Round five of the Wild West Shootout was contested on Saturday afternoon, January 16th at the Arizona Speedway near Queen Creek and San Tan Valley. Much like the previous races in this series, it was once again a three division program featuring Late Models, Modifieds and X Mods.
Once again conducted under glorious Arizona blue skies and warm temperatures, once after the sun sets the temperatures drop rapidly and heavy Winter type clothing is needed. However, there has been no threat of rain throughout the week and it sounds as if the next chances of rain might throw a monkey wrench into the Sprint Car special planned next weekend, which is a new event for this area and also promoted by this event organizer Chris Kearns along with track promoter Jonah Trussel.
It was another power house field of race cars as this event continues to have a banner week with one hundred and eighty one cars on hand to race in the three classes and even at this late date in the series there were four more new entrants into the Modified class. Over seventy Mods and sixty Late Models were battling for twenty four qualifying spots in the main events, making for some real cut throat heat races. Obviously, qualifying is huge for the Late Models to get good starting spots in heats while the Mods and X Mods continue to rely on passing points to start their mains.
There are literally drivers, promoters and group officials from all over the country on hand for this week worth of racing as it seems this event is now rivaling Speed Weeks in Florida as an event that folks want to either participate in or see and this weather certainly is more attractive that the sometimes irregular weather that Florida can provide. Today I ran into a couple of promoters that had banner 2020 racing seasons at their tracks despite all the challenges that last year provided. Bob Timm is the owner and operator of Mississippi Thunder Speedway near Fountain City Wisconsin and he made much news last year for being the first track to open in his state as he pushed the limits on a number of issues, while at the same time promoting a very aggressive schedule with a number of special events, several of them races only developed in short days before they actually raced largely using social media to get the word out. I also talked to John Allen, the promoter at 81 Speedway in Wichita who oversaw a huge makeover to that facility under the new ownership that took over in 2020. Both MTS and 81 are still busy with a number of continued improvements and additions to their facility that will make them even more of leaders in their industry.
All three feature race winners on Saturday became multiple winners here in 2021 with Tyler Erb, Rodney Sanders and Preston Carr taking the Late Model, Modified and X Mod feature races respectively. Erb's win was a razor thin one while Sanders and Carr both had much more dominant wins.
After significant track prep, the Late Model feature was once again the first one presented and the Late Models ran off forty nonstop laps in their main. The leaders up front were dominant with only ten cars on the lead lap at the finish. Jonathan Davenport led the first four laps while pole sitter Bobby Pierce was the first one out with motor problems as his less than satisfying week continues. Tyler Erb was on the hunt quickly and took over the top spot from Davenport and then moved out to a large lead.
However, with the race staying green, Davenport was saving his equipment and gradually began to reel back in Erb. They went at it for the top spot with Davenport repassing for the lead. However, lapped traffic was heavy and it was tough for the leaders to "call their line" as they pretty much had to go where the holes were. Erb was relentless and with only three laps to go he was able to slide past Davenport to grab the top spot once again. Davenport made one last charge, coming high out of the last corner and he had a run on the leader but Erb withstood his charge by less than a car length in another every entertaining Late Model event.
The other dominant driver in the Late Models, Ricky Thornton Jr, got off to a slow start in this feature but he made a charge at the end and very well may have been the fastest car on the track at the conclusion of the race as he closed to within a couple of car lengths of the battling duo and if this race would have contained a few more laps, there very well might have been a different winner. Sunday's concluding event will provide that extra ten laps as well as a whopping extra twenty grand to the winner. Davenport continues to hold the series point lead which also does contain a point fund for, I believe, the top ten in final series points.
Tyler Peterson was looking for a repeat in the Modified feature and after starting on the pole, he led a number of laps as he continued to pound the cushion as he normally does. However, Rodney Sanders got hooked up on the bottom and after a few laps came shooting up on the inside following a lap eight yellow and he drove into the lead. Once in front, Rodney was the class of the field as he pulled away to a fairly comfortable lead and was not challenged the rest of the way. Peterson continued to pound the high side and while it didn't produce a victory, he was able to hold on to second over a closing Dustin Strand who ended up third.
The win, along with a subpar outing from point leader Shane Sabraski, allowed Sanders to take over the top spot in points with just the Sunday race left to run.
The X Mods continued to be the problematic class with Saturday's feature race being another plagued by yellow flags as a lot of reckless driving and overly aggressive moves have continued to produce spins and wrecks and tear up a bunch of equipment. This night's main would see only eleven of twenty four finish the race after eight yellows bogged down the show.
Tyler Mecl and Jory Berg would battle in the early going of this event until Preston Carr, who is having a breakout series this week, would go to the cushion and fly by the leaders. It was tough to build up much of a lead as the yellow would fly so often but each time the race would resume, Carr would get back up on the cushion and pull away from the field. His car does not look like and contain much of the equipment that he will be required to race when he gets back home to North Dakota but the way the rules are set up for this series, he has created a dominant car for himself as he took his second win of the week and with a bad performance by Sabraski, who came into this night leading both Mod classes in points, Carr took over the point lead with Sabraski falling all the way to third.
Mecl, the local racer and former track champion here at Arizona Speedway, had his best run of the week and after starting on the pole and then slipping back, fought his way back up to second at the end while Lance Schill started nineteenth and raced into third.
You kind of had a sense of what this class was going to produce on this night when, in perhaps a first anywhere, there was a wreck on the back chute as the cars pulled onto the track before the first race ever started when one car lost a driveshaft, spun sideways and was clobbered by another car before half of the first heat cars could even get out of the pits!
One had to feel for a couple of the drivers in this class who had a particularly rough go of it on Saturday. Sam Alonso, who was a late entry in this class on Wednesday, went off on the double hook after a first lap crash on that night and then followed it up by getting a flat as a part of the pre heat race crash today. And Brock Gronwald, a former winner at this event who had to do significant repairs after smashing into spinning cars on Friday night, would get his tire speared by another competitor on a false start in an X Mod B Feature while leading and would be out of the race and with no chance to run the B Feature.
The crowd was another spectacular one on Saturday with the facility absolutely jammed to the rafters and not a seat available to socially distance so the hope was that those not wearing masks(of which there were too many) will just contaminate each other as their stubbornness and irresponsibility warrants such an outcome. Sunday the biggest checks of the week will be on the line before everyone begins the long hike home and a number of the Late Models head directly to Florida for Speed Weeks.
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