The box score shows that Cade Dillard led wire-to-wire on opening night of the Wild West Shootout at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico but it was much closer than it appears.
For one, Bobby Pierce briefly took the lead in the closing laps but couldn’t make the slider stick before crossing the start-finish line. In the end, Dillard drove away upon lapping Stormy Scott, his second feature victory in the 18th annual event in New Mexico in a thrilling battle through lapped traffic in a race that stayed green for all 40 laps.
He earned $11,000 for the honors.
“I knew Bobby would be coming once the track got top dominant and I knew he went a little harder on tires,” Dillard said in Victory Lane. “Around lap 28, 30, Donnie (Pederson, crew chief) told me he was closing a little bit so I used up what I had left. I knew he’d be better at the end with the tire choice. What an awesome race track and facility.”
Pierce who started on the pole but fell to fourth on the first lap, said it just came down to tire choice. Left sides and right front must be Hoosier national Late Model Tire 2 or 3 tires and the right rear can be either National Late Model Tire 3 or 4.
“There are so many different tire choices here and different guys on different stuff,” Pierce said. “He fired out of the gate on his stuff. I probably knew that would happen. I wanted it to stay green because I knew I would possibly catch him by the end, and I did, but I killed my right rear because of it.
“Great race. He did everything right. We feel like we did too to a point but this place is so tricky with the tire call.”
Kyle Larson scored $500 for hard-charging honors after gaining nine spots, from 14th to 5th. The Wild West Shootout continues on Sunday with another $11,000-to-win feature with races also on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the latter of which pays $25,000.
The races all air on FloRacing.
Wild West Shootout Feature 1
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]
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.