2017 Wild West Shootout Begins

Saturday, January 7th, the much anticipated 11th annual Wild West Shootout commenced at its new location at the Arizona Speedway located on the grounds of the ET Motorsports Park off Ironwood Road South of Mesa Arizona.

As the series has been for the past few years, it was once again a three division program featuring unsanctioned Super Late Models along with sanctioned, for the first time, USRA Modifieds and the local X Mods which was an amalgamation of IMCA Sport Mod, USRA B Mod and WISSOTA Midwest Modified rules.

However, for the first time, after having run the race in recent years at the U.S.A. Raceway in Tucson, the whole she-bang moved North a couple of hours to Arizona Speedway for this year's edition. With so much uncertainty about the future of U.S,A. Raceway, promoters Chris Kearns and Kevin Montgomery were forced to make a decision at this time last year and after reaching an agreement with Arizona Speedway's owner Jonah Trussel, the event moved for this year.

So, everyone from the drivers to the spectators attending were in essence breaking new ground as everyone arrived either Friday or Saturday to a new venue which required an adjustment on everyone's part. Drivers didn't know exactly what the track was going to be like and spectators were unsure about the accommodations for those staying at the track or those looking for housing in the immediate area. And of course everyone wanted to see how the new host facility would race.

And as with most things in life, there are trade offs when a move as drastic as this takes place. Off course, until the first year of the series is in the books, it is way to premature to draw any lasting conclusions on how the track races and if indeed the racing will hold up to what we were used to seeing in Tucson.

My immediate observations were that the Arizona Speedway is a smaller track than Tucson's used to be which might possibly be a good thing for the racing motors which were often taxed at Tucson, particularly when the track pulled heavy. Arizona Speedway seems wide enough to race on and has good banking and it has a shape that looks like it might be a good track for side by side racing and passing to take place. It isn't as fancy a facility as U.S.A. Raceway and definitely doesn't have as many amenities as Tucson. Such things as restrooms, parking, track lighting and close access to restaurants and hotels are wanted compared to Tucson, although all are bearable.

The pits aren't set up near as well as Tucson, there is no scoreboard, the seating is probably not as nice and getting off busy Ironwood Road and back on is a bit of a white knuckle adventure. There are lots of overhead poles and wires and aesthetically the place just isn't as nice as U.S.A. Raceway was. However, on the other hand the place is far from being a "dive" and as the opening weekend showed, the place is more than functional for even such as big an event as this.

As important as anything is the track itself so that the drivers can put on a good show for the fans as that was one of Tucson's stronger points. My preconceptions were proven wrong on opening weekend as I expected a slick and smooth, top to bottom kind of surface that promoted handling with blinding speed and horsepower not being so necessary. However, what we saw on opening night was a big bermed, high speed track with the cars dancing dangerously around the upper side of the speedway and the speeds being very near to those at Tucson. I believe that the drivers were just as surprised as many of us were with how the surface placed out and I talked to a number of drivers that surprised me when they told me they were running the same gear size that they ran at Tucson. Track officials also admitted they were still experimenting with the surface as to how much water to put on it etc. and this whole experience is new for everyone and they have never had to prepare a January surface for so many cars before at Arizona Speedway. We're all kind of learning together. However, their efforts were good and the opening night of racing went very smoothly. They actually started a few minutes before the advertised green flag time and down time, as per a Chris Kearns event, was very minimal.

The big change in the race format for 2017 was that for the first time, the Late Models qualified for their starting positions while the other two classes continued to draw and then use passing points to qualify cars for the feature and establish their starting positions. Group qualifying was used and the field was broken down into heats before qualifying so every driver was only timing against nine or ten cars, rather than the entire field. This was a much fairer way of doing it and the Late Models qualified without benefit of hot laps so the overall number of laps put on the track wasn't any more than if they had hot lapped. The whole process went smooth and didn't delay the start of the program like time trials normally do. It is far too early to determine which way of establishing the lineups makes for a better show so I will refrain from making any more comments on this until I see a few more shows here. I do however, know that one of the best parts of the old way of doing the qualifying was that the heat races often held a very interesting mix of drivers. Now for sure, we know the quickest cars will be right up front in the heats which will likely stifle much passing. Ironically, the two main drivers that whined and whined about having to run passing points and not having time trials both failed to travel to the desert for the 2017 round. It will be interesting to see that without their constant "input" in the ears of the promoters,  whether or not qualifying will be a part of the 2018 Wild West Shootout since the majority of the Late Model drivers on hand don't qualify on a regular basis.

