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 Tpyo Award
The Tpyo Award: Stranglehold’s Bill McMahon, er, Bill McMahen, uh, I mean Bill McMahan, no, um, Bill Mcmahen. Whatever. There’s an old joke that I still find amusing. What word is always spelled wrong? ‘Wrong’. Well, in the TDA, there’s a similar situation that isn’t exactly a joke. What driver’s name is always spelled wrong?...
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...
TrackSide #12 (August 9, 2011)
The TDA races returned to form in the Third Night, with an exciting evening of hard hitting match-ups, SpeedChannel on site and the upset of the year taking place in the second round (when Stranglehold defeated Orange Crush). However, the grand majority of these elements were lost in the wake of Johnny Ryan’s driver’s door...
TrackSide #11 (August 2, 2011)
Minor Point #1: Stranglehold had a really tough night of racing You want to talk about having your work cut out for you… Stranglehold started out the evening of Third Night in last place (along with Damage, Inc). In the bracket that was pulled, Stranglehold ended up facing the third place team in the first...