Fall Nationals @ SNMMS 2014

WOW, as always Royal Jones, Sherman Barnett, Rue Stone and all of the staff at Southern New Mexico Speedway in Las Cruces New Mexico put on a fantastic dirt track racing show with some of, if not the BEST drivers in the country competing. The track was as near perfect as anyone could want with 2, 3 and even 4 wide racing in all four divisions that were competing. There were several local area drivers on hand and all of them represented themselves VERY well. Cooter Frazier in his #28 A-Mod was probably the lowest dollar Mod in the show but he still managed to run with the big dogs. Steven Bertetto in his #7 X-Mod had possibly the best weekend of all of the local drivers as he ran consistently in the top 10 or better in every race he was in. Youngster Joshua Jackson in his #37 Legend car was the car to beat and nobody did it on Thursday or Saturday although Dusty Riggs from Hatch did take the win on Friday night in his #01 orange Dukes of Hazard car, complete with rebel horn. Rick Boelter in his #94 Street Stock was the only driver from the Albq. Area to run and did a very good job winning his heat and taking a top 5 in the main event. Here is a short recap of the action on Friday & Saturday, we were not able to make the Thursday show so won, comment on what we didn't see other than to say that the fans and drivers we talked to said the racing was terrific on Thursday also.

The A-Mods ( USMTS & USRA ) had a shorter field of 45 cars than have been seen in the past but the racing was as good or better than ever. The Friday night main event was the Gallardo show as the father and son duo of Fito and Jacob Gallardo took the top two spots with son Jacob taking the win in front of Fito. For most of the race Fito was running the low groove and Jacob was running a very high groove, but as the duo got to lapped traffic both drivers switched lines as needed to make clean passes. These guys were literally threading the needle. This finish placed Jacob on the outside of the first row and Fito on the outside of the second row for Saturday's $10,000 to win A-Main alongside pole sitter Phillip Houston from Odessa Texas in his #71 and the #2S of Stormy Scott from Las Cruces. The BIG main event on Saturday had 27 starters as 2 additional drivers were added to the original field of 25. Taking these to provisional starts was the #3J of Moriarty driver Josh Cain along with the #10S of Rick Spencer from Tucson. Normally the front row starters are given the chance to elect to start at the rear of the field and win $25,000.00 instead of $10,000.00. However, Royal Jones made the offer to USMTS National Champion #20 Rodney Sanders of Happy Texas and Sanders elected to accept the challenge and start 27th instead of his scheduled 8th place start. Front row starters Phillip Houston and Jacob Gallardo declined the challenge and elected to keep their front row starting spots. At the drop of the green flag the #2S of Stormy Scott jumped out to the lead with the rest of the field in tow. Scott was extending his lead with some lapped cars between him and the #71 of Houston until a caution flag for the spinning car of Dr. Tom Georges #28, which put the lapped cars at the back and the front runners on Scott's bumper. Rodney Sanders in his #20 was steadily picking off cars on every lap and the #75 of Terry Phillips had worked his way into second spot when all of a sudden it began to rain, bringing out the yellow flag. After a fairly short delay it looked like more rain was eminent and the race was declared complete with 16 laps still to go, giving the win to Scott with Phillips taking second. Sanders had managed to pass 17 cars and was scored in 10 position but may have been able to make a challenge for the win and collect the $25,000.00. These drivers were unbelievably fast.

The X-Mods had a very strong field of 22 cars on Friday and 24 on Saturday. Some of these drivers looked like they could have been competitive in the A-Mods. Friday nights main event saw the #07 of Donovan Flores come up from his 7th starting spot to take a very close win on the #X15 of eight starting Tom Connor who had won on Thursday night. Saturday's main event saw all 24 cars on hand make the call for a wild and wooly race that saw several caution periods to slow the action. When the dust had settled the #7C of John Carney took a very close win over the #07 of Flores. From where we were sitting we thought that Flores had nipped Carney at the finish line, but scoring showed that Carney had taken the win by a whopping .004 seconds, you can't get much closer than that.

The Street Stock had a very good field of 20 cars on both nights. These Street Stocks run more like Late Models and put on some of the best racing at SNMS. Friday night saw Alamogordo driver Jon McDaniel in his #17 take off from his pole position start and take the win in front of 14th starting Justin Lasiter's #22, Lasiter is also from Alamogordo. Chasing these two down were the #1C of Patrick Beach, #0 Lloyd Turner and #94 Rick Boelter. You could have thrown a blanket over these 5 drivers most of the race. On Saturday it looked liked about the same cast of characters running at the front of the pact with the exception of the #22 of Lasiter as he was involved in a first lap incident that put in at the rear of the field. While the cars of Turner, Beach, McDaniel and the #64 of Javie Chavez were fighting it out for the top spot the #22 of Lasiter was working his way up from the rear. With the laps winding down Lasiter was on the back bumper of the leaders and was able to pick them off one at a time a take a very hard earned win in front of Beach, Turner, Chavez and McDaniel.

The Legends had a very nice field of 14 cars on Friday and 17 cars on Saturday. These little pint sized racers turn some amazingly fast times and put on a great show. Friday night saw a great battle between the #01 of second starting Dusty Riggs and pole sitter #7 Luis Esquivel with Riggs taking the win with the #77 of C.J. Hulsey a very close 3rd. Saturday night saw the teenagers take control as the #37 of Joshua Jackson who had won on Thursday and the #7 of Luis Esquivel came up from their 10th and 11th starting spots to finish 1st and 2nd. Both of these drivers are the ripe old age of 16 but look like seasoned professionals. Chasing Jackson and Esquivel home was the #77 of C.J. Hulsey taking 3rd place for the second night in a row.

All in all a nearly perfect weekend of racing at SNMS. If you have never been down to Las Cruces for this show or the Winter Meltdown in February you need to put it on your calendar for next year.

Have A Great Day
God Bless Everybody