The seventeenth annual Wild West Shootout kicked off on Saturday afternoon, January 7th at Royal Jones' state of the art Vado Speedway Park in Vado New Mexico. This would be the second year for the Wild West Shootout to be held at Vado, having moved to this facility after the Arizona Speedway near Phoenix was legislated out of business and the facility closed and leveled.
Without question, Vado is one of the nicest racing facilities in the country and while it is a great track for the racers, the vacation mid Winter destination of New Mexico vs Arizona seemed to have kept a number of the fans home last year. A number of the racers were also a bit skeptical of the move and many took a "wait and see" attitude for one year. Much of that seems to have changed this year with considerably increased car counts and the biggest crowd ever here at Vado for a WWS event on hand for Saturday's opener.
Perhaps some of that big crowd had to do with the field of drivers on hand for if you are a Late Model fan, the field assembled here would be one that would be hard to top anywhere. Just about every big name driver in the sport is on hand here and the addition of Kyle Larson to the field was certainly apparent in the crowd, many who seemed to be more Larson fans that perhaps dirt track Late Model fans.
With over one hundred and fifty drivers on hand in just three classes of competition, it was a feast for dirt track fans. Last year many of the local X Mod teams did not race this event, for whatever reason but they were back this year with the top twelve alone on hand and a dozen in total more than for last year's opener. The Modified field, running USMTS open type rules, which is what Vado runs weekly, had the same number of drivers on hand for the opener as last year but with over fifty of these top drivers on hand, this class was well represented too.
The biggest change was in the Late Model class where a whopping seventeen more drivers were on hand that last year and that includes many of the sports biggest names that weren't at Vado last year or indeed, ever to a WWS event before.
Be it for good or for bad, the WWS is a "made for TV" event with everything arranged and organized for the PPV audience. This includes a very tight format with the entire program budgeted for three hours of racing(which is not a bad thing for even the spectators on hand either) that includes large heat races and B Features and little down time at all. Sometimes I think that the big heats and features are not totally fair for the drivers but they know coming in just what the program will consist of and track officials don't vary that program at all. The Late Models time trial but they do that early and considerably before the program is scheduled to begin which allows for track prep before the show begins. Modifieds and X Mods both use passing points to determine feature race lineups. Once the show starts, they buzz through it quickly and the fans aren't burdened with multiple numbers of heats and B Features and every single event on the track always has lots of cars.
The format would see five heats, two B Features and a main event for the X Mods and Modifieds and four heats, two B's and the main event for the Late Models. The preliminary events would see the X Mods go first followed by the Late Models and Modifieds but the Late Model feature would be first, so that it doesn't get too late for Midwestern and Eastern tv audiences.
There was high drama with so many big name drivers on hand and with so many team and chassis changes by some of the big names, this race is probably as closely analyzed as any race all year is. And with crack announcers Ben Shelton and Dustin Jarrett calling the action along with Trenton Berry working the pits, not much information is missed along the way.
Mike Marlar and Bobby Pierce would set the quickest time trials for their groups with four heats qualifying sixteen cars and four apiece coming out of the two B Features. For four of the shows, those drivers that just miss making the show get one last chance in the Pro Power Dash sponsored by Bill Schliepper with the winner either receiving a grand or the chance to start at the back of the pack and make it a twenty five car field. Winner Collen Winebarger would indeed do just that and race, declining the money. The feature distance was forty laps and with over a quarter of a million dollars on the line for the Late Models this week plus various bonuses that total even more than that, this is some pretty big stuff, even to these seasoned veterans.
There would be no surprises in the Late Model main event with the dominant driver of 2022, Jonathan Davenport, dominating the action on opening night. Local favorite Garrett Alberson, originally from this area, would lead the first nineteen laps with a strong run as Davenport dogged his every more. As the leaders started to work lapped traffic, Davenport was able to close in and start to look for an opening. Pierce was also closing in as it became a three car battle.
Davenport would make his move and take over the lead with Alberson hammering the wall and losing several positions. Pierce would settle into second and occasionally challenge Davenport for the lead. It would be shocking when Pierce would spin all by himself in turn one with the race thirty laps complete and take himself out of contention.
Brandon Sheppard would move into second but he had nothing for Davenport who would cruise home for a relatively easy win. Ricky Weiss and Cade Dillard both showed early season strength as they would finish third and fourth with Kyle Larson, off his game just slightly, settling for a fifth place run.
Every year the X Mods are kind of a "hot mess" as series officials try to find a set of rules that will allow the maximum number of drivers to participate while trying to keep the various sanctioning bodies represented on a even keel. This becomes even harder when the local X Mods have a rules package that is a "pick and choose " of USRA and their own rules and offers some motor options that no one else has right now. The bottom line is that everyone finds something to complain about with many of the cars that don't run big spoilers all year forced to add them to be competitive and many also having to buy tires of a different brand. Sadly the rules have chocked down the WISSOTA cars so badly that from a time when they had over two dozen of them down here and at Arizona, now they are down to about a half dozen. But as long as all the locals show up and there are fifty or more of them, series officials are more than happy as the X Mods are considered to be mostly "field fillers."
Local legend Jimmy Ray would lead the first seven laps of the X Mod feature from the outside pole before he was overtaken by Kris Jackson who just nailed his car to the inside line and proceeded to drive up from the fifth starting spot and then drive away for the win. Ray had a strong run until he broke on the eighteenth lap, which turned out to be the only yellow of the race.
Jackson would go on for an easy win with Andy Bryant driving up from seventh to get second. With plenty of passing taking place, the first local finisher was Jesse Haynie who came all the way from seventeenth to finish third ahead of Reece Solander, from fifteenth and Scott Bintz.
The Modified field was a power packed one but no one could stay with Jake O'Neil. Jake would start on the pole and lead from start to finish with only one yellow, for a lap nine stall by Joe Duvall, slowing the action.
No one could stay with O'Neil who drove away from the pack and was never seriously challenged in a race that saw only three starters not around at the finish. Tanner Mullens would finish a solid second while Dan Ebert would drive around Rodney Sanders to finish third with Tom Berry having a great drive as he rounded out the top five.
As is the case, when the suns sets in New Mexico, it cools off rapidly as it does most places in the desert this time of year but with a well run and quick program, the final checkered flag of the night waved just after 9:30 pm.
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