The Wild West Shootout continued on Friday, Jan. 15 with round four of the six race series. As expected, most of the drivers that passed on the Wednesday night show were back in action along with several new drivers that pulled in for the three race weekend to wrap up the series. While the car counts were anything but small for Wednesday's show, they still shot up for the Friday night action with sixty Late Models, forty three Modifieds and thirty seven X Mods on hand for action with eleven drivers taking to the track for the first time in 2016.
The track was in excellent shape for the racing action on Friday as it slicked off quickly and after perhaps being a little high side dominant early, when it slicked off it allowed the drivers to run all over the track.
Despite the huge numbers of Late Models on hand and the obvious talent that ran deep through the field, the thirty lap feature for the division saw the two drivers that have dominated the action this week continue to do so. With solid runs in their heat races that allowed them to harvest lots of passing points, it was Jonathan Davenport and Don O'Neal that started in the front row side by side and they pulled away from the field to contest their own battle for the lead with everyone else chasing them. O'Neal got the jump at the start and Davenport chased him for the distance. Several times it looked like O'Neal might stretch his advantage, but then Davenport would make another rush as he moved around the track to find a faster line. While O'Neal rode mostly through the middle of the track, Davenport was all over the surface and many of the others tried the high side too as the track was truly wide for racing on different grooves.
With just a few laps to go, Davenport made his last rush and he actually stole the lead at the line briefly. However, O'Neal came back and as they raced through the last couple of laps, Chris Simpson was the car they had to deal with and things broke free on the outside where O'Neal happened to be and he was able to drive to a slight edge and go on for the win. Brandon Sheppard appears to be getting faster every night and he was a close third at the finish. Steve Francis and A.J. Diemel continued their consistent runs with top five finishes. Other than the opening night when the bad fast track caused some yellow flags, the Late Model portion of the program went smoothly again with the thirty lapper going nonstop.
Davenport may have diminished his star somewhat with his tactics early in the evening. He pulled a wicked slide job on South Dakota's Scott Ward as he didn't have him cleared in turn four yet kept crowding Ward who chose to anchor the brakes rather than wreck the sports current biggest star. For Ward's efforts he was rewarded by a car that jumped to the right when he hit the brakes and then hammered the wall, ending his night. Typically Ward, who is as aggressive as they come, wouldn't have even considered backing off but he was put in a difficult position, as who in the country would have accepted it if he had turned around Davenport, even though his ill conceived maneuver deserved just such treatment.
Some of the Modified drivers that one would expect to be in the hunt for wins continued to have problems on Friday. Jake Gallardo went through two cars over the course of the evening as he blew up his primary car in hot laps and then dropped out of the feature with more issues. His father Fito was also an early retiree from the Modified main. Rodney Sanders again left his Mod in the trailer as he concentrated on his Late Model and Cade Dillard, who started out the week on fire, hammered the front stretch wall at the mid point of the main, ending his night.
Only Ryan Gustin was able to keep things on an expected order, as he used the extreme high side of the track to score a thrilling win. It took Gustin a few laps to build up his momentum, but after he did he was able to drive past Matt Leer and take over the lead. Once in front, he really stretched his advantage to nearly a straightaway but he refused to back off as he continued to drive deep into the corners on what seemed to be a dangerous course.
Sure enough, with only about a handful of laps left, he got too high in turn four and hammered the front stretch wall but through some sort of a miracle, was able to keep going. He backed off at this point and continued on for the win with Leer finishing a fine second. Iowa drivers Brad Dierks and Todd Shute had fine runs coming home in the next spots while Stormy Scott finished behind them. Gustin's same fearless style allowed him to charge from sixteenth to sixth in the Late Model finale.
Wisconsin's Grant Southworth has been strong all week in the X Mods and Friday night he dominated for his first win here and surely the biggest of his career. His MB Customs car works very well in the middle of the track and again on Friday he was able to drive around people for positions while the majority of the field hugged the low groove. Once in front, he pulled away to a big lead as local driver Brandon Farrington attempted to knock down the concrete walls as he rode the very high groove that still allowed him to get second spot.
WISSOTA drivers secured the next two spots with Chad Olsen getting his best run of the week in his MasterSbilt car and Tyler Peterson executed another hard charge, coming from seventeenth to fourth with only one yellow flag to aid him. Another local driver, Brian Clark, completed the top five.
It was very cold and windy on Friday, surely one of the coldest nights that I have spent at the Wild West Shootout over the years. I ran into promoter Chris Kearns before the show and he was bemoaning the temperatures, as it was much more pleasant on the Thursday off night. However, he and I probably were both surprised later as despite the less than perfect conditions, a very nice crowd showed up for the racing action as it appears that the event has finally started to gain a foot hold with the racing folks as I continued to see more and more people from the northern regimes that showed up for the final weekend of racing.
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