The Strangest Season Split: DAMAGE, INC.’s MATT WILSON
While pondering the Rookie-of-the-Year award, someone mentioned the name of Damage, Inc’s Matt Wilson. I was considering awarding it to him for a while until I looked at Wilson’s season splits. It was then that I realized that Wilson had completed one of the most unusual seasons in TDA history. He raced the first half of the season and then didn’t race at all in the second half. This was made all the more peculiar because the season has an odd number of race nights in it.
Wilson started out the year with wide-eyed and tenacious aplomb. He drove with a never-give-up attitude and acted like a thorn in the side of Damage, Inc’s opponents. He might not have always made the best contact with the opposing team’s runners, but he was always right there pestering them.
Then, halfway through Third Night’s opening round, Wilson’s race was cut short by an inadvertent driver’s door shot by Orange Crush’s Johnny Ryan. The race was stopped (halfway through), Wilson was sawed out of his car and taken to the hospital. When he was cleared, the race resumed and Orange Crush went on to win.
And Wilson never returned to racing even though he was at the track with cars both Fourth and Fifth Night. It’s just a weird split… especially when you consider that the man who maybe, kind of, sort of replaced him on the team, Pete Ryan, was only racing to help the other team he raced for, Orange Crush.