This was not the duty that I signed on for. When one goes to the desert, the last thing you expect is cloudy and cool weather and God forbid, rain! But that is exactly what happened and the final two rounds of the eleventh annual Wild West Shootout was rained out over the weekend. It just wouldn't stop showering on Saturday and every time they started to make progress on the track, it would start raining again. After messing around with this all afternoon and covering most of the race cars with mud after the initial packing effort was nearly successful, they finally gave in and called it. I can also now confirm from first hand experience that it does indeed both thunder and lightning on the desert.
Congratulations to promoters Chris Kearns and Mike Montgomery for attempting to make up the rained out program as a doubleheader on Sunday with a late morning makeup race to be following by a late afternoon second show. Unfortunately the weather continued to be uncooperative. By Sunday morning it was clear that they weren't going to have the track ready for an early show so that event was cancelled while they still hoped to get the later show in. When I arrive at the track around Noon, it was clear that there was going to be no racing in the near future as the mud was axle deep on the track from top to bottom. Shortly after, the event was cancelled and the promoters gave out refunds for the pit passes as well as those fans that had purchased tickets ahead of time.
Interestingly, I was told by no less an authority than Race Director Kelly Carlton that the promoters were going to combine the first place payoff for the final two shows at no additional cost to the racers or fans so that the Late Model feature would have paid seventeen grand to win while the Mods would have been three grand and the X Mods would have received fifteen hundred dollars. Unfortunately, we never got to that point. The promoters also paid out a point fund with the top ten in the Late Models and the top five in both the Mods and X Mods paying back five spots. There is some discussion currently ongoing with event sponsors that in 2018, instead of offering the big bonuses for the Late Models, that money would instead be used to further increase the point funds in all three classes as the promoters seek to use the sponsorship money where it would do the best job of increasing car counts.
And not surprisingly also, there immediately were people critical of the track prep and the job they did or didn't do to try and protect the track from the rain and get it back into racing shape. When I arrived at the track, the surface had been ripped open and whether that was done the previous evening and allowed the rain to further soak in or it was done on Sunday morning to try and allow the air to dry the track, I can not say. I was told by someone that was camping at the track that it did rain all night at the track even though there was no more rain where I was staying just a few short miles away.
In any event, it was a very disappointing conclusion to the series where most everyone that tows all the way to the desert expecting to get a full six races in. In all the years that I attended this race in Tucson, there was never a single rain out and the closest they ever came to getting rained out was one night when a very light mist fell all evening but they raced right through the mist.
The weather for the whole series this year was disappointing with not much sun throughout the week and lots of cool and cloudy weather. It was not what most were hoping for.
Car counts for the series averaged forty one in the X Mods, forty seven in the Mods and forty six in the Late Models. All three classes were solidly represented with the Modified being especially impressive. The Late Model count was OK but started to get just a little bit thin as the week progressed and I would say that some work should be done for next year to try and get a few more cars out for this class. The local cars have dwindled to a small number as Late Model racing opportunities on the West Coast have diminished and some of the locals don't think they can keep up in this series and don't even show up.
It is tough to make comparisons between the racing here in San Tan Valley and the racing at the previous track in Tucson. Arizona Speedway is smaller than Tucson and likely should be easier on motors. However, the way the track was prepped this week, that wasn't so much the case as the track was heavy most nights and had a big cushion that made it nearly as high speed as Tucson. Much talk centered around the fact that the track turned out to race totally different than what most people that hadn't race here before were told that it would be and in many cases, were looking forward to and had prepared for.
The organization of the race crew allowed time trials to take no more time and put no more stress on the race track than in previous years when all classes just hot lapped. I still feel however, that some of the best racing ever was the Late Model heats at Tucson where draw/passing points found some interesting heats mixed up by speed that provided some spectacular qualifying action.
For sure, the crowds were significantly bigger at Arizona Speedway than they ever were in Tucson and for no other reason than that, the series has already been booked in at Arizona for next January with the same three classes in action. Arizona Speedway is a more rugged facility than Tucson with no power or water as they generate their own electricity with generators. Suggestions for next year would be to provide more satellites for the spectators, pit area and also the campers. The food selections were limited and the lines long so I would suggest bringing in a bunch of food trucks to provide more variety and reduce the waiting time for food. Other than that, they did a first class job of running the show and you would be hard pressed to find a promotional group that can crank off the races any faster than they do here.
So, other than the bitter taste left when the last whole weekend was wiped out by rain, the trip was a successful adventure. More and more people from the Midwest make the trip each year and seem to enjoy themselves immensely.
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