Each winner at the Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout celebrate at Vado Speedway Park donning a cowboy hat and firing the traditional six-shooters in victory lane at the six-race miniseries. But don’t be surprised if the winners of the opener and finale are smiling a little wider.

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Event promoters for 2025 replaced the traditional multiple-victory bonus with the Penske Racing Shocks 25-To-25 presented by Schaeffer Oil, creating the overall richest purses in Wild West Shootout history with $25,000-to-win events bookending four $10,000-to-win races for the Super Late Model division.

While drivers will face the same competition at the same track each night during the winter event, some may have their eyes focused a little more on the richer paydays.

“I get more riled up about a $25,000 than I do a $10,000 every time,” Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., said Saturday afternoon before the opening event.

Marlar, who has victories at Vado’s 3/8-mile oval in 2022 and ’23, won’t turn down a lower payday, but he keeps tabs how much he’s racing for.

"I'm old enough I've realized we're not gonna take this money with us and it's more about accomplishments than anything else really, but definitely you get wound up. I get way more motivated,” he said. “The bigger payday gets me more excited for sure. I'm up out of bed a little earlier when it pays more, I’ll tell you that.”

Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., a two-time winner at Vado in 2022 making his first start in the latest Rocket Chassis iteration, loves to win big races but doesn’t get too caught up in focusing one on event more than another at Vado.

“For me, it’s just another race honestly. We used to come out here and race for $5,000 every night, so we're just thankful that (promoter Chris) Kearns and (track owner) Royal (Jones) and everybody stepped up and let us race for good paychecks every night,” Sheppard said.

“At the end of the day, I can't say that I approach a bigger paying race any different than any race just because like I said, we're all competitors and we want to win them all. I'm approaching this one the same as the rest of them.”

Garrett Alberson of nearby Las Cruces, N.M., the driver for Illinois-based Roberts Motorsports, tries not to ramp up the pressure created by a potentially bigger payday. His mantra: do your best every race.

"I think for me, I pretty much try to race the night every night like it’s the same night. I think when you approach it differently, that extra pressure probably doesn't do you a whole lot of good — or at least it doesn't mean anyways. So yeah, I just pretty much try to do the best I can every night, every lap, and just get what we get,” he saiid. "I think that's part of what it takes to kind of deal with the pressure of the whole being-the-driver thing. At least it's probably a good practice anyways just to just make all the days the same.”

Alberson’s wife Dani helps him when pressure starts to build in the high-profile world of Dirt Late Model racing.

“There's a lot of pressure when you when you're in this deal,” said Alberson, a 2022 winner at Vado. “It’s a lot of money, a lot of people's time and investment and stuff, and when I struggle with it, that's one thing that I love about my wife is she's got a good way with words, and when she sees that I'm struggling with the pressure of something, she just says that ‘Our job is the same every day. Go and make the best laps we can.’ So it doesn't matter if it's the World 100 or the Wild West Shootout, you’ve just got to go do your best. And it seems like that's what it takes to run up front anyways.”

Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, has made 18 Wild West Shootout starts at Vado with a 2022 victory to his credit. He doesn’t get hung up on the numbers on a paycheck, but he knows what a successful week at Vado would look like.

"So you wanna win the first and last night for sure, and then anything else is a bonus,” Erb said with a smile. “That’s your bonus. You win the first night, you win the last night, and if you win anything in the middle of the week, it's just a bonus.”

More seriously, Erb said he doesn’t get hung up on “the money aspect,” although he admitted to making sure his car felt just right in Friday’s practice heading into the $25,000-to-win opener. Mostly the driver of the Ohio-based Best Performance Motorsports team just likes outrunning the competition.

“That’s what’s crazy, I don't look at racing like, man, I need to race because I need to make $30,000 tonight. I race because I really want to win and that gives me the same satisfaction,” Erb said. “And when you win bigger races, obviously you're like, ‘Hell yeah, I made more money,' but that's not how I look at racing. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but I’m just like, I don't wanna lose ever.”

Sheppard offers similar thoughts in the purse differences from event to event.

"Obviously there's more on the line, so we want to win it, but at the end of the day, we're out here competing and we're just trying to make the most out of each night and just run up front and try to make a little bit of money before we go home,” he said. "Every race we enter, our goal is to win. It's just one of them deals, we're putting the maximum amount of effort in every night. Definitely some of them feel better than others, but out here, if you can win one or two, it's a good week. So that's the goal just to win a couple of them and just have a good solid week. These are new cars to me and I'm trying to start my year off solid before we go to Speedweeks.”

If Marlar is fortunate enough to win, he’d prefer the $25,000 over $10,000, but he won’t quibble with a checkered flag.

"It's pretty cool that they bookended it the way they have” with $25,000-to-win events, Marlar said. "It's kind of a unique deal. But at the same time it takes a lot of money to get these teams up and down the road, so if I ain't the guy that wins today and somebody else says I'm happy for him because everybody here needs that.

"I've learned I can't force results. I just have to prepare and hope (to win). When you're prepared, that's when the luck always meets the opportunity, right? And so I feel like I need to do my part and then hopefully everything else goes the way I need it to go.”