrown about as the wait got longer and longer.
Rather than look at Steel’s absence as a negative, I’m going to instead look at it as a near perfectly executed ploy to put Real Steel at a disadvantage. Idling in place for lengthy period of time is not great for cars. Maybe Damage, Inc. could have been up a car before the race even began. Should the league chose to institute a rule that this practice is outlawed, the Larry Steel Rule will have been born.
Rookies Abound!
There are a fair amount of rookies in the league this year. Janjanin and Steel, whom I mentioned previously, are both rookies as are several of their teammates: Dave Swan Jr.,* John Swan and Larry RubalCave on team 8.
* I know Swan Jr. has raced previously, I’m grouping him here because I don’t know if he’s raced enough to not be considered a rookie any more.
The rookie on the hottest seat though is unquestionably The Junkyard Dogs’ Mike “Pancakes” Leodoro. Leodoro is the second runner on a team that is unquestionably gunning for the championship. Before the season, I predicted that Leodoro would garner the most ‘Who the hell is that?’ questions from confused fans, much the same way Andrew Sherman did when he raced for Damage, Inc. in 2012. Leodoro is following behind Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt, one of the premiere runners in the league. Teams will gun for Vanderbilt hopefully allowing Leodoro the ability to sneak by under the radar.
The results of his first races were mixed and positive. First round against Full Throttle, Leodoro held strong. His car kept going—you may remember a station wagon racing that looked like it was put in a compacter? That was Leodoro—and he followed Vanderbilt to a T. He didn’t stray from the game plan one bit and the Dogs won, with Vanderbilt taking the checkered flag. If Leodoro stays on point like that and keeps building cars that can withstand hits like those, the Junkyard Dogs’ future looks bright.
Second round, Leodoro had car trouble in turn 2 in either his first or second lap. He told me his starter crocked and he was forced to sit, which never feels good.
First Night is always a learning experience for new drivers (and drivers like Van Allen who are returning after a long hiatus) and Second Night will be when we see what adjustments have been made. Knowing Leodoro’s and Van Allen’s passion for the sport and their history, it will be exciting to see how they come out on June 21.
A Final Word to the Wise
Readers, if you are going to insist on wiping your ass with my columns, I encourage you to print them out on something soft; regular typing paper is not the way to go. As always though, I say to every one, thanks for reading!