Round five of the Wild West Shootout was held on Saturday night, January 13th and Ricky Weiss dominated the Late Model feature from start to finish as he earned his second main event win of this Winter series in The Desert. First time winners were Josh Cain and Stormy Scott as they topped the X Mod and Modified main events respectively.
Only a driving error by Ricky on night number two and a tangle with another car while battling for the lead on another night have kept Weiss from racing for the win on all five nights of the series so far as he has shown a domination in speed over the rest of the field.
With car builder Scott Bloomquist calling the shots from Tennessee and Scott's own crew chief on hand to assist the Weiss crew with adjustments, Weiss has been by far the fastest car in the pits and even though track officials threw the teams a curve ball by extensively "farming" the track right before the Late Model feature, it didn't seem to matter to Weiss who didn't miss a beat as he drove away from the field.
The "farming" just made the track much faster but Weiss, who claims his car is superior no matter what the track conditions, made it look easy as he pulled away from the pack, showed patience as he worked with the many lapped cars, and never gave any contender the opportunity to even get close to him during the forty lap sprint. Weiss' speed was such that in the non stop main he lapped all the way up to the tenth place car in the finishing order with only two of the twenty four starters not finishing the race.
Don Shaw, like Weiss, who has now won two events in this series, ran second for the first part of the race before fading back to a fifth place finish. Mike Marlar looked to be a challenger for a good finish until he spun exiting turn two but with a smart move, he kept his foot on the gas and turned back around and continued. Not only did this not trigger a yellow, it allowed him to return mid pack and he managed to salvage an eighth place finish.
It was a very good night for both Cade Dillard and Ryan Gustin also. Dillard, who has been very fast in spurts and didn't have the finishes to show for it, came from eighth to finish a distant second and Gustin came from the fifth row to place third. A steady but not fast enough to really challenge Brandon Sheppard came home fourth.
The Modifieds continued to show that while their field has been large, it also has been very balanced as the fifth different winner in five nights emerged with Stormy Scott taking home the win. He was running second in the early going behind Jake O'Neil when the LG2 of O'Neil emitted some smoke from the engine compartment and Jake quickly shut the car off and dived to the infield. This gave Stormy the lead and he held on the rest of the way for the win.
After building up a considerable lead, Stormy got slowed down fighting lapped traffic and his brother Johnny, one of the winners earlier this week, came charging in on him. Johnny actually looked to have the better set up at the end as Stormy appeared to be spinning his tires coming off the hard slick corners and Johnny really closed at the end. On the final lap, Stormy opened the door off turn two but with not a totally clear path on the inside, Johnny chose to hold his position and not try to force this issue and perhaps "booger out" his brother, especially so early in the new racing season!
Shane Sabraski continued with his fine showings during this Winter tour as he came from eleventh to finish a close third as he continues to get his Lethal chassis to corner beautifully, especially on the slick. Lucas Schott and R.C. Whitwell completed the top five with Schott crossing the line plastered to the front stretch guard rail after getting moved out at the finish line by a lapped car which caused considerable damage and required Schott to scale behind a wrecker.
After a first lap spin, the Modifieds also engaged in a caution free event with only two of the twenty four starters not completing the distance.
Both the X Mods and the Mods completed their feature races on a very black and slick track before track officials chose to "farm it" for the final event and while I would have liked to see the track prep come a bit earlier than it did, the drivers fully knew what to expect in terms of track conditions. The X Mods suffered just a bit more with the track as it took them four tries to get past lap one in their twenty lap finale but once that hurdle was completed, they rolled the last nineteen straight through.
Josh Cain became the first true X Mod to win a feature race in the class as all the previous winners had come from another sanctioning body. Cain, Miah Christensen and Lance Schill had a good three wide battle, intermixed with yellows, in the early going before Cain took over the top spot. Once in front, he was able to put a few car lengths on the field and while Christensen pressured him on a couple of occasions, Cain maintained his line to take home the win.
Eric Haugland has found something the last couple of nights and the North Dakota driver got his second straight top five finish while the current point leader in this division, Cole Searing, rounded out the top five after starting eleventh in the main.
For the second straight night the races were run on a considerably drier racing surface than the opening weekend and drivers were required to make the adjustment, that is until the late "farming session" turned the track blazing fast again for the Late Models. And of course, at the driver's meeting earlier just about every driver on hand had a different idea on just how the track should be prepared.
Car counts remained strong with forty six Late Models signing in to race along with forty six Modifieds and series high forty nine X Mods. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the fact that this is the final weekend of the series, a half dozen new cars from Tucson and Las Cruses showed up to race on Saturday.
Noted West Coast racing authority Ron Rhoda and I had a discussion about car counts and the unusual circumstances that surround this racing series. While it clearly is a very successful racing series and the car counts have been strong in all classes, the Wild West Shootout has the unique characteristic on being very successful despite having virtually no support from the local and area racers. Granted, there are a few cars from the Phoenix and surrounding areas completing, but truly only a handful compared to the number of racers from out of state and even out of the western part of the country. Just one look at the track point standings will assure you that there are just a bare few of the drivers that have earned points during the season at Arizona Speedway that have made an appearance this week.
Of course, the difference in rules plays a big part in that. With the nearest USRA track hours away, it truly is remarkable just how many Modifieds are on hand for this week's racing activities. Some are USRA cars that have towed a great distance and many make a motor swap just for this week, then go back to their old rules package at home. There are some Modifieds running the IMCA favored crate motor that are doing OK so perhaps some of the locals don't give themselves a chance when they should really be trying.
The local Sport Mods are much the same way, as in shows that mix and match the rules, drivers from all three sanctioning bodies seem to be competitive with each other. For the race fans on hand, perhaps the appearance of all the different drivers whom they don't get to see the rest of the year may be an added bonus for them.
Speaking of the fans, while there are certainly some fans who attend weekly races at Arizona Speedway on hand, the vast majority that have been here all week are either visitors who have made the trip just for the races or perhaps have relatives or friends that live in the Phoenix so they combine race attendance with visiting.
And speaking of the fans, they have been flocking to the Arizona Speedway this weekend. After setting an all time attendance record for the twelve year history of the Wild West Shootout on Friday night, that record lasted less than twenty four hours as it was broken once again on Saturday. And the spectacular weather with temperatures most of the week well above average certainly hasn't hurt that run on the spectator gates either.
Brooke Cousins, daughter of Modified driver Ryan Cousins and natives of Manitoba, has been singing the Canadian National Anthem all week and she has been doing a terrific job of it.
One more sign that Armageddon nears. At the driver's meeting Saturday, Race Director Kelly Carlton announced that the "stick men" signaling to their drivers from the infield would be limited to three foot long sticks so that they didn't get in each others way and possibly injure each other by accident!
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