Steve Gursky Sr., Mechanic of the Year
The Team Demolition Association awards banquet was held this last weekend and the event provided quite the pleasant evening. Pete Millette Jr. and Levi Turnbaugh gave a tag team acceptance speech for the ages rivaling even the Three6 Mafia’s Oscar acceptance speech, “Papa” John Millette earned a well-deserved ‘Legends’ award, Reckoning’s championship trophies were taller...
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 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. ...
Most Outstanding Driver, Runner Up
Most Outstanding Driver, Runner Up: MEAN GREEN MACHINE’S RYAN DECKER Mean Green Machine’s Ryan Decker had a pretty impressive 2011 season. He was the best driver on the second best team, won numerous races after taking out several of the opposing teams’ cars and helped lead Mean Green Machine rise from the ashes of Second...
Podcast Episode 3: Guest Ryan Decker
The Behind the Destruction podcast is sponsored by Heavy Metal Performance of Rockdale, Illinois. PODCAST NOTES: I always find it interesting when sportswriters and columnists discuss why they voted for a player or driver as the MVP/D of a given league. Steve Gursky Jr. and I take this opportunity to get into our picks for Most Valuable...
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 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...
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....
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 #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...