Garrett Alberson has come a long way in the 11 years since he failed to qualify for a single main event while making his Dirt Late Model debut at the 2010 Keyser Manufacturing Wild West Shootout. But even though the Las Cruces, N.M., native who now races out of Dubuque, Iowa, has returned to the popular winter miniseries each year since that inauspicious start, a victory at the event has always eluded him.

Alberson hopes to change that as he returns to FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway in Queen Creek, Ariz., this year riding the momentum of his career-best season in a Dirt Late Model in 2020 while driving a Black Diamond Chassis for Iowa-based Robert Motorsports. While he’ll pilot a Rocket Chassis owned by Rob Mayea of Bend, Ore., for the second straight year at the Wild West Shootout, Alberson is confident his solid 2020 season will help boost his performance this week at the unsanctioned miniseries that features six races over nine days Jan. 9-17 highlighted by a $25,000-to-win finale.

“I feel like there’s always big expectations when I go out to Arizona just because that’s where I got my start in a Late Model,” said Alberson, whose best Wild West Shootout performances are a pair of fourth-place finishes. “I’ve been fortunate to lead races there before and be pretty competitive and win some heats here and there. But I haven’t been able to put myself in position to breakthrough for a win. Going into it, that’s definitely one of my goals. It’s going to be a tough group of guys, but I think we have a pretty good shot.”

Performing well at the Wild West Shootout has long been important to the 31-year-old Alberson, who has viewed the event as an annual homecoming of sorts ever since he left his native New Mexico in 2014 and moved to Louisiana to chase a career in Dirt Late Model racing.

That move, which allowed Alberson to go to work for chassis builder Ronnie Stuckey and to drive for Haughton, La., car owner Raymond Childress, didn’t prove to be quite the fast track to success that Alberson had envisioned. At the end of the 2017 season, the Childress operation shut down, leaving Alberson without a ride as he went to work as a full-time crew member for Stuckey’s newly-formed Black Diamond house car team and driver Earl Pearson Jr. on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.

Alberson drove one of Stuckey’s cars in limited starts during his time as a crew member, but even with 12 races between the 2018 and 2019 Wild West Shootouts, Alberson only raced a total of 20 times over the two seasons. The lack of seat time was evident in Alberson’s Wild West Shootout performances. While driving for Stuckey at the event in 2019 and for Mayea in 2020, Alberson made every feature, but managed just two top-10 finishes between the two trips.

After returning to full-time driving with Robert Motorsports as a teammate to Jeremiah Hurst in 2020, Alberson will finally head to the Wild West Shootout feeling confident instead of rusty behind the wheel. And he has good reason to be confident after a string of impressive performances last season including his first $10,000 Late Model victory in DIRTcar action at Sycamore Speedway in Maple Park, Ill.

“It was kind of a breakthrough for me on some of the bigger wins,” Alberson said of his 2020 campaign that included a pair of regional victories and a fifth-place finish in the Lucas Oil MLRA points standings. “It was a little rushed together when we first started. We had kind of a steep learning curve with two cars, which the team hadn’t done before, and I hadn’t raced for two years, so I was kind of rusty, but it was a good year as far as our competitiveness and showing people that I can be competitive at different tracks in different areas of the country.

“I think the past few years running up and down the road with Earl with the Black Diamond house car team, I got to learn a lot about the mechanics and just the way a professional race team operates, which was invaluable, but there’s definitely no substitute for being in the seat. I think the first year was really good for me. I got to learn more about the mindset that it takes to be more competitive … but I think that second year was just another year out of the seat. I knew I needed to get back to driving.”

Along with his successful return to the driver’s seat boosting his confidence, Alberson views this year’s Wild West Shootout as particularly inviting for him thanks to a scheduling conflict with the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla. With WoO regulars having won eight of the last 14 Wild West Shootout features, the conflict creates an opening for regional and mid-level racers. Alberson will be among an extended list of drivers aiming to take advantage of that opening.

“With the way the field panned out with the Volusia stuff taking place, it kind of turned it back into more of a regional-type show like back when I first started going to it,” Alberson said. “It almost has a Summer Nationals feel to it with a bunch of Midwest guys going to be there.

“I think that’s why you seen some new names coming out there this year that haven’t been there before. It used to be that you’d have a couple or maybe four national-caliber cars for the week and a bunch of regional guys. It was a pretty good mix, but then the last few years it was getting heavier and heavier on the national cars. That makes it tough to go in there and shine for a guy like me who’s still trying to make your way up.

“I think it’s exciting to have that regional feel where there’s a lot more guys probably have a shot at being in contention and winning races. It’s still really competitive, but it’s kind of more open to more guys this way.”

Alberson should also benefit from a second Wild West Shootout driving for Mayea. When he teamed with the veteran Oregon racer in 2020, the two didn’t spend any time together ahead of the race, leading to some challenges early in the trip. With Alberson traveling to Mayea’s shop in Oregon ahead of this year’s event, the team should be better prepared this time around.

“I’ll have a better idea of what to expect going into this year,” Alberson said. “The good thing about this trip is I’m going to get to go to his shop ahead of time and get to work on the car a little bit. Last year, it wasn’t that it was thrown together — we got to run on the practice night — but we ended up having to remount the seat at the track and just a few other things. Hopefully this time we’ll have that sorted out ahead of time where we can hit the ground running.”

With upwards of 60 Late Models expected to compete at Arizona Speedway this week, Alberson knows winning won’t be easy. But he’s optimistic about his chances of finally breaking through for a fulfilling first Wild West Shootout victory.

“The first goal is to make all the races,” Alberson said. “But yeah, it would be really huge to win one of them. Of course everyone wants to win that ($25,000-to-win) finale for that money, but the Wild West Shootout is where I started racing Late Models. My first time sitting in a Late Model ever was the 2010 Wild West Shootout in an old Bullitt Chassis. It would be special for me to come full circle from where I started to winning a race out there. That’d be really, really special.”