The second round of the Wild West Shootout at the Central Arizona Raceway was held on Sunday, January 11th on a sunny but extremely windy day. Second day winners including Hudson O'Neal in the Late Models, Blake Adams in the X Mods and after a disqualification in the Modified class, Tyler Wolff was declared the race winner.
The car count was very similar to the Saturday grid with one hundred and sixty one drivers signing in to race in the three divisions that are a part of the WWS. Five drivers participated in the Sunday event for the first time with a couple drivers dropping out due to mechanical issues and other commitments. Probably the biggest "no show" was Saturday night Late Model winner Ricky Thornton Jr who had moved on to Tulsa for practice for the Chili Bowl which starts on Monday night. In his absence, the Adam Racing Team loaded up his car but it would have been interesting to see if they would have put another driver behind the wheel, just to see how the car would have performed.
With the relatively late finish to Saturday night's show, Race Director Kelly Carlton laid out a few new rules at the driver's meeting. They do have a curfew at CAR and they pushed the envelope on Saturday night so to try and move things along on Sunday, all races would be under a time limit. However, the only race they did shorten to my knowledge was an X Mod B Feature that crashed its way down to just four cars and therefore they only needed to run two laps to rule it complete.
Carlton implored the drivers to try and get off the track if they had troubles and cause a yellow flag and for the most part, the drivers did cooperate. For the second straight night, however, there were some issues with starts with lots of drivers jumping and races being called back. I think a chalk line would help greatly with this issues instead of a "firing zone" that they are using.
It proved to be an expensive opening night on Saturday as among those already going to second cars were Bobby Pierce, Jake Timm, Tim Isenberg and Justin Duty, either due to mechanical issues or performance issues. Upper Midwest fans were disappointed to learn that Tyler Peterson, the exciting driver from North Dakota who ran for the first time with an open motor on Saturday, would be done for the rest of the WWS when iron filings were found in his oil and they decided to park the car. If someone was looking for a driver, he certainly would be the first one to look up for the rest of this series.
With a strong wind blowing directly into the grandstands for the second straight night, the track prep crew really put down the water on Sunday. Unfortunately though, because of that they weren't able to have the track in race shape when cars were scheduled to hit the track and they actually got started later than they did on Saturday, with the long shows being the only part of the move from Vado that has been a problem so far.
The format was the same as that used on Saturday with an extra B Feature for the Modifieds to bring those races down to a more manageable size. The track was fast for qualifying and Mike Marlar was the quickest so far this week at 14.845 seconds with Ryan Gustin, tonight with no deck issues, quickest in the second group. This track has proven to be very fast and somewhat misleading to look at.
The most impressive moves in qualifying were a tenth to first run in and X Mod heat by Jacob Hodges and Jake Smith's tenth to first run in an X Mod B Feature. For the second straight night, Late Model dash winner, in this case Sam Mars, opted to race the feature rather than take the grand for the win and call it a night. Bill Schlieper is making out well so far on his sponsorship of this event as it has cost him nothing so far!
After some more "farming" of the track, it was the Late Models who were up first again for their feature race with twenty five drivers going forty laps on Sunday. With his chief competition in Oklahoma on Sunday, Hudson O'Neal dominated the Late Model event. Bobby Pierce did take the early lead and was up front for the first ten laps but following a debris induced yellow, O'Neal blew past Pierce to take the lead and would then hold the top spot the rest of the way.
There was some good fighting for position behind him with Jonathan Davenport moving into second by the halfway point of the race as he passed Pierce with Mike Marlar and Drake Troutman next in line. Marlar started to pick up the pace, moving up to second and becoming the chief challenger to O'Neal.
Twice following yellow flags, Marlar got close and did put pressure on the leader but each time he just couldn't quite make the pass and once a few laps were completed, O'Neal pulled away and Marlar's opportunity was ended.
One late yellow with six laps to go bunched the field, but O'Neal stepped away again from the pack and drove on for the win over Marlar. Pierce had slipped back but with a last lap drive, edged out Garrett Alberson for third with Davenport completing the top five.
Blake Adams became the first repeat winner during WWS 2026 but he had to earn the win after he came from the third row and tracked down legendary Ken Schrader for the win. After his impressive heat race run, Jacob Hodges started on the pole but in the first corner of the feature his car shot straight up the track in front of the entire field with Hodges hammering the wall and nearly turning over. Somehow though, he kept the car going and was able to limp to the infield as the race remained under the green.
With the scramble behind him, this was great news for Schrader who immediately built up a considerable lead. Scott Bintz moved into second with Adams challenging him for the spot. Several times Adams got to the inside of Bintz, finally moving into second by the halfway point of the race with Scott Tofte and Tyler Johnson next in line.
While Schrader had nearly a half straightaway lead over Adams, Blake put the hammer down and began to reel in the NASCAR star. He attempted a couple of inside moves before going to the top side of the track and was nearly by Schrader when the lone yellow of the race saved him.
However, the pressure was still on and with the drop of the green, Adams again went to the top side of the track and blew past Schrader to take over the lead, after which the sixteen year old then began to pull away. Adams received no challenges after that as he drove to an impressive win. Schrader was also alone in the second spot.
For the second straight night, Jake Smith made a huge charge in the feature race. After starting nineteenth on the grid and with just a single yellow to help him, he drove up through the field, nipping Josh Cain on the last corner of the race for third with Johnson completing the top five.
The Modified feature winner was not determined until a post race inspection. For all appearances, it was Cade Dillard that won the race. For the second straight night, he dominated the event, leading from start to finish. Despite an exceptionally strong field of open wheel cars, Dillard was dominant as he started on the pole after garnering heat race passing points and then pulled away from the field.
Dustin Strand had a good run early, holding the second spot but he would eventually break down, with Tyler Wolff moving into the runner up slot. Four yellows in the first five laps slowed the action but then the last twenty went green to checkers. While Dillard was by himself, Wolff and Dustin Sorensen had a great side by side race for second, trading the spot back and forth. Blake Adams, who started twelfth, was also working his way to the front and was up to fourth by the halfway point with Jason Noll just behind him.
The final half of the race saw Dillard pull away while the battle for second raged on. At the line, Wolff edged out Sorensen for second, or so it seemed.
However, in post race technical inspection, both winner Dillard and third place finisher Sorensen had muffler issues and both were disqualified. The official finish then found Wolff the winner with Adams having quite the night as he was then ruled second. Following him were Noll, Rodney Sanders and Gabe Hodges.
Post race inspections that result in disqualifications are always difficult, particularly when they are for non performance issues. However, I know that track promoter Brad Whitfield has had his share of issues with some of the neighbors since he took over the track and noise issues were among the biggest concerns. To allow him to continue operating what is now the most successful dirt track in Arizona, some concessions had to be made and mufflers were prominent in that resolution. And the rules regarding mufflers had long been posted before this event in the rules, so it should not have been a last minute surprise to the race teams.
Perhaps a first for myself and probably the entire crowd, during the "farming" break before the main events, a barrel racing event was held in the infield of the track. Ten female competitors went at it to see who was quickest around the three barrels and then back to the finish line and the crowd seemed to find the unique activity interesting and entertaining.
Racing was completed just about 10 pm and now the teams will take off a couple days to relax and enjoy some sun before a practice session on Tuesday night with round three of the WWS resuming on Wednesday.
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