It may only be the first week of the new decade but the racing season has begun in earnest already as the World of Outlaws Late Models started out their 2020 racing season on Friday night, January 3rd at the Vado Speedway Park located on I-10 between Las Cruces New Mexico and El Paso Texas. It was an exciting way to start a new racing season as the venue was a new one for virtually everyone that was on hand to race along with many of the spectators that have evacuated the cold North and will follow the racing for the next few weeks as they migrate over into Arizona for several other series that will be taking place, depending on their tastes in terms of what kind of cars they prefer to watch race.
Along with the Late Models, a full show of USRA sanctioned Modifieds and the local X Mods would also be in action in a swift three class program that would be high balled through to beat the cold temperatures that greeted all on hand as despite it being a beautiful sunny day, once the sun set the thermometers began to bottom out quickly.
The new racing season always kicks off with an extra sense of excitement in the air as many of the teams are sporting new cars and many of the teams are also new themselves with new driver-owner combinations, new types of chassis and high expectations for 2020. New drivers on hand vying for the rookie of the year titles spice things along with the appearance of the Bloomquist Madden duo which certainly are a strong selling point for the WoO tour this year.
Forty two Late Models signed in to race on opening night as Dr. Dave Deetz and Jay Morris opted not to race on Friday night along with Javier Zapien Jr who had some mechanical issues during practice and was also not on the grounds Friday night.
The usual WoO format was in play on this night with qualifying split into two groups with Chris Madden and Brandon Sheppard topping their flights. Four heat races and a pair of B Features set the field for the Late Model thirty lap finale. As usual there were several provisional starters even though the WoO is going to allow only drivers in the top twenty five in points to take a provisional. Boom Briggs, Brent Larson and Blake Spencer were allowed to join while registered rookie contenders Matt Cosner and Kody Evans also took emergency provisional spots but raced for just points and no money.
Drivers would be facing very different track conditions on Friday night than what they saw for practice on Thursday evening. The track on Thursday was smooth and very fast with much traction, likely the result of some cool temperatures and precipitation in the days leading up to this event. While the cars were screaming around the track, apparently there were those that thought the track too fast and their voices were heard, as the conditions were a 180 degree change on Friday night with a track that was black and slick before hot laps were even completed and speeds were over two seconds slower than the previous night. So, those drivers that didn't adapt were left holding the bag and scratching their heads. Unfortunately, during the feature race the marker tires in turns three and four were bumped down lower toward the infield than they should have been and drivers started dragging the desert sand up onto the track, resulting in a tough corner to negotiate and dusting up the crowd quite a bit.
WoO officials exercised their "flex scheduling", changing the order of events and running the Late Model feature first because of the cool evening with a temperature of 35 degrees recorded as I left the facility. The race itself was excellent with a good five car battle for the lead that saw the drivers go thirty laps nonstop and all twenty seven starters take the checkered with six a lap down.
Madden and Ricky Weiss had a good battle for the lead early with them completed several laps side by side while battling for the point. Eventually Madden was able to edge away by several car lengths while Weiss battled with Sheppard for second. When they got into lapped traffic, Scott Bloomquist and Ashton Winger caught them and it was a five car pack racing for the win.
Winger would lose some ground and Mike Marlar would replace him as part of the five cars up front and the lapped traffic continued to cause problems with the leaders having to be very careful as they tried to get by without opening the door for one of their fellow competitors to slip past them.
Madden continued to hold the point and he didn't slip up as the thirty laps flew by and he held off a late charge by Sheppard for the win with Weiss finishing third. It was three Bloomquist cars and two Rockets that showed the way.
Despite slipping back at the end, rookie Winger showed that he will be a force this year and veteran Rick Eckert, driving for Texas' Allen Murray also had a strong run. All in all, it was a good start to the season for the Late Model group.
There were no surprises in the Modified feature. While there was a nice sized field of twenty nine of them on hand, no one had anything for Rodney Sanders, just as was the case for much of the last year or so. Sanders came from seventh to win a heat race and even though he redrew the worst number in the bucket, he made short word of getting to the front.
Using the middle lane of the track while most were hugging the bottom side, Sanders simply drove right by everyone and in only six laps he was the leader of the main. He weathered four quick yellows in the first nine laps for minor spins but once the race ran clean, he simply checked out.
It appeared he ran only hard enough to maintain his distance over Fito Gallardo who worked his way up to second but had to settle for that spot as he wasn't able to challenge Sanders any further. Tyler Wolff, rookie Nick Rivera and track owner Royal Jones completed the top five. j
It was a good night for Gallardo though, as he also topped the X Mod feature. Local drivers, along with traveling USRA and WISSOTA drivers and a few southern Sport Mod drivers made up the twenty two car field that saw a variety of different looking cars compete, including the local X Mods that couldn't even pass the body test for the Modified class yet were allowed to run in this "run what you brung" type of show.
The X Mod feature was a good one with Gallardo and Minnesota driver Brock Gronwald battling all the way for the win. After they had a duel in their heat race, they came right back to fight it out in the main.
Gronwald was the leader until he suddenly slowed on the back chute momentarily and then got back on the gas, but by then he had dropped back to fourth as Gallardo took full advantage to take over the lead. It was a strange occurrence that cost Gronwald heavily.
He battled back to second and was all over Gallardo the rest of the way but just couldn't quite make the passing move on the local veteran whose construction business actually built the track here at Vado. On the last lap Gronwald went for broke but it was not a good choice. He couldn't catch Gallardo but ended up spinning in the final corner and while he did a good job keeping the car going, by the time he got running he had fallen to sixth at the finish.
Local driver Mark Smith finished behind Gallardo with Missouri visitors Clint Johnson and Dillon McCowan being sandwiched by North Dakota's Lucas Rodin at the wire. McCowan did a great job after starting dead last in the field after he was involved in a heat race crash.
The fast paced program finished in under three hours with the final checkered at 10 pm. There were few yellows and in fact, the entire Late Model program was spun off with only a single yellow flag in their seven events!
I did not notice on practice night but they have a fine scoreboard here also so check off another box in the "must have to be a top notch track" inventory. The owners and promoter must also have plenty of "chops" with the local media as no less than two TV stations in the local media market had crews on hand to film and do reports on the races and the entire weekend event. This track does have a vast grandstand so it is a little hard to tell just how many people were on hand but I believe the cold night plus it being a Friday night may have held the crowd down slightly from expectations but we will see what the early starting times do for that the next two days. Other than the races, the top local sports stories are all about Jason Garrett's firing from the Cowgirls.
No comments:
Post a Comment