It’s not much of a secret that I haven’t written that much about the TDA this year. I wrote a couple of columns on the First and Second Night of racing, but that was it. I started columns about the other races and decided against finishing them. Because no matter how much fantastic stuff happened on the track, it seemed like there was always a far greater amount of negative things that happened elsewhere that overshadowed the good. I will give you one example and one alone of what I’m talking about. After Fourth Night ended, I was in the parking lot watching Mean Green Machine’s drivers asking people associated with the league if they’d won the championship—they had—and them being told that the league wasn’t sure.
Rather than spew venom and hate, I opted not to write.
Fifth Night, it was mentioned to me numerous times that the TDA was going to hold a November 1 meeting where they were looking for suggestions on how to improve things going forward. I’m going to be out of town on November 1, but I figured I’d throw forth a few ideas here.
For starters, it’s important to understand that the model for the TDA as its currently set up is not broken. The sport is as dynamic and exciting as ever and people love watching it. There are no major overhauls needed; there are barely any overhauls of any kind needed. With a few minor tweaks, this sport could (and I sincerely hope it will) continue on into the future for years.
Strangely, none of my suggestions have anything to do with driver safety. This isn’t because I’m an uncaring asshole but because, for the most part, I think driver safety is pretty good. It absolutely sucks that Mean Green Machine’s Matt “Opie” Pierce got driver’s doored Fifth Night, but A) that is a major exception to the rule, and B) this is a sport involving cars going 30-40 miles per hour and crashing into one another. Attempting to figure out a way that no one will ever get hurt isn’t simply difficult, it’s ridiculous. Imagine trying to figure out a way to play football without anyone every going on injured reserve. It couldn’t happen! The same holds true here. Pierce’s hit (and Carl Brouwer’s hit last year) were flukes. And planning to avoid flukes is not reasonable. They’re flukes for a reason.
So what are those tweaks I’d recommend? Here are three that wouldn’t take much work to make happen.
Suggestion #1: Get Control of the Scoring
While the fans might come to see cars crash into each other and things hopefully light on fire, the drivers are all there to win. Well, most of them anyway. They spend 20, 25 and sometimes 30 hours on each car because they want to win their races. Figuring out which team won and which team lost is of the utmost importance to them and any organized sport.
The scorers in the press box have had what I will charitably call a rough go of it in the last couple of years. This year alone, I have spoken to drivers who have told me that they won a race with only four laps and drivers who lost with six. There are even stories out there about a race in 2012 or 2013 between Full Throttle and Junkyard Dogs where Levi Turnbaugh lost with 7 laps to his name.
Instant replay was instituted in recent years to help alleviate this, but it’s not a tenable solution because the two cameras that are filming the races are doing so looking for big hits, not following cars around the track.
The actual solution to this is easy. Get (or rent) a GoPro camera or something else with a wide-angle lens. Put it on a tripod in the press box and have the footage it shoots be the official record of the race. If someone challenges something, the footage in that camera can be uploaded to a laptop and reviewed.
Better yet, that footage can then be uploaded to YouTube and the Team Demo site the next day to clear up any and all confusion. We won’t all have to keep hoping that Ryan Decker’s mom posts her video so we can see who actually won.
Also, if one team is poised to clinch the championship, prepare for the next night of racing as if that will happen.
Suggestion #2: Bring In An Respected Outside Tech Crew
Over the course of the last few years, I have been approached by roughly a half dozen different drivers who have expressed surprise and then concern about the fact that the official teching cars handed him three stickers signifying that his car had passed inspection without ever looking at the car. “I’m not cheating,” the drivers always says, “But what if I were?”
I’m not a big fan of labeling people cheaters—even if a driver’s car(s) blatantly flaunt the builds allowed in the rulebook—because the cars are inspected by a league official and given the go ahead. By definition, all cheated cars will not be allowed to race. If a car is raced, it is not cheated. However, I’m of this opinion because I put faith in order and the idea that the officials will actually red flag cars that are not built to the rules.
That said, there was a car present Fifth Night that was raced that was the topic of much discussion for its, shall we say, creative build. I did not look into the car in question—and frankly, if I did, all evidence of cheating would have to be pointed out to me—but it was a source of amusement to many different people in the pits. “Did you see ___________’s car?” numerous people asked me. “Heard about it,” I’d tell them. The people would then smile and shake their heads.
Bringing in a respected outside tech crew would help with these issues. It would necessitate drivers getting to the pits earlier than they ever had before, but it would also ensure a more even playing field.
If an outside tech crew was brought in, the league could also penalize documented accusations of driver cheating. If driver A goes on facebook and starts talking about how driver B was welding his frame, boom, he’s penalized. Because I would have faith in my outside tech crew.
I would even dare drivers to try to cheat. Thinking about putting that 70s bumper on your 80s round car? Go ahead, our tech crew will catch it. If it somehow gets by our inspectors, its legal.
