The “No TV and No Beer Make Homer… Something… Something” Award
The “No TV and No Beer Make Homer… Something… Something…” Award: THIRD NIGHT It seems strange now to think that there was a time when it was 105 degrees outside with 80% humidity, but that was the case Third Night. Ah, Chicago in July… In preparation for the extreme heat, the Route 66 management decided...
The Worst Beauty Car Experience
The Worst Beauty Car Experience: DAMAGE, INC When people ask me why I’ve been hating on Damage, Inc this year, I explain that the team seemed to have found a level of sub-par effort below even ‘not trying’. One night featured a race with a Damage, Inc car that wasn’t painted; another featured team members...
The Most Outstanding Driver Award
The topic of an MVP or a Most Outstanding Driver for the year has come up in conversation a number of time with different people involved with the league. And with it always comes a debate. The situation tends to unfold in a similar manner. Someone will ask me who I think the MVP is. ...
The Strangest Season Split
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...
The Worst Race of the Year
The Worst Race of the Year: STRANGLEHOLD vs. DAMAGE, INC (Fifth Night) While I could have gone in several different directions with the Best Race of the Season award, there is only one true contender for the Worst Race of the Season; Stranglehold vs. Damage, Inc Fifth Night. It was a race that was so...
The Busiest Driver Award
The Busiest Driver Award: ORANGE CRUSH’S PETE RYAN Technically, if you want to go by the sheer numbers, this should have gone to either Chris McGuire, Steve Gursky Jr. or Brian Anderson, all of Reckoning, who raced in 14 races this year; Orange Crush’s Pete Ryan only managed 10 or 11. However, it’s the nature...
The Antsy in his Pantsy Award
The Antsy in his Pantsy Award: Damage, Inc.’s Dave “Repo” Swan Here’s a trivia question for you: what percentage of Damage, Inc’s races featured Dave “Repo” Swan getting out of his car during the middle of the race? Half of them. Damage, Inc raced six races this year and in three of them, Swan got...
The Most Battered Driver Award
The Most Battered Driver Award: RECKONING’S “SPEEDY” STEVE VOLLBRECHT Matt Wilson’s mother might have an issue with this recipient of this award, but Reckoning’s “Speedy” Steve Vollbrecht (unfortunately) truly earned it. As most people remember, Wilson was sawed out of his car and carted off to the hospital in the middle of the Damage Inc....
The “Most Drivers” Award
The Most Drivers: DAMAGE, INC On the teamdemos.com web-site, Damage, Inc. is listed as having 8 different drivers race for them this year, a number that ties them with Seek-N-Destroy for most drivers (there are 9 names listed for Damage, Inc., but Matt Wilson is listed twice). However, that doesn’t paint the full and complete...
Inside the Statistics (October 11, 2011)
I like statistics. I love reading how Vegas computes its NFL lines, enjoy pouring over the weekend box office totals each Monday morning and, while I hate watching baseball, am fascinated by the myriad stats that are now available to fans. In the latter case, it’s not simply OPS and WHIP, but FIP, WAR and...
TrackSide #16 (October 4, 2011)
Minor Point #1: Transparency Made Its Way to the TDA It brings me great pleasure to be able to write that the TDA handled the scheduling of Fifth Night’s races with as much transparency, class and grace as could have been imagined. In hindsight, there wasn’t one element of the process that I would have...
TrackSide #15 (September 27, 2011)
Race of the Night: Orange Crush vs. Reckoning The last month of the 2011 season was filled with a lot of uncertainty and skepticism. Not only were there numerous discussions about what the tiebreaker was and whether it had changed since 2010—it hadn’t—and the method that the night’s race schedule would be determined, but there...