For drivers in the western half of the United States, the annual Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout provides unheralded racers a chance to shine against some of Dirt Late Model racing’s best national touring competitors from back east.

• Everything You Need To Know About The 2025 Wild West Shootout
  
• 2025 Wild West Shootout Results At Vado Speedway Park, Jan. 5
• Subscribe To Watch 2025 Wild West Shootout Live On FloRacing

Drivers from Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona and California have grabbed rare victories on the Southwestern miniseries action over the last 25 years. Missing from that list of states? Oregon, which has seven drivers competing in this year’s Wild West Shootout at Vado Speedway Park. | Complete WWS coverage

While the state is winless on the miniseries, this year’s Oregon contingent has shown flashes of success in the opening two nights, notably when Collen Winebarger of Corbett, Ore., launched from his front-row starting spot to lead the first 21 laps of the 40-lap feature over eventual winner Bobby Pierce, runner-up Brandon Sheppard, Tyler Erb and other standout touring racers.

It’s a signal of an upsurge of Oregon success spurred by the revival of the Coors Light I-5 Silver Bullet Series, which was dormant from 2012-22 but this weekend announced its third schedule since returning. | I-5 Series history

Justin Duty of Molalla, Ore., who along with his father John have been among Oregon’s best Dirt Late Model racers since 2000, is grateful the racing at Vado gives drivers from the Pacific Northwest a chance to shine.

“I think it's definitely an opportunity, and that's why I think this event is so important to people from the West Coast is because it’s really their only opportunity to get on a national scene as far as television or whatever and race against really good cars, and I truly believe we have some really good race car drivers in Oregon, Washington, even California,” said Duty, who instead of racing is assisting fellow Oregonian Bricen James as a crew member this January. "Oregon is probably the biggest West Coast state as far as interest for Late Model racing today.”

With the Wild West Shootout streaming on FloRacing during downtime for racing in the rest of the country, "it gives our guys from home a chance to showcase what they can do. And like I said, I think a lot of them are really good and this is a good experience for them to give themselves a platform.”

Oregon’s Late Model community has largely revolved around Lebanon’s Willamette Speedway, a longstanding track that for years was popular for allowing outlaw-style bodies, forcing the fastest cars to start on the tail and drawing scores of Late Models for weekly events. The division’s popularity waned into the 2000s, but there’s still a solid group of Late Model drivers competing, Duty said, including the drivers at Vado.

Oregon drivers, typically a handful or so, tend to attend each January's Southwestern miniseries action (from 2001-25 labeled the Early Thaw, Winter Xtreme as well as the Wild West Shootout), but only six times have Oregon drivers cracked the top five in a feature event. Rob Mayea of Bend, Ore., tallied a third-place finish in Tucson, Ariz., in 2006, while Lebanon’s Casey Vitale was third in 2007 at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande, Ariz.

Trevor Glaser of Tangent, Ore., carried the Oregon banner highest for a stretch, including in 2008 when he posted third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishes over five races at Casa Grande. But Glaser’s performance marked Oregon’s last top-five finish in the miniseries until Preston Luckman of Coos Bay was fifth in a Vado feature last winter. Between 2014-2023, Oregon tended to have fewer entrants, and an Oregon driver cracked the top 10 just once — Justin Duty in 2018 at Arizona Speedway in Queen Creek, Ariz.

But things are on the upswing with Oregon putting as many as four drivers into feature lineups twice in 2024. In the first two races of 2025, there have been five Oregon-based starters (Winebarger and Whisler two starts apiece and one for Bricen James of Albany, the two-time I-5 Series champ).

Winebarger’s dazzling, high-flying run Sunday saw him fade to 11th after overheating his tires, but he made an impression for the Oregon camp that’s largely pitted together at Vado.

“An awesome day from start to finish. Not an awesome result, but an awesome day,” Winebarger said. “The car was a little like snug, but across the board every time it's hit the racetrack, it's had pretty good speed, so I'm stoked about that part.”

The full-blown Super Late Model Wild West Shootout is an adjustment because Late Model teams in Oregon primarily utilize Chevrolet’s CT 525 engines instead of open-competition motors, and typically bolt on harder tires instead of softer rubber allowed at Vado.

“They are making the only laps they get with an open motor all year long,” Duty said.

Winebarger added that "we come down here and run big old open motors and stand on it. It’s so different than anything we do (and the) soft tires. I kind of feel like all our notes at home don't help one bit, but it’s fun to come down here and give it a whirl.

“Everything's kind of got to fall your way. You got to be able to qualify good and you got a heat race like every night. You gotta start from the very start because all these guys, they're so good like they just don't miss and we're just kind of trying to figure out what we're doing. So it's cool when things kind of hit and we get to have a little success.”

Whisler, whose father Jimmy has been a longtime Wild West Shootout competitor, is giving up his seat for the remaining four races of the Wild West Shootout to his brother Ian because he’s returning to his business administration studies at Oregon State University. But to make two starting fields in Super Late Model action was fun for the driver who primarily focuses on modified racing in Oregon.

"I mean normally (the Oregon drivers) don't even end up parking next to each other, so this year we made sure to park next to each other and we're all pretty good friends and work together,” Eston Whisler said. “Everyone's friends and family, so it's fun.”

While he had just a handful of Late Model starts in 2024, “you come down here and kind of you can base off where you're at compared to all these guys, so I mean so far it's been good,” said Whisler, who finished second behind Winebarger in a Sunday heat race for a 1-2 Oregon finish in the prelim.

Duty in recent seasons has spent most of his racing time in the Midwest, running with the former Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association and now the MARS Championship Series (he skipped Vado’s action to make sure his equipment is fresh for another MARS run). Swiss native Thomas Hunziker of Bend, Ore., has been a regular on the Midwest’s DIRTcar Summer Nationals the last several seasons. But for Winebarger, the Whislers, James and Preston Luckman, the Wild West Shootout ranks along with the I-5 Series in importance.

“I think we all want to see each other succeed and make the Northwest look good. If one of us or all of us or both of us run good, then it’s like we're trying to catch up, right?” said Winebarger, who won a tour-leading six I-5 Series races in 2024. “Late Model racing, there was a stint there where it was dead, right? And that's why, that's why the Dutys had to take off and go do other stuff, right? There wasn't even any options to partake in.

“Now, it’s like we're starting to get some races and we're starting, we got some guys that are buying cars, awesome car owners (the Schram Bros.) like for Brice and I to give us opportunities, things like that are clicking, and the technology is getting more readily available. For a long time, I feel like we've been so far behind, years — and now the world's getting smaller with the internet and communication, just everything, now we can kind of get some of that information.”

While Justin Duty’s summer focus is away from home, he’s glad to see the Late Model division remain active in Oregon.

"I really wish there could be a little bit more involved in that because in Oregon as a whole — I mean it doesn't sound like much over multiple states in the Midwest — but we probably have 35 to 40 Late Models in the state on any given night that race between two or three different racetracks,” Duty said. “And so if you could get all those guys to show up in one place, I mean that's a promoter's dream, right? But if you could get them all to show up, there's a lot of really good competition. The key for those guys is just if we can continue to run that series, that I-5 deal, and continue to build interest in it and get people involved, you'll get more people to come Late Model racing.

“I mean, I was a kid, but 20 years ago there was a D-main at Willamette Speedway on a Saturday night for Super Late Models, you know what I'm saying? So it's there, the interest is there. Everybody's got to work together to continue to build it.”