As to the car counts for opening night of the series, overall they remained very consistent with recent years. The X Mod car count was up, the Modified count about the same as last year and the Late Models were down about ten cars. Opening night numbers included forty six X Mods, forty four Modifieds and fifty Late Models although A.J. Diemel did not participate after his father Don became ill and was taken to a local hospital and A.J. left the track to be with him.

Local participation was down from the Phoenix area as opposed to Tucson with some of that being understandable. Arizona Speedway runs IMCA Mods and Sport Mods and the Modified drivers could possibly find themselves at a rather significant horsepower disadvantage compared to the USRA spec motors. There were a few regulars that added big spoilers but most were still running their crate motors.

Not many of the Sport Mods partook in the action from the local area, even though their rules are much more compatible with the X Mod rules. The fact that the car count in that class was higher was due to an almost unbelievable number of northern drivers that towed significant distances to race. There were twenty four drivers from the WISSOTA ranks including a goodly number of North and South Dakota drivers as well as a number from Minnesota and a few from Wisconsin. It certainty is significant that these drivers have bought into participating in this series as without them the fields of cars would be considerably less. The Modifieds also had a large contingent of northern drivers with nearly half the forty plus car field being from the northern region also. The Las Cruces area used to be a significant source of cars for Tucson but far fewer of them make the extra distance tow to Phoenix, at least for opening weekend.

One thing the promoters hoped for with their move was that spectator attendance would increase with the change of tracks since it was no secret that the Tucson fans didn't do a very good job of supporting their own track with the vast majority of the spectators being "snowbirds" from up North. While there still were plenty of them at Arizona Raceway, there also seemed to be far move local fans on hand for the opening weekend. It's hard to compare spectator gates from track to track but the stands seemed very crowded for opening night and I was told later that the opening night gate was considerably higher than at Tucson.

Another area that produced a big field of cars was the Oregon area as their Late Models were on hand in strong numbers. It's been quite a few years since so many drivers from that region were on hand in Arizona and they helped make up for the loss of some eastern drivers.

No one could complain about the race program itself as it was a solid and nearly nonstop night of racing. Breaks were few and far between and the starter did his level best to keep the show moving. The track developed a strong side on the upper groove and much of the jockeying was to get to the cushion as quickly as possible as it held its speed all night. This made some for some interesting guard rail banging and a few instances of "hair on fire" slidejobs that had the crowd entertained.

There was much speculation about the Keyser Manufacturing Co. quarter of a million bonus that would go to the Late Model driver that could sweep the series. I still it very difficult to accomplish this, but apparently Bobby Pierce has it in mind. He was very strong as he got the lead immediately and ran away with the Late Model feature. Brandon Overton showed that he has a very heavy right foot as he got everything he could out of Don Shaw's car to take second ahead of Chris Simpson.

Ricky Thornton Jr. is the big crowd favorite here, so of that to do that he runs here on occasion when he is not out on the road traveling. He took the lead from the pole and led all the way for the Modified win. Fito Gallardo made a nice drive from eleventh to finish second and Minesota fans were pleased as their drivers, Shane Sabraski and Shawn Fletcher, finished third and fourth.

Gopher fans were even happier when unheralded driver Travis Schulte led from start to finish to win the X Mod feature. I get to see Schulte race from time to time and he runs strong at Minnesota tracks in Ogilvie and Granite City but he doesn't do much traveling so many people haven't heard from him as of yet. He is driving a former Sabraski car and in fact caught a ride in Sabraski's double stacker to get out here to Arizona. North Dakota farmer Brian Kakela finished second with Minnesota driver Chad Olsen third. In fact, the top four drivers were from the upper Midwest followed by Ron Schreiner, a Tucson driver originally from Wisconsin.

The opening night round proved to be a great starting point for this established series in its new home. Judging by the crowd in the stands, the solid race car support and the well run program, I don't believe this series will be moving again anything soon.