LAS VEGAS — Aaron Willison led wire-to-wire for the richest payday in pavement open-wheel history Saturday night at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Willison earned $50,000 for winning the Riskon360! Open Wheel Showdown for winged sprint cars at the three-eighths-mile track.
Kody Swanson won the midget feature and Dave Danzer topped the supermodified event.
Willison, from British Colombia basked in his glory.
“We need equipment to go racing and this is going to fund our entire year. I work really hard on my restarts,” he said. “We work really hard on our motor program. We work really hard on getting the thing to take off. There’s a lot of effort that goes into that stuff behind the scenes. You got to have a well-rounded skillset if you think youre going to hold off the best in the country. This was the greatest race car I’ve ever driven today and it’s been a dream season.”
Willison earned pole for the 100-lap contest after claiming Friday’s fast-dash.
The C and B Main events narrowed the 52 sprint cars on the grounds to 26 starters for the feature on the .375-mile oval.
Bryan Gossel spun in turn four for the first caution flag on lap two. The choose cone allowed track-record holder Jason Blonde to drive up alongside Willison on the restart. Willison held the top spot, however. Willison, Blonde and Bobby Santos III broke free of the large pack of sprint cars. Anthony Quintana of Idaho spun in turn four and collected Canadian Jeff Montgomery for the next caution flag, ending both of their evenings on lap seven.
Eighth-starting Ryan Litt challenged Santos for third in lapped traffic but couldn’t complete the pass with a three-wide maneuver. A restart allowed him to later gain the track position for third.
Willison led Blonde, Litt, Santos, and Tacoma, Washington’s Evan Margeson into the lap-50 break for fuel and a fresh right rear tire.
When racing resumed, Mike Hathaway crashed hard into the front stretch wall in an incident which tangled up Audra Sasselli as well.
Blonde back pedaled significantly on the subsequent restart, drifting back to the eighth position. Litt slowed from the third position while Richie Larson and Kyle Alberding crashed in the fourth turn for a caution on lap 69.
Mike Murgoitio also stopped and had to be retrieved. Spins followed on two successive restarts before track workers had an extended stop to clean fluid from turns three and four.
Willison dominated the final 30 laps of the proceedings for the $50,000 pay day with a 4.882-second advantage at the checkered flag.
Santos finished second, followed by 10th-starting Davey Hamilton Jr., Robbie Price and Bryan Warf.
Margeson surrendered a top-five finish with just two laps to go due to mechanical issues and was scored 10th.
Santos earned $20,000 for second while Hamilton was a $10,000 third.
The finish:
Aaron Willison, Bobby Santos III, Davey Hamilton Jr., Robbie Price, Bryan Warf, Eric Humphries, Bryan Gossel, Jason Blonde, Levi Rose, Evan Margeson, Monty Bergener, Richie Larson, Ryan Litt, Mike Murgoitio, Kyle Alberding, Dylan Reynolds, Brad Auman, Mike Hathaway, Audra Sasselli, Tyler Roahrig, Jeff Montgomer, Anthony Quintana, Ryan Burdett, Aaron Pierce, Casey Tillman, Austin Carter.