Wild West Shootout part one

The first weekend of the 2016 Wild West Shootout in Tucson has been completed and as this is being posted, round three will be on the track this evening.

So far, the first two nights of racing has been everything race fans had hoped for and more with lots of race cars, big names galore and intense racing that everyone holding their breath from time to time as bold racing moves blossomed like flowers in the saturated desert.

Things started out a little bumpy for us personally as our flight to the West was scrubbed due to bad weather in Denver and we had to scramble to make other flight arrangements but everything came together and we made it on time. Many of the racing teams reported some scary moments of their own hauling to Tucson as snows in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico made the traveling dicey, but they to all made it safely and on time. The closest call was made by Wisconsin's Doug Blashe who hit snows a couple of times on their way from the Green Bay area that held them up and they rolled into the pit area just as hot laps were in session. Even though they were too late to draw a number, they were in the great Southwest to race so they dropped the tail gate and caught the back of a heat and if nothing else, got some valuable practice laps. The Blashe team opted to do something different in 2016 and chose to come to Arizona, rather than racing in Florida like they normally do.

The Late Model field was fantastic for the opening weekend, with sixty cars signing in on night one and only Bobby Hogge, Billy Franklin and Greg Jelvik opting not to run on night two. With Donny Schatz' rig already here waiting his arrival from Australia and several local entries waiting for things to sort out a bit before they hit the track, it would appear that the fields will remain large and strong for the next four rounds of racing.

Of course, many were talking about Jonathan Davenport, both in anticipation of seeing him on the track for the first time and later, about his gaffe when he failed to go directly to the scale after winning a heat race, thus putting him in a great hole that even he couldn't dig himself out of in terms of winning on opening night. However, he still came from near the back to qualify through a B feature and came from nineteenth to fifth in the opening night main.

The Late Model car count was up ten from last year's event and the quality of the field was one to rave about. Not every big name in the country was here, but most were and the fields in Florida will be hard pressed to match both the numbers and quality of what we saw here on the desert. Another special element of this series is that the variety of racers is unprecedented with cars from all parts of the country that probably couldn't be seen anywhere else.

Don O'Neal was fearless in winning the opening night main, as Don often is when he races, and the strength of Davenport was on display in night two as he patiently worked his way up from the third row to pass Jimmy Mars with only a couple of laps remaining.

A couple of the most consistent drivers on opening weekend were Steve Francis and A.J. Diemel. Francis was very good both nights in the David Peterson entry and can there be a stronger part time as needed ride for Francis than this car? Diemel has been smooth both nights while recording top five finishes with both Shane Clanton and Jason Papich also recording good finishes both nights. At the end of night two's race, Papich may have been the fastest car on the track and to think where he started at in this series just a short few years ago!

Track conditions varied wildly over the two nights of racing, totally due to the unseasonable weather Tucson has been getting. With double the monthly rainfall already in the first few days of January, there were puddles lots of places where I had never seen standing water in the desert before and even the lower West end of the pit area was unusable due to the mud in that area! With rain still falling through the practice session on Friday night, the racing surface just didn't have time to dry out and it was bad fast on Saturday. Too bad fast, frankly. Even the most fearless of the racers expressed the feeling that the surface was just too fast for good racing. U.S.A. Raceway is a track that raises the hair on the back of the necks of many drivers the first time they race there anyway, as it is a huge momentum track where the brakes get little use. Throw in a very tacky surface on top of that and wow, it is a handful and a half for even the most brave.

By Sunday, the surface was baked out and much better as it got black and slick from top to bottom and turned into a totally different kind of track, one that was much more driver friendly and required some skills, not just a heavy right foot and a big heart! With no rain in the forecast for the rest of the week, this in the kind of racing I would expect from now on.

One of the real surprise drivers so far in the Late Models is a driver from my area, Dustin Strand from Grand Forks N.D. He is driving a new Victory chassis from Moyer and he has been extremely fast both nights so far, his first real times running an open motored cars. He had a real good run Saturday until a piece broke that sent him into the wall and Sunday he had some adjusting to do with the changing track while still discovering all that was wrong on the car after his wall banger.

