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...
Podcast Episode 4
The Behind the Destruction podcast is sponsored by Driven Restorations in Randolph, Wisconsin. PODCAST NOTES: Our guest for today’s podcast was supposed to be demolition derby driver Kyle Shearer. However, as occasionally happens, we ran into a few technical issues when we switched recording locations between Episode 3 and 4 and were unable to get...
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. ...
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...
Podcast Episode 2: Guests Michael Noble and Mel Noble Jr.
The Behind the Destruction podcast is sponsored by Heavy Metal Performance of Rockdale, Illinois. PODCAST NOTES: One of my favorite topics of conversation that Steve Gursky Jr. and I have had is in this podcast. It’s hard to summarize succinctly, but it gets into the psychology of accusing someone of cheating and why it’s easier...
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...
Best Race of the Year, Runner Up
Best Race of the Season, Runner Up: BAD COMPANY vs. RECKONING Fans of the demolition derby, and particularly the team demolition derby, like action. They like fast cars, hard hits and fire. And beer. But mostly they like fast cars and hard hits. First Night’s race between Bad Company and Reckoning delivered this in spades....
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...
Podcast Episode 1: Guest Ryan Bleuer
The Behind the Destruction podcast is sponsored by Heavy Metal Performance of Rockdale, Illinois. For now, there are two ways to listen to the Behind the Destruction podcast: 1) You can click the triangular ‘play’ button below and listen to it on this page, or 2) you can download it from the ‘DOWNLOAD HERE’ link....
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....
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...