The Surprise Win of the Year Award
The Surprise Win of the Year Award (Two Way Tie): STRANGLEHOLD’S BILL MCMAHEN and FULL THROTTLE 1) STRANGLEHOLD’S BILL MCMAHEN Bill Mcmahen was the driver who grabbed the checkered flag in the upset of the year, when Stranglehold beat Orange Crush. The fact that Stranglehold won was a surprise, yes, but the reason Mcmahen earns...
The Good Luck Award
The Good Luck Award: MEAN GREEN MACHINE Call it the luck of the Green. For the second year in a row, Mean Green Machine figure out a way to lose… and still move on to race again. Fourth Night of the season, Mean Green Machine took on Full Throttle in the first round in one...
The Bookend Award
The Bookend Award: RECKONING and FULL THROTTLE First Night of the 2011 season kicked off with Reckoning and Full Throttle facing one another in the finals, one of the teams having upset the pre-season favorites, Orange Crush, in the first round. After a tough battle against Full Throttle third round, Reckoning went on to win...
The Best Race of the Year
The Best Race of the Season: FULL THROTTLE vs. ORANGE CRUSH (First Night) There were a handful of races I could have chosen for my Race of the Season. I enjoyed Full Throttle’s race against Mean Green Machine Fourth Night that both sides could lay claim to winning and I think Bad Company’s race against...
The Pink Floyd Award
The Pink Floyd Award: (TWO WAY TIE) MEAN GREEN MACHINE’S RYAN DECKER and RECKONING’S “SPEEDY” STEVE VOLLBRECHT Getting an opponent’s car up on (Pink Floyd’s) the wall is one of the harder things to do in the demos. In order to do so, you have to go against both the laws of physics and gravity. ...
The “Least Drivers” Award
Least Drivers: (tie) RECKONING and FULL THROTTLE On the other side of the driver turnover spectrum from Damage, Inc. were Reckoning and Full Throttle. Full Throttle swapped out Andy Fleischman for Levi Turnbaugh after First Night and then used its Turnbaugh, Ron Johnston, Jay VanAllen and Pete Milette Jr. lineup for the rest of the...
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...
TrackSide #14 (August 30, 2011)
Minor Point #1: Roster Changes I love the team demolition derby. I am enamored of so many different facets of it, I probably could write an interesting column simply by listing the myriad things I enjoy about the TDA. To wit: I love Kyle Shearer’s fearlessness, Johnny Ryan’s ferocity, Ryan Bleuer’s speed, Steve Gursky Jr.’s...
TrackSide #13 (August 23, 2011)
Race of the Night: Mean Green Machine vs. Full Throttle There were several important races on the evening. The two most important were in the second round when Reckoning had a chance to clinch the season title against Orange Crush, and in the finals when Mean Green Machine battled tooth-and-nail against Orange Crush to secure...