Lorne Wofford celebrates after winning the Lucas Oil POWRi 305 Winged Sprint Car main event. (James Adams Jr. Photo)

The state-of-the-art Vado Speedway Park was back in action on Saturday, May 1st with the track’s Anthony and Chaparral Hot City Nights promotion and a full pit area for a five division program on the schedule.

After qualifying races were complete, the Claimer division took to the track for it’s 15-lap main event. Jimmy Marta and Scott Sullivan paced row number one on the initial start, but Marta got into turn one a little hot and spun his #28, causing a complete restart and shuffling up the starting grid. On the second start, Sullivan took the lead early from the pole and tried to run off from second running Ray Abbott, while 9th starting Daniel Sanchez Jr was making his way forward in a hurry. Sanchez raced his way by Gabe Ledesma into third and then quickly moved past Abbott into the runner up spot and sent his sights on Sullivan out front. The leaders battled for the top spot around the midpoint of the race until Sanchez took over the lead and raced on to his second win of the season. Sullivan crossed the line in second with 10th starting Ryder McCutcheon third, Abbott fourth and Jamie Torres in fifth.

The USRA B-Mod main was up next and saw Billy Roy Harris and Sergio Chao sharing row number one. Harris took over the top spot on the lead until he and Aasa Flores got together battling for the lead, bringing out the caution and slowing the field. On the restart Mingo Jauregui took command with Rob Moseley and Greg Gorham in a wildly entertaining battle for the lead. The three drivers circled the Vado Speedway Park lap after lap putting on a show, while Justin Allen and Ricardo Olague Jr moved in to battle in the top five as well. As laps wound down, Moseley and Jauregui ran side by side for the lead with Moseley edging Jauregui at the line for the win. Allen, who started 18th ran third, with 20th starting Jake Gallardo charging to fourth and Olague fifth at the line.

The Stock Cars were up next on the running order with 11th starting Bryan Bennett charging to his second straight feature win on the season. A great battle ensued out front with Bennett, 12th starting Jeremy Bradley, 10th starting Shane McNutt and 3rd starting Cameron Martin waging war for the lead for the majority of the event, only to see Bennett dig deep on the bottom of the speedway and edge his way forward for the victory. Bradley, in his first visit of the season, ran second with McNutt, Martin and Jonathan Burton rounding out the top five.

Mike Archuleta earned the pole for the night’s 305 Winged Sprint Car feature event and took the lead on the start with 3rd starting Lorne Wofford in tow. Wofford quickly sped past Archuleta into the lead and never looked back en route to his first Vado win of the season. With Lorne out front, his sons Wes and Vance raced into the second and third spots early in the night and tried to give chase for the lead, but Lorne was up to the challenge and lead every lap on his way to Western Tech victory lane. Wes ran second with 9th starting CJ Hulsey charging forward to third late in the race, finishing ahead of Vance and Rick Ziehl, who crossed the line in fifth.

The final event of the night was the 20-lap Late Model feature and Levi DeMartino raced his #73 from his 6th starting spot to the lead and to his first official feature win of the 2021 season. DeMartino finished first in the main event the last time the Late Models competed here, but was disqualified for missing the tech area after the win, but that was not the case tonight as he raced to the lead early and dominated the event for the win and clean sweep. Eric McNutt ran second after a race long battle with Dave Deetz and Devan Smith for the runner up spot. Sam Alonso finished fifth. 

Full results: http://vadospeedwaypark.com/results

The Vado Speedway Park will be back in action this Saturday, May 8th with our annual Mother’s Day Weekend races. The first 250 moms in attendance will receive a complimentary Mother’s Day carnation from Flowerland of Las Cruces. Pits open at 4pm with the grandstand opening at 5.

For fans not able to attend in person, all events held during the 2021 season at the Vado Speedway Park will also be live streamed online by PayPerView at WatchFYE.tv.

For upcoming schedule information and tickets, visit VadoSpeedwayPark.com.