The Hit of the Year, Second Runner Up
The Hit of the Year, Second Runner Up: MEAN GREEN MACHINES’ RYAN DECKER on BAD COMPANY’S KYLE SHEARER Watching a lot of demolition derbies, I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to seeing cars being pulled off the track with their parts in wildly unusual places. After Mean Green Machines’ Ryan Decker hit Bad Company’s Kyle Shearer in...
The Have Helmet Will Travel Award
The Have Helmet Will Travel Award: MATT “OPIE” PIERCE Matt “Opie” Pierce started out the season on Seek-N-Destroy. After one night with them, he went to Bad Company. After two nights with Bad Company, he left the team. By Fifth Night, Pierce was in Mean Green Machines’ pits, sporting a Mean Green Machines T-shirt and...
The Mel Noble Jr. Award
The Mel Noble Jr. Award: STRANGLEHOLD’S MEL NOBLE JR. Most people wait a year or two before changing the name of an award—in this case The Crazy of the Year—to something honoring an athlete’s contributions to said award. In this case, I’m not waiting a second to officially change The Crazy of the Year Award...
Worst Race of the Year, Runner Up
Worst Race of the Year Runner Up: MEAN GREEN MACHINE vs. ORANGE CRUSH (Second Night) Sometimes things happen and teams are forced to race 3 on 4. Such was the case in Second Night’s race between Mean Green Machines (3) and Orange Crush (4). However, what separated this race from the majority of other 3...
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 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...
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...