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After a long, long off-season, the Team Demo Association (TDA) finally held its first race of the year in late July. The track was extremely fast, the mud was just right and fans were treated to runners actually running and drivers power sliding around corners like crazy. It was fantastic to watch Orange Crush’s Ron Tyrakowski (#66) and Full Throttle’s Shawn Elder (#43) screaming up and down the straightaways like men possessed. It was good to see the demos alive and well after nearly a year absence.
I kid, naturally, but it felt like old times at Route 66 on Saturday. It’s funny what not having cars constantly getting stuck in the mud can do for an evening of racing. During the first race of the night between Mean Green Machine and The Junkyard Dogs, the crowd could almost hear the driver’s glee on the track. When they pushed the accelerator down, the cars went places! Not only was the racing fast and, dare I say, furious, but Orange Crush won the night for a second time in three outings. They have a way.
After Orange Crush won First Night, I waved off the accomplishment with a flick of my hand. They beat two patsy teams (The Locomotives and Sting) and then beat the Chicagoland Hitmen in a less than inspiring final race. With two gimmes and a hiccup filled final race, it wasn’t exactly awe inspiring.
Two nights later though, Orange Crush won the evening again. And there’s no diminishing that accomplishment. They are an amazing 6-1 on the season. To put that record in perspective, even if you remove the gimme races from their total, they’re still 3-1 against everyone else. The second place Junkyard Dogs are 3-2 against everyone else. So Orange is doing something very right.
Sure, John Clemmons’ (#6) final round motor sounded like he had trapped a couple of monkeys with drumsticks inside a metal garbage can, but the man won the race with that engine! There is no arguing with victory!
Speaking of Clemmons, the man had a very good night at the races. He won the final race and, during the second round race against the Chicagoland Hitmen, pushed #50 (That’s Dave Janjanin!) onto the wall in between turn 3 and 4. Janjanin is the primary lap runner for the Hitmen and Clemmons’ hit on him effectively took him out of the race. That was probably the key hit of the entire race for Orange Crush and I’d argue the second most important hit on the evening.
There is a baseball statistic called Win Probability Added (WPA). It’s a stat that is based upon the fact that certain actions increase a given team’s odds of winning more than others. Sticking with baseball, if a batter hits a triple with the bases loaded, it’s increases his team’s chances of winning a lot more than if he hits a triple with the bases empty. There is an incredibly complex equation that goes into baseball’s WPA stat that I won’t get into here. However, I will say that if you applied the same type of concept to the TDA races, Clemmons would probably have had the highest WPA of any driver on the night.
Besides actually winning the race yourself (which Clemmons did), taking out an opponent’s lead runner early in the race (or delaying him for three minutes of race time while he figures out how to get down off the wall) while not suffering any ill-effects from the hit yourself is just about the best thing that a driver can do to help increase his team’s chances of winning. I say ‘just about’ because there’s one thing that a driver can do that I’d surmise would help even more: taking out an opponent’s lead runner late in the race.
In that respect, the hits that Mean Green Machine’s Zac VanAllen (#16) delivered on the Junkyard Dog’s Ryan Riley (#3) in the first round* and Full Throttle’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht (#47) put on Mean Green’s Jay VanAllen (#14) were the two biggest hits of the night, though, if memory serves correctly, Vollbrecht’s hit on VanAllen also ended his race.
* Yes, this was VanAllen’s outrage provoking, maybe-he-hit-the-driver’s-door, maybe-he-didn’t hit on Ryan Riley (#3). I’m going to get into this hit more in a later column to give it the proper investigation that it deserves.
As an aside, I’d venture a guess that the second most important, individual element of racing would be a driver blocking an opponent’s crusher from hitting his team’s lap runner. The later in the race that block comes, the more important it is. The prime example(s) of this came in the semi finals.
