2011 Season in Review

The TDA off-season is upon us. Sure, it could technically be argued that this happened two months ago, but the beauty of the TDA is that there is effectively an outro to the season. The last race was in late September, but there were still final team get togethers, retirement celebrations and the unenviable task of stripping out all the wrecked cars from the Fifth Night of racing. Now that the cold weather of November is preventing all but the most hardcore drivers with an excuse not to build and the grand majority of the cars that can’t be used again have been sold as scrap, the true doldrums of the off-season have set in.

The only things to do now are watch the DVDs of the year’s races on a loop, listen to the rumors fly about drivers switching teams—did you hear that Ryan Bleuer is going to take over Team 2, name it Team Friendship and bring back Phil Matlak as his pit boss?—and spend time with family and friends.

Last year about this time of year, I got a phone call from Reckoning’s Brian Anderson. We talked for a bit and I asked him what he was up to. He told me he was thinking of going to the mall to get a new shirt. At that moment, I knew—KNEW—that the off-season was in full swing.

Having spent the last few weeks reflecting on the 2011 season, I realized that a year-end wrap up was absolutely, positively needed. My only question about the matter was how long the article would get. As you may have noticed, I can occasionally be a little wordy; for me, it’s a lot easier to write long than to write short. I know from previous year-end articles pertaining to film that they can get especially lengthy. When I start handing out awards, one makes me think of another, which in turn begets another line of thinking which then generates 15 more awards. Two days and 100,000 words later, I take a breath and think, “God, I need to slow down here.” All joking aside, year-end retrospectives basically end when I run out of time and have to start writing about something else.

Mean Green Machine vs. Stranglehold

While I enjoyed the hell out of the 2011 season, it was surprisingly and uniquely anti-climactic. Reckoning won First Night and never looked back. The only tension surrounding the year’s standings happened after the season concluded. That’s when three teams, Orange Crush, Mean Green Machine and Full Throttle tied for second place and began a full scale PR offensive to be labeled as THE second place finisher this year. And, to date, no tiebreaker has been mentioned. It actually appears as though the TDA has managed to somehow jam four teams in the year’s top three. An impressive accomplishment to be sure.*

* That said, there was such a gap between Orange Crush, Mean Green Machine and Full Throttle and the two teams tied for fifth, Stranglehold and Bad Company, I am actually okay with this. It doesn’t seem right that a team that won a night like Mean Green Machine or Orange Crush could be in fourth place while a team that won two races on the season like Bad Company could be one spot down.

The one continuous feature of the year was the complete lack of continuity. Go figure. While some seasons can establish a rhythm and pacing that they then keep throughout, 2011 was not one of those seasons.

First Night was one of the more enthralling nights of racing that I can remember seeing. It spelled great things for the season to come… expectations that were swiftly dispelled during the beauty contest of Second Night when just about every car got stuck in the substance on the track that more closely resembled rubber cement than mud.

Third Night marked a return to racing goodness that was somewhat marred because two drivers, Matt Wilson and Nick Hartung, were taken to the hospital during the course of the evening.

By the time Fourth Night rolled around, there were almost no expectations as to what was to come. Not only was there the ever-present threat of rain on race day—it wasn’t even a given that there would be a race—but no one had any idea whether the racing would be hard-hitting and ferocious or soft and gentle. Things were so up in the air, half of Orange Crush’s team ended up racing for Damage, Inc causing a number of people to wonder why the other half didn’t too and Full Throttle faced off against Mean Green Machines in the first round, completed five laps first… and lost!

The only things that remained static throughout the season were that Reckoning was really good and that Damage, Inc was really bad. Beyond that, everything went up and down depending on the night.

Mean Green Machines came out Second Night unable to get four cars onto the track for their first round race against Orange Crush. Two nights later, they got to the finals and won in decisive fashion, beating Orange Crush in third round.

Bad Company's Jason Ritacco and Reckoning's Steve Gursky Jr. collide First Night 2011

First Night, Bad Company delivered three absolutely wicked hits on Reckoning in their first round race. Second Night, they dinked and dunked their way to the year’s longest race against Seek-N-Destroy, winning only after Seek-N-Destroy’s Greg Mesich got his muffler stuck in the ground 50 yards from the finish line.

Stranglehold won against Orange Crush and Full Throttle, but then turned around and lost to Damage, Inc in a race that had me rushing to my thesaurus to come up with different words for ‘ugly’.

The lack of continuity even continued to the year’s champions: Reckoning. For the first time in three years, Johnny Ryan, Tom “Brickman” Lewis, Ryan Bleuer and Gerritt “Big Kahuna” Vanderbilt were all on the outside looking in on the championships celebration.

And so it went.

If there were any Vegas experts attempting to put a line on the races, they’d have thrown up their hands in the air and quit of frustration sometime in July.

But, this lack of continuity wasn’t a negative quality by any stretch of the imagination. It actually added a level of excitement to the season that wouldn’t have ordinarily been present. If Reckoning hadn’t been running away with the season championship with their 12-2 record, the 2011 season could have truly been one of the best of all time. Sadly though, a mad race for second place doesn’t hold the same excitement level as a mad race for first.

In the end, 2011 provided the TDA fans with enough hard fought races, interesting story lines, stunning upsets and fantastic individual performances to officially be qualified as a glorious success. There is always room for improvement, but too often, people focus on this as opposed to the wonders that they received. And in 2011, those wonders were many and myriad.

Now to head to the mall with Anderson, I think it’s time for a new shirt.

* * * * *

In an attempt to avoid having this article continue on for 70 straight pages here, I’ve broken up my awards for the season into individual categories that are listed below and posted on their own pages. Just click the links and the awards will open.

I’m going to be posting two new awards every weekday (and possibly some on the weekends if I am so inclined) and linking them here. When I finish posting all the awards, I will combine them into a couple of pages to easily peruse. If you disagree with any of my awards (or, I suppose, like them), feel free to comment on them.

And we begin:

The Antsy in his Pantsy Award: Damage, Inc’s Dave “Repo” Swan

The Most Battered Driver: Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht

The Tpyo Award: Stranglehold’s Bill Mcmahen

The Least Drivers Award: (TIE) Reckoning and Full Throttle

The Most Drivers Award: Damage, Inc

The Busiest Driver: Orange Crush (and Damage, Inc.’s) Pete Ryan

The Pink Floyd Award: (TIE) Mean Green Machine’s Ryan Decker and Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht

The Worst Race of the Year, Runner Up: Mean Green Machines vs. Orange Crush (Second Night)

The Worst Race of the Year: Stranglehold vs. Damage, Inc. (Fifth Night)

The Best Race of the Year, Runner Up: Bad Company vs. Reckoning (First Night)

The Best Race of the Year: Full Throttle vs. Orange Crush (First Night)