As an aside, this isn’t simply for the good of the sport, it’s for me personally too. I am sick of hearing how every team that wins won because they were cheating. Ryan Bleuer and Ron Tyrakowski did not cheat for Orange Crush, Steve Gursky Jr. and Brian Anderson did not cheat for Reckoning and Andrew Sherman did not cheat for Mean Green Machine.
Suggestion #2 Sub-section B: Allow the Respected Outside Tech Crew to Also Tech Cars After the Race
If someone actually was shoving depleted uranium spikes into their frame and welding off the edges, it might be easier to spot after the race was over and someone split the frame in two. Why not have an official or two wander through the pits looks at cars after they’ve been raced? At worst, the officials will spot something funny and give a heads up to the driver that they will be either penalized or that they will not be allowed to do the same thing again the next month.
Suggestion #3: Raise the Driver Payout
If I were one to listen to rumors—and I’m not—I’d be under the assumption that Mean Green Machine, Full Throttle and Orange Crush are the only teams returning next year. That means that a lot of drivers are (supposedly) not returning for 2015.
If I were to watch CNBC, I’d be under the assumption that attracting new drivers is the key to future TDA success.
What this means is that more drivers are now needed more than ever. There are seemingly more roster spots that need filling than ever before. And since I believe there are only seven full time drivers who have first entered the league over the course of the last four years (Alex Tucker, Mike Leodoro, Kyle Thompson, Andrew Sherman, Dave Janjanin, Steve Schaefer and Anthony Hartung), an average of less than two a year for a league with 32 roster spots, something is going to have to change.
And, if you’re looking for more employees, there’s one good way to attract them: money.
It’s very easy for me to sit here and tell someone else that he or she should pay people more and I’m aware of that, but if you need (new) drivers, money is the best and most efficient way to get them. I cannot offer specifics on how much either, but I can say that by giving out more money, the league can certainly request things in return that could help lessen the cost to them.
For example, the league could find out what might cause insurance premiums to go down—a tire rule that would lessen speed?—and in return for increasing the driver payout, the drivers would have to accept a new tire rule (or whatever else the insurance company might dictate). In this situation, while one league cost would increase, others would decrease, making it a more feasible proposition for the league.
Another possible concession the drivers could give to the league is to institute a promotion/relegation policy ala the English Premier League. The key concept there is that the two worst teams in the A-League are sent down to the B-League and the two best teams in the B-League are sent down to the A-League. Now, obviously, the TDA doesn’t have any lower level league to send teams to, but there could be penalties installed for the two worst teams or, in what we can call the Smash, Bash & Crash rule, allow a new owner to take over a team should it go 0-5 for a season. There are lots of little incentives that could be offered for teams to go all out and try to win. The latter would allow the league to bring in new drivers (a supposed point of importance) in place of the last place team.
Uniquely, the only teams that ever make money from racing are the incredibly bad ones. Smash, Bash & Crash probably made more money than any other team in the last five years because they didn’t do anything to their cars, the cars didn’t work and they’d then trot them out, race after race. Compare that to a team like Mean Green this last year, they had to repeatedly find, buy and build car after car.
And there you have it. There are other ideas I’ve had—owners must race for the teams they own, the driver’s name must be painted on the car he’s racing, do away with the 6-point gimme each night of racing—but these are all very cosmetic. If you want to secure the future of the league, making sure that the correct teams win, the cars follow code and that there is a large pool of drivers wanting to race are the keys. We can deal with my idea to start a demo-driver-only 5K race for charity at a later date.
4 comments
Barb says:
Oct 28, 2014
Nice ideas. Hopefully you can get this to someone that is going to the meeting or directly to the TDA.
Kevin says:
Oct 28, 2014
Great article Chris. I agree with most everything you wrote. I do think they need to look at driver safety though. At some point insurance companies are going to either look to shut this down or charge so much TDA cannot afford it. It seems like some extra reinforcement on the drivers door would be fairly easy to do. I like the idea of recruiting new drivers as well. I thought they were implementing a rule that each team had to have a rookie. The trick to paying out more to the drivers and teams is going to be in marketing. I don’t feel they can raise ticket prices and still sell out races. But, I do think they should look at more TV deals, toys, etc…. I love the team demos and plan on buying season tickets again in 2015. I am glad that association is looking at the future and trying to be proactive rather than wait until it is dying and then trying to figure out why.
Phil Mycrackin says:
Oct 30, 2014
He said “depleted uranium spikes”. We know what team had that.
Tim says:
Nov 5, 2014
Very good ideas. I used to joke that Steve Wonder was the lap counter. In 2013 during a truck figure 8 # 13 was a complete lap behind another truck & still called winner. They could get lap counters by offering free admittance. Also I’m pretty sure Damage Inc won’t be back. They were pathetic this year. Hardly bringing enough cars for 1 race.
I never heard about the “creative build” either. Wonder what they did?