The first big race for Late Models at the all new Vado Speedway Park in Vado New Mexico wrapped up on Sunday afternoon with another three division program at the three eighth mile facility. This would be the day that the largest payoffs of the weekend would be offered in all three classes and the finale to an excellent weekend of racing with virtually all the feedback from drivers, crews and fans on hand being positive with their first exposure to this new desert land facility.
Car counts were down just a bit for the finale as a hard weekend of racing took its toll on some of the cars while a few drivers from a distance that weren't having the most successful of weekends headed home just a bit early. The only results of the slightly smaller field of cars were that there were one less Modified heat and no B Feature and one less heat for the X Mods. On a day when many people were anxious for a quick show, this was probably not bad news to them in any way as the slightly shorter program did in no way compromise the quality of the show.
Royal Jones rolled out a new Modified for Sunday after destroying one on Saturday night that also saw Monte Bolton head for home with damage while Don Shaw parked his Late Model after two bad nights and brought out his Moyer Victory car instead. The efforts still didn't click though, as he missed his second straight main event of the weekend.
For the third straight day, track officials and WoO adjusted the original race format and moved the Late Model Feature from last in the program to the first of the main event, a move applauded by virtually everyone on hand, no matter which side of the track they were located. Particularly on a day when the Late Model would be running a long distance, seventy five lap main event and with the early start time, it seemed very wise to run off their feature before track conditions could possibly be compromised by a lot of other feature laps on the track by the other classes. They also did have the track wetter than the two previous nights in an attempt to overcome this potential issue.
Late Model qualifying produced some surprises with some different drivers starting up from for the heat races, including Boom Briggs who stunned the crowd when the Pennsylvania veteran turned the quickest lap of the day. The heat races were bitterly fought events with much less give and take than was seen the first two nights with Briggs, Ashton Winger and Jason Rauen among those that made up the eight driver redraw for the top starting spots in the feature. Matt Cosner and Ivedent Lloyd took provisionals and twenty six drivers took the green flag for the main.
For a race that produces only one lead change, it was a much more interesting race than that statistic would indicate. The track was slightly different in character on Sunday with more drivers moving up the track as the top side seemed to be most dominate to produce speed. Brandon Sheppard out dueled Billy Moyer Jr to get the early lead but was challenged by Chris Madden and Cade Dillard as the latter two spent much time fighting with each other and swapping the second spot. Dillard was fearless as he hammered the concrete wall in his challenges of Sheppard who typically spends most of his races also trying to beat down the walls.
Madden suffered from electrical woes following a yellow flag and while he did get his car started, he was forced to the back of the pack which ended his chances of a win. A bad crash in turn four, the hardest by far of the weekend, saw both Billy Moyer Jr and Bobby Pierce go over and while Pierce was able to restart the race and eventually get a top ten finish, Moyer Jr's new Capital race car looked to be the big loser of the incident. Winger had the whole side of his car torn off too but he soldered on in the race.
Sheppard appeared to be getting just a little bit slower on the cushion while Dillard was picking up the pace and with about fifteen laps to go, the two leaders exchanged a couple of thrilling side jobs that had the crowd on their feet with Sheppard maintaining the lead while Dillard slipped back as traffic hindered his efforts.
It appeared that Sheppard had built up a good enough lead to hold on, that is until Briggs slowed with nine laps to go and triggered the yellow. Sheppard led the field back to green and he hugged the wall as he fired in turn four but it simply took him too long to get up to speed and Dillard cut under him, had a huge run and beat Brandon back up to the top in turn one to grab the lead. From then, he pulled away for the fifteen grand top prize and most importantly, his first ever WoO Late Model victory. Sheppard hung on to second with Darrell Lanigan continuing his improvement as she finished a strong third. Dillard became the third different winner of the weekend while Sheppard had to settle for his third straight runner up effort. Scott Bloomquist, suffering from a number of physical issues, really gutted it out on a demanding track to finish fourth and Ricky Weiss, who had to run a B Feature after winning last night, came from seventeenth to fifth.
What a great start it has been for the season for Modified driver Rodney Sanders as he won his third straight main event and swept the weekend. Once again he had to come from behind though as he started on the third row and used another patented charge to race up to second early and then stalk Bumper Jones for the win.
Jones got off to a strong start and had built up some distance on the field, but yellow flags slowed him down and allowed Sanders to trail him. In fact, several times Sanders was about to make passed when subsequent yellows allowed Bumper to hold the top spot. It was fun watching the "mind games" as Sanders took turns taking both the low and high side for the double file restarts and you could tell Bumper was trying to figure out just where Rodney was going to try him for the pass.
Eventually the dominance of Sanders took over and he was able to get under Jones in turn four as the track started to give out on the high side and most went to the bottom where some were better at holding the groove than others. Sanders then pulled away for a relatively easy win while Fito Gallardo got past Jones late in the race for second. Mitch Keeter and rookie Calvin Iverson completed the top five. Jake Gallardo used his dad's X Mod to finish in the sixth spot.
It was quite an eventful day for young Gallardo. Wrecks and mechanical issues eliminated both Jake's Late Model and Modified from competing on Sunday so he was left to borrow his dad's X Mod to have something to race. He did enter both classes with the car and his afternoon was quite an interesting ride. He did come from thirteenth to finish sixth while racing with the Mods.
Meanwhile, he blew by the field in his X Mod heat like the rest of the pack was on jack stands and won with ease. However, he was then disqualified for not having a rev limiting chip in the car. This set him back to fifteenth on the starting grid for the X Mod feature but he blew through the field nearly as fast as he had in the heat race. After Dillon McCowan and Greg Gorman battled for the lead along with Clint Johnson and Brock Gronwald, Gallardo made easy pickings of them as he drove past them and ran off into the New Mexico sunset.
The only question was whether he would be also able to pass the tech inspection and this time he got a green light from them as his win became official. McCowan, Johnson, Gronwald and Josh Cain completed the top five.
For the second straight day, the crowd was treated to a display of paramotors as the buzzed around the track facility before the racing began. A half dozen or so of them dipped around the track, dropping to nearly track level at times and dipping their way around the light poles and buzz bombing the adjacent freeway.
The early race starts were lauded by all in attendance and there was definitely something to be said about being able to complete a full three division program by 8 pm at the latest. The beauty of it was that track conditions weren't compromised a bit by the early start.
Many fans from far distant parts of the country were on hand for this weekend as it was the first true opportunity for Royal Jones and his crew to showcase their new gem to the world. Hopefully the numbers worked out for them so that this race weekend will become a staple on the racing calendar for the Late Models and Modifieds. The crowd was a good one on Sunday although I don't believe it was quite as big as Saturday night's throng. Thanks to Royal, Rue and all the folks at Vado for their hard work this weekend.
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