Full Throttle had the best-raced race of the night and the season so far in their second round match up against Mean Green Machine. Elder took the checkered flag, with help from Vollbrecht’s hit on Jay VanAllen and two great interferences by Brian Anderson (#4). As Elder was coming into turn 3 in his last lap, Mean Green’s Ryan Decker (#13) was in hot pursuit, aiming to hit him between turn 3 and 4. Before Decker could move forward on the attack, Anderson come up and smacked his rear end, spinning him around 180 degrees. Elder was safe for the moment.
Decker regrouped and began lining up a hit on Elder as he came out of turn 4. Anderson noticed this, hit the accelerator again and went rocketing towards Decker. Decker saw Anderson barreling towards him and hit the brakes; Anderson flew right on by, Top Gun style. But the damage was done, Decker’s car never moved again. Elder then cakewalked (cakedrove?) down the final eighth of a lap to victory.
It was as a number of people noted, about as well as a team could race together.
It was thusly quite a surprise and a disappointment to see Full Throttle mechanically fall apart in the finals. Anderson noted that his car didn’t sound right at the starting line, so he tried to take out Orange Crush’s Tyrakowski in turn 2; it didn’t work. Anderson managed to make it another lap and half before his car crocked out. Vollbrecht’s car also died out of its own accord in the front straightaway. Elder was running laps and took a less-than-vicious looking hit from Orange Crush’s Elmer Fandrey (#67) in the front passenger side quarter panel (see photo to right). I’m not sure whether Fandrey’s hit pinned Elder’s tire, knocked the tire off, damaged something in Elder’s engine, or Elder himself was injured during the collision, but Elder’s car was never the same. 
After that hit, he wasn’t able to get any type of speed going and had considerable issues going in a straight line and steering; on his next lap, Elder drove right into the turn 2 tire of his own accord and the car died out on the back straightaway. Ron Johnston (#40) was the only Full Throttle driver to continue moving throughout the entirety of the race.
Upon the conclusion of Third Night, the TDA season was more than half over. It’s hard to believe for a number of different reasons—time goes by entirely too quickly—but it’s where we are. Orange Crush is atop the leader boards by an almost overwhelming margin. There is a greater point differential between first place and second place (The Junkyard Dogs), 6 points, than there is between second place and last place (Sting), 5 points.
I’m not sure if anyone not affiliated with Orange Crush can honestly lay claim to having predicted this. I thought Orange Crush would challenge for the title—I have a deep respect and belief that Orange Crush owner Kenny Kasper and his two driver mainstays, Fandrey and Tyrakowski will find a way to always be in the hunt—but I didn’t see anything like this coming. That said, I think the biggest surprise of the season is that Mean Green Machine is currently in 6th place, behind the constantly revolving fill-in drivers who race for Team 8. Sure, this is because the Hartung clan came in Second Night and made mincemeat of the league, getting to the finals in their only night of racing, but that alone was enough to push them ahead of Mean Green.
Now, that said, I fully expect Green to come back and challenge for a top 3 season finish. The reason for that is simple: Green has had one hell of a first round schedule. They’ve already pulled the Chicagoland Hitmen, The Junkyard Dogs and Full Throttle in the first round this year. There are four teams that Green has yet to face: Orange Crush and the three fill-in teams, Sting, The Locomotives and The Crazy 8s. It’s not just possible, but probable that Green will finish of the season with two gimme races in the first rounds of Fourth and Fifth Night. There’s a 75% chance they get a gimme Fourth Night and a 66% chance they’ll get a gimme both nights.
By the same token, it’s entirely possible that Orange Crush will cool off a little Fourth and Fifth night. The odds are exactly the same for them that they’ll get two teams in the championship hunt first round as they are that Green will get a gimme.
Worst case scenario for fairness, Orange pulls team 8 in the first round one of the nights and then somehow lands on the same side of the bracket as two fill-in teams facing each other in the first round. That would enable them to have five races against the worst of the worst in their (potentially) championship season. A season where two of their main challengers, Mean Green Machine and The Junkyard Dogs could have only two races combined against the crappy fill in teams. Should that happen, I could see an issue with a scheduling bias being called into question.
But, since we’re not there yet, we can put that one in our back pocket for the time being and revel in the glorious night of racing that was.