The Wild West Shoot Out at New Mexico's Vado Speedway Park continued on Saturday, January 14th with by far the nicest day of the week. Under sunny skies and near record warmth, perhaps the largest crowd ever to attend a WWS at Vado was on hand. Another large field of cars in all three divisions gathered for the late afternoon race start and they would see Tennessee's Mike Marlar drive to his first Late Model win of the series this year after being one of its most successful racers here in 2022. He would break the Davenport-Pierce domination of this week's races by defeating both of them straight up in this night's main event.
However, domination continued in the other two classes racing here as both Kris Jackson and Dereck Ramirez would win their third feature races of the five contested so far this week. Both performances are worth noting given the large and strong fields of cars entered in both classes.
There would be no changes in the format or running order for Saturday's event with the Late Models being the only division qualifying on this day while the X Mods and Modifieds would draw for their starting positions in the heat races and passing points in those heats would determine who makes the main events and who gets the privilege of fighting things out in last chance B Feature action, a journey that no driver wants to take in this series.
The track would be quick early with Garrett Alberson and Davenport setting quick times in their flights with Alberson recording the quickest time of the week to date with a lap of 14,147 seconds, worthy of an extra grand to him if that time would hold out through Sunday's qualifying.
Four heat races and a pair of B Features would set the field for the Late Model feature, tonight racing for forty laps. Saturday would also be a Pro Power Dash night and winner Preston Luckman would eschew the thousand dollar top prize in that event to run the feature, saying that he didn't come over twenty hours to watch the feature with his car in the trailer, but he came to race. His comments drew much applause for the fans as somewhat surprisingly, all three dash winners so far this week opted to race, not cash Bill Schlieper's check.
With Davenport on the pole and Pierce starting right behind him, the odds would seem to favor a repeat winner on Saturday but Marlar had other ideas in that regard. The twenty five cars took off at a frantic pace with Davenport opening the early lead as Garrett Alberson slipped high and opened the door for Pierce and Marlar to follow through. Alberson would remain in the lead pack through the first half of the race though with Davenport not able to put a great distance advantage on anyone on this night.
At the halfway point, the top five were still running close together with Marlar making a move on Pierce that would garner him second spot with Johnny Scott forging his way up into the fourth position ahead of Alberson. Marlar was running a slightly lower line on the track than the rest of the leaders who were all running right up against the wall and this seemed to serve him well as he would dig strong into the corners and definitely gain time on Davenport.
Marlar continued to press the issue and on lap twenty seven he would drive under Davenport and take over the lead. Just one lap later the lone yellow of the race would take place when Billy Moyer slowed with a tire down. Pierce, Alberson and Kyle Larson would round out the top five at this point.
The restart would see Marlar pull away from Davenport as Pierce began to fade, eventually falling out of the top five. The driver on the move was Larson as he continued to work his way forward and would eventually get past Davenport for second. With less than ten laps to go, he set out to track down Marlar and he very nearly did so. Things got tight for Marlar as Larson closed and with just a couple of laps to go, the battle was on. Larson jumped the cushion and lost a bit of ground but on the last lap he had a run on Marlar and looked like he might make a last corner "Hail Mary" attempt down low but Marlar had luck in his corner as a slower car had that lane covered and Larson's attempt was blocked and he would have to settle for second as Marlar would drive on for the win. A late charge saw Ricky Weiss have another solid run this week as he would drive past Davenport to get third with Alberson, also steady this week, complete the top five.
It would be a very smooth night for the Late Models with eight races on their part of the program and the yellow flag would wave only twice all night for them.
The X Mods caught a bit of the yellow flag fever on Saturday as their main event was probably the most tedious of the series so far with seven slow downs for a variety of spins and debris slow downs. In fact, their whole program on this night was one that would be characterized as less than scintillating with the twenty plus car pair of B Features being most odious.
However, the multiple yellows didn't seem to bother the effort of Kris Jackson would who lead from start to finish to record his third victory if five starts so far this week. He would have a good battle with Jesse Haynie in the early going with Haynie showing good speed all week and recording some solid finishes, he was hoping to top Jackson and get his first win of the series.
However, Jackson was having none of that as he fought off several challenges by Haynie as the X Mods ran this race is a series of bursts of action followed by another yellow flag for most of the event. Haynie would fight for the lead, then slip high and allow Jimmy Ray and Reece Solander to pass him and then have to fight his way back around them, which he did by the halfway point of the race.
Lucas Rodin and Mike Striegel were both moving forward as they got into the top five at this point and were looking for more. Solander was involved in a crash on lap eleven that ended his night and stacked up several other cars. Haynie would hold the second spot until lap seventeen when he would suddenly dive into the infield as his car was overheating and he would be done.
The last night laps of the race would see Jackson pull away from the pack and roll on unchallenged. Ray, who has been fast this week but until to finish things off, would finally do so on this night and the seventy three year old veteran would accept the second place honors. The battle for third turned into a good one the last few laps with exchanges of position and Striegel would be there at the end to top Rodin for those honors with Gabe Hodges gradually working his way up to fifth at the finish.
The Modifieds would finish up the night and another three time winner would emerge as Dereck Ramirez would win for the third time during the series. It would only take him five laps to wrestle the lead away from Tyler Wolff and he would then drive on to a pretty easy win. Wolff would be the early leader with Ramirez trying to get under him in the corners. When that failed he quickly changed lines, moving to the outside where he would blow by Wolff down the front stretch to claim the lead and after that, he would drive away from the field.
The course of the race would be changed previous to that however, as Ramirez, Gary Christian and Dan Ebert would go down the front chute three wide as they battled for third on the second lap. Ramirez would move down the track to block, getting into Christian who then got into Ebert with those two getting tired up together, triggering a yellow while Ramirez drove away scot free and would then soon pass Wolff to take the win. Ebert would restart and drive up to a top ten finish while Christian would be done for the night.
One other yellow would slow the action at the halfway point when Ricky Alvarado would get into the back stretch wall and cut a tire down, triggering a slowdown. However, this didn't halt Ramirez who would then drive away from the field and score a relatively easy win. Tyler Davis made a steady charge to the front and was able to get past Wolff for second in the late going with Darren Fuqua and Rodney Sanders completing the top five as the pack got kind of stretched out at the end as the track was pretty used up from a long night of racing and got pretty narrow in the groove. Only five of the starters were not on the track at the conclusion of the race.
Considering the size and quality of the three fields of cars, for all three divisions to have three time winners at this point in the series is quite remarkable. Sunday will feature the finale for this series with the largest winning prizes on the line along with the point fund money so we will see if any upsets are produced.
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