Friday night, January 4th, the thirteen annual Wild West Shootout at the F.K. Rod Ends Arizona Speedway near San Tan Valley began as over one hundred and twenty cars took to the oval for practice sessions that began at 6 pm and lasted for three hours. Drivers in the three classes participating in this six event series including Late Models, Modifieds and X Mods were all out on the track during the course of the three hour session with virtually every car in the pits taking at least one shot at the oval before they called a halt to the proceedings just after 9 pm.
All three classes were well represented during the practice sessions with drivers from far and wide on hand, including the usual hardy delegation from North of the border in Canada with drivers from both Manitoba and Saskatchewan on hand. Another particularly well represented area was North Dakota with many of their drivers in all three classes ready to go for this weeks worth of racing. Iowa race fans might be just a bit disappointed as so far only Chris Simpson is on hand to represent the Hawkeye State with drivers such as Justin Kay, Jason Rauen, Ryan Gustin and Brad Dierks, who all raced here last year, not in attendance so far. Of course, there will also be a number of drivers that show up for tonight's first race and indeed, throughout the week, that have not been on the grounds yet this year.
It would appear that the Late Model field will be similiar in size to last year's group of fifty as unofficially, forty three Late Model drivers took practice sessions last night. The list of drivers on hand was a stout one including such names as Simpson, Pearson Jr, Alberson, Phillips, Sheppard, Junghans, Overton, Shaw, Pierce, O'Neal, Mars, Dillard, Bloomquist and Weiss all on hand along with plenty of other regional stars and local drivers from the Arizona area.
Arizona Speedway seems to prep their race track unlike any other in the country when it comes time for a night of practice sessions. Most tracks seem to run their tracks dry and slick on nights like this, certainly in part to help the tracks get firm and prevent ruts and bumps from forming as a prelude to a long week of racing. Not Arizona Speedway however. They till the track up beforehand and water it generously and it is bad and fast for practice sessions. In fact, the speeds turned by all classes of cars were blinding fast on Friday night(in fact, perhaps, too fast). Everybody is bad fast these days on a tacky track and it's only when the track dries out that drivers begin to find out just how their cars handle and what they need to do to make them so they can pass other drivers. What we mostly saw was a speed exhibition on Friday night and there were many that were flat out flying around the three eighth mile oval. In fact, the track built up a healthy berm as the evening progresses and how many times can you say you've seen that happen during a practice night? Usually it's just the opposite with tracks tending to get dry and slick up like ice.
However, Kevin Montgomery, who does the track prep here for this event, is a Sprint Car guy and he likes to prep a track so as that it builds up a healthy cushion which they periodically knock down and perhaps one of the few criticisms I've ever heard about this event is that they tend to "rip" the track too often to keep it bad fast and it gets just so fast that it is hard to pass on. However, since not a single lap of racing has been turned in competition yet, we'll wait to see just how this all plays out.
Among the quickest under the clock were Brandon Sheppard in his family's car, Brandon Overton in the Coulter car, Bobby Pierce back in his family's car, Hudson O'Neal and Cade Dillard. Of course, new to the desert this year is Scott Bloomquist and he finally came out for the last practice session of the night. Interestingly to me, he ran a groove totally different than anyone else as while all the other cars were pounding the cushion and getting big speed, he was experimenting with running the low groove which was not as fast on Friday night but will be where the passing will need to be done when real racing begins on Saturday if track conditions do not change. And with a cloudy and cool forecast for Saturday, this might very likely be the case as if conditions hold and the track builds up a berm, everyone tends to line up on the outside and blast around the track, making passing tough and the only way to gain positions is to drop low and work under other drivers. Stay tuned for Saturday to see how this plays out.
Of note, R.C. Whitwell was driving a car owned by Jessie Hoskins from Oklahoma and it was reported that R.C. is now residing in Longdale. USMTS star Stormy Scott was making laps in his new Bloomquist car and with both Stormy and his brother Johnny leaving Modifieds, USMTS head Todd Staley will be losing two of his biggest stars for the coming season. Wisconsin's Steve Isenberg, who hasn't raced in about three years has come out of retirement, having grown tired of spending his retirement hours fishing, he purchased a new Rocket chassis that he will drive in open shows as he desired. He will be teaming with Terry Casey, a driver many remember from the national tours from a few years ago himself as one of the most exciting drivers around. They will take turns driving the car will Casey likely to see most of the duty when they race in Florida. At this point they haven't yet decided whether that will be in East Bay or Volusia. Steve also noted that his son Tim, who also did much Late Model racing and got out of it just about the same time as his father, will also return to racing this year, doing mostly weekly shows and running other WISSOTA special events as Tim now runs the family business. Ricky Thornton Jr will be driving a car owned by Casey Skyberg from South Dakota this week. Colorado's Dean Moore has also come out of retirement to return to racing with a new Rocket chassis.
It is possible that the Modified field might be just a bit smaller this year than previous years. Approximately thirty three of them practiced on Friday night will others still likely on the way but a number of regulars from years past likely won't be on hand this year. Minnesota drivers Shane Sabraski, who hasn't received his new Lethal chassis yet and Matt Gilbertson, who sold his car, both will be missing this year. There will still likely be several Las Cruses cars show up that didn't practice on Friday. Iowa Modified fans, who have grown to enjoy the racing of Ricky Thornton Jr, may be interested to know that he has switched chassis brands once again, as he will be driving a new Lethal chassis by David Stremme this year. The Lethal chassis has come to be one of the hottest on the market recently.
It would seem that the X Mod field for 2019 will be larger than most years. With forty seven of them practicing on Friday, that is nearly as many cars as they had race any night last year and surely there will be a number of local and regional drivers that will be added to the field once real racing begins. Once again there are a large number of drivers from Minnesota, South and North Dakota in this class as they look to get away from Winter's blasts and get some early racing action in. Also, there appears to be one of the strongest fields of Las Cruses cars ever on hand this year with most of that tracks' high point cars from last year present as well as four of the top six drivers in WISSOTA national points last year on hand too. A new driver in the desert this year is 2017 WISSOTA national rookie of the year Calvin Iverson. He brought two cars to shake down as well as Modified ace Dave Cain to guide him this week.
Even though there was a lot of high speed practice sessions going on, the attrition rate was surprisingly small. Other than a couple of flat tires and a bent front bumper on Lance Schill's car, the only real mechanical issue observed was when South Dakota's Troy Randall spit out a driveshaft on his X Mod. It may also have damaged the transmission as there was a lot of liquid left on the track in his wake.
A large crowd of spectators was on hand for a practice session as there would appear to be many people from out of the local area on hand for the races. It was sunny but cool day and after the sun set it got quite nippy. Saturday brings the threat of rain showers at markedly different times of the evening, depending on the source one monitors so it will be incumbent that the track crew here, led by Chris Kearns, crack off a rapid program and that is one thing that they can do very well.
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