With exactly one month between now and the kickoff of the 2007 Wild West Shootout at the Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande, Arizona, I thought I would put together some information from past January events in Arizona. These results include the events known as the Early Thaw Series form 2001-2004 and then the past 2 Wild West Shootout events in ’05 and last year. (Included is the one event held at Manzanita that was a part of the series in 2004)

Modifieds: There have been 13 different feature winners out of the 17 events that have been held. The feature winners include:
•      Oakley, California driver Kellen Chadwick; Springfield, Missouri pilot Terry Phillips; Cave City, Arkansas driver Jeff Taylor and El Paso, Texas driver Curt Barnett each with a pair of wins
•      There have also been 9 drivers to pick a sole win including Dove Creek, Colorado driver Aaron Spangler; Cave City, Arkansas driver Jeremy Payne; Oberlin, Kansas driver David Murray Jr.; Stillwell, Oklahoma driver Eddie Martin; Saledo, Arkansas pilot Richie Tosh; El Paso, Texas driver Christy Georges; along with three drivers from their home state of Arizona: Tucson driver RC Whitwell, along with Phoenix area drivers Jeff Gibson and Jeff Collinsworth.
•      The wins are split up fairly evenly amongst 8 different states with Arkansas showing the way with 4 wins; Arizona and Texas each have three victories; California claims two wins; Missouri also with 2 wins; Colorado has one win; Kansas has one, as does Oklahoma.
•      Terry Phillips leads all drivers with 8 top 10 finishes out of the 12 events he has entered
•      Phillips also leads all drivers with 8 top five finishes in main events.
•      Richie Tosh is the only Modified racer that has a ‘series championship’ to his credit, because 2005 was the only year an official series champion was crowned, although Terry Phillips most likely would have been the champ in 2006 after posting 4 top five finishes out of the 5-nights of action.
•      The highest car count for the 6 year series is 72 on the first two nights in 2005 and the lowest car count was 22 back in the inaugural event in 2001.

The first year (2001) the Mod part of the show was actually only a $600 to win event leading up to a $2,000 to win Mod show at CAR in Feb, but the $600 to win show, which was held with the Lates at the 1st ETS show counts because it was part of the show (in my book anyway), but the reason the car count was so small is because it was just $600 to win.