Just when you think Vado Speedway has been exciting all week Royal Jones and crew say hold my beer. WHAT A RACE! Track promoters and prep workers will be flooded with phone calls asking for advice on what they are doing out in New Mexico.
Photo Credit - Terry Page (Dirt Track Digest)
The finale would start off with Pierce winning qualifying with the quickest time of the week at 14.033. Heat 1 race winner Davenport was the top qualifier in Group A. Heat 2 was a wild heat that Stormy Scott won. At the start of that one Sorensen got out of shape and Brandon Sheppard had nowhere to go and made good contact with Sorensen's door panel with his nose causing the Illinois driver to come to a stop on the front stretch sending B Shepp to the tail when the green came back out. Shepperd charged hard back to the transfer spot at the end with a little help from Tyler Erb breaking on the final lap. "Terbo" has had a rough week out in the desert the entire week. Heat 3 would go to Pierce and Kyle Larson would take the final heat race of the Shootout. Sorensen and Weiss would take the B Mains to get themselves in the 50 lap A Main.
Davenport would once again draw the pole for the main event with Pierce alongside him as the green flag waved. They quickly gave us all a preview of what we were going to see for the 50 lap feature as they swapped the lead a handful of times the first 4 laps before "Superman" settled in to the lead.
Pierce would retake the lead on lap 18. Around the halfway mark of the race Davenport would get a little bit too high and made contact with the wall and damaged his car to where he would no longer be a contender for the win.
Mike Marlar , from his 9th starting spot , threw his name in the leader book as he took the lead from Pierce on lap 34. Saturday's winner trying to close out the WWSO with another win before heading back to the Eastern Time Zone but would get passed on lap 43 by Pierce setting up one final duel with Larson.
The Slide Job exhibition would begin with Pierce and Larson exchanging them like Valentines with Pierce ending it with a move in lapped traffic sealing the win.
Larson would finish 2nd with Marlar 3rd once again the podium finish was full of Longhorns. Stormy Scott would finish 4th with the Las Cruces hometown driver Alberson 5th.
The race had 4 leaders with several lead changes to decide the winner of the $25,000 payday and to fire off the six shooters in victory lane. The excited Pierce climbed out still catching his breath after a thrilling race for his 2nd win of the week.
Marlar joked in his post race interview with FloRacing that he was mad at Royal Jones, track owner , that he made it too racy. He applauded Jones and his crew for all their hardwork all week giving them a surface each night to race on. The crew prepared the track for 6 nights of racing with a couple of practice nights for the racers which also hosted A Mods and X Mods. Take a bow crew and a much needed rest. Thank you for producing a great week of racing and get ready for a bigger crowd next year for The Wild West Shootout.
Photo Credit - Wild West Shootout Facebook page
Jonathan Davenport would take the weeklong series point title over Kyle Larson and Pierce. After winning the first 3 nights he appeared to take Penske Shocks $300,000 bonus for winning all 6 nights along with a new Chevy truck but fell short of all the bonus money. If he would have won 5 that paid $100,000 and 4 wins a $25,000 bonus.
Sunday's Results
1) Pierce
2) Larson
3) Marlar
4) S. Scott
5) Alberson
6) Davenport
7) Beard
8) Bagley
9) Pospisil
10) Weiss
11) Sheppard
12) Dillard
13) Erb
14) J. Scott
15) Sorensen
16) Leighton
17) McCowan
18) Whisler
19) Winegarger
20) Stuckey
21) Kile
22) Sanders
23) Moyer
24) Simpson
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