Probably almost as impressive as the Late Model field was the great turnout of Modifieds with forty four of them signing in to race on Saturday and thirty nine on Sunday. This was nearly fifteen more than showed for last year's event and a really strong number. One must remember that there are nearly no Modifieds left in the local area between the lack of local racing in Tucson during the year and the remaining racing North of here all done under the IMCA banner, which requires pretty much a totally different car than what used to race here under USRA sanctioning. But with much support for this event from the folks in El Paso and Las Cruces through sponsorships, USRA rules were in force but even with that, a great field of drivers towed in to race.

The story so far in the Modifieds has been Cade Dillard as the Louisiana driver, with a new car owner this year and two MB Customs in the trailer, has been very fast. Saturday he shocked many by tracking down and passing Rodney Sanders for the win, something that just doesn't happen too often anywhere.

Just as surprising as that, the Gallardo family cars have struggled so far in opening round action and Ryan Gustin, another expected to shine, didn't finish round one after a tangle and opted not to race the Mod on Sunday. After a rough opening night of problems, Stormy Scott got things together and put in a solid run on Sunday.

For those that follow IMCA, they were probably keeping their eye on Ricky Thornton Jr. and he did not disappoint. In fact, his weekend was very much on the amazing side. Things started out badly when his open motor dropped a valve in hot laps Saturday and it appeared he was done for the weekend before he even got started. However, a friendship made with South Dakota's Terry Haven proved advantageous when Haven offered his car to Thornton. In fact, Haven was running a motor that had been sold to him by Thornton.

With only time to change the tires before the heat race and never having sat in the car before, Thornton went out and won his heat race and was running in the top five in the feature until he got a flat tire. With more time to set things up, Thornton led many laps of the feature before Dillard squeezed by for the win but Thornton finished a strong second. Obviously, the Thornton crew was very grateful to Haven, a retired farmer from South Dakota who winters in Arizona but always brings his race car with him. While Haven uses a MasterSbilt by JMR chassis, Thornton told me they had another open motor being delivered to them by midweek so that Ricky could be back in his own Shaw chassis. They plan to hit the first month of racing in Texas under USMTS sanctioning later this early Spring as they try to top the forty seven wins of last year.

The third class here in Tucson is the X Mods and their numbers have been solid too. The opening features have been split between "the Modern Day Cowboy", Ron Schreiner and North Dakota's Tyler Peterson. Schreiner, a Wisconsin native who was a top runner in both Late Models and Modifieds in the upper Midwest until he decided to leave the cold Wisconsin Winters, has been a dominant force in the X Mod class both in Tucson and at other area tracks, even though he's still running the chassis he had up North with is now six years old.

Peterson is one of the brightest young stars in the upper Midwest in open wheel racing, having dominated the Midwest Mods at Red River Valley area tracks as well as earning WISSOTA National Rookie of the Year honors in 2015 in the Modifieds. On Saturday, he got wrecked in his heat and had to qualify from the back of a B. He then raced from seventeenth to second in the feature, only to blow a motor on the last lap and not finish. Sunday things went much and he led all the way for the win.

I have to give one last shout out to the drivers from my area of the country for their great support of this event. While some might say they are just trying to escape the cold weather up North (which might be partially true!), cars from my area have always traveled well. This weekend here in Arizona, thirty nine per cent of both the X Mod and Modified fields are made up of WISSOTA sanctioned drivers and even though the WISSOTA Late Models run a spec motor that is under powered against the open motors, nearly twenty per cent of the Late Model field are also WISSOTA sanctioned cars, most if not all having switched over to open motors for this series.

Track officials have done a good job of moving along the huge show and while things ran a little late on Saturday due to all the yellows and wrecks caused by the heavy track, things went much more smoothly on Sunday. In fact, all three feature races were completed with only one yellow flag total. The racing has improved as the weekend moved on and it only promises to get better as the drivers dial in the track even better.