VADO, N.M. — The 18th annual Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts saw the opening round of the mega miniseries come to life on Saturday afternoon at FK Rod Ends Vado Speedway Park.
With 144 entries in the pit area Louisiana’s Cade Dillard headlined the night’s program by winning both the super late model and modified main events.
“A lot of great people a have helped me get to this point in my career, and it’s just a surreal experience to win two features against this caliber of field in one night. (In the super late model feature) I knew Bobby (Pierce) would be coming there once the (track) got pretty top dominant and I knew he went a little harder on tires,” Dillard said. “There about lap 28 or 30, (crew chief) Donnie (Pederson) told me (Pierce) is closing a little, so I just tried to use up what I had left, and I’d say he was probably getting better at the end with the tire choice. Man, what an awesome race car and an awesome facility. I love racing at this place.”
Pierce started on the pole with Cade Dillard alongside. Dillard bolted to the lead as the 40-lap feature went green. He fended off early race challenges from Garrett Alberson before having to outduel Bobby Pierce.
Pierce threw a slider and briefly nosed ahead on lap 34 before Dillard edged him at the line by .048 seconds and pulled away slightly to win by .289seconds at the finish. Dillard collected $11,000 for his winning performance.
Hometown racer Garrett Alberson settled for third.
Dillard double down on the night by topping the modified feature. After starting sixth he charged past early race leader, Jacob Hobscheidt on the eighth circuit and went on to win by over five seconds in the $2,000-to-win main event.
Johnny Scott, Terry Phillips, 12th-starting Dan Ebert and Hobscheidt completed the top five.
Nick Rivera wired the field to win the 25-lap X-mod feature.
Round two of the Wild West Shootout is Sunday afternoon.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 97-Cade Dillard[2]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce[1]; 3. 58-Garrett Alberson[3]; 4. 1-Tyler Erb[6]; 5. 6-Kyle Larson[14]; 6. 157-Mike Marlar[10]; 7. 19-Dustin Sorensen[16]; 8. 18-Chase Junghans[9]; 9. 2-Tyler Stevens[4]; 10. 10-Kaden Honeycutt[5]; 11. 73-Rodney Sanders[17]; 12. 14S-Collen Winebarger[20]; 13. 18B-Shannon Babb[18]; 14. 2S-Stormy Scott[8]; 15. 14M-Morgan Bagley[24]; 16. 77-Preston Luckman[19]; 17. 7-Ricky Weiss[15]; 18. 82-Eston Whisler[25]; 19. E85-Jason Strand[22]; 20. 86-Kyle Beard[21]; 21. 7T-Drake Troutman[12]; 22. 101-Forrest Trent[13]; 23. 32B-Cody Laney[7]; 24. 1R-BJ Robinson[11]; 25. 28M-Sam Mars[23]