ABC ‘Mod Mayhem’ to Myers Lawrence wins 50th Ashland feature
on July 22, 2012 at 2:02 AMby Nick Gima
Ashland, WI, July 21 – Curt Myers of Cameron took last week off from racing at the ABC Raceway, costing him his spot in the heat of a tight battle for the track’s WISSOTA modified points lead.
Myers came back with a vengance, however, on Saturday night by running away with the 25-lap “Modified Mayhem” headline feature during AmsOil Dirt Track Series action presented by PetroChoice on another comfortable summer night at the northern Wisconsin speedplant.
Jared Loos started outside on the front row, won the race out of the first pair of turns and set the early pace. Steve Stuart came from the second row to sweep around pole-starter Steve Lavasseur into second on lap 2, and Myers repeated the move to put Lavasseur another spot back a lap later. Myers then dove to the inside groove to get by Stuart.
Stuart’s car stumbled a bit coming off turn 2 on the next circuit, and in the process of recovering he shot across the bow of Lavasseur’s car, causing Lavasseur to spin in front of oncoming traffic and bringing out the race’s only caution flag. On the wide, smooth, racy track the field clicked off the remaining 22 laps in less than 7 minutes.
During the laps following the restart Myers took several peeks to the inside trying to find some room to get by Loos, but the leader fended off the challenges time and again. Behind the lead battle Bill Byholm worked the high side to get around Destin Lorimor for fourth place on lap 5, and Jeff Spacek made his way past Lorimor with an inside move on the next tour around.
Myers thought he might have made the pass for the win on lap 12, when he dove hard to the bottom going into turn 3 and edged ahead, but momentum pushed his racer up the track in turn 4, and Loos returned the favor and retained the lead. But Loos then ran too high trying to come out of turn 2 on the very next lap, and that opened the door for Myers to streak by into the lead.
Myers extended his lead to nearly two full seconds within four laps, and his eventual winning margin was better than 2.78 seconds – nearly a full straightaway – as he caught the backmarkers with the checkers in the air. Loos was a distant second but had a fair cushion of his own on third-finishing Byholm, who had worked his way past Lavasseur for the spot with three laps left. Spacek edged Kevin Eder at the line for fifth but saw his points lead shrink to eight ahead of Loos.
This week it was the WISSOTA super stocks’ turn to run their feature non-stop, and after the 20-lap session Scott Lawrence of Superior had reached a milestone by recording his 50th career feature win in Ashland, moving past former six-cylinder great Jule Wilcox into fifth place on the track’s all-time win list.
Andy Grymala had the early advantage and looked to be able to pull away from the field over the first few laps of the run, while Randy Spacek and Lawrence each took a line on either side of the battle between Willie Johnsen and Myers to take second and third, respectively. Within five laps Grymala had a three-quarter-second lead as Spacek and Lawrence debated second.
On lap 8 Lawrence finally won the argument for position, and within a half-lap he had drawn up to Grymala’s trunklid. On lap 9 he dropped to the bottom groove and completed the pass for the lead, and within two more laps his advantage over second place had grown to better than 1.1 seconds. The dogfight for second, however, began to heat up as Myers and Spacek ganged up on Grymala, with Myers taking the spot with nine laps to go.
Over the remainder of the race Lawrence held strong to a one-second lead on Myers as he headed to the historic win. Lawrence also pulled to within a point of division leader Dave Flynn, who overtook Spacek for third coming under the white flag and gained the one-point edge by that important advance of position. Grymala completed the top five.
George Dalbeck of Ironwood, MI, who had been struggling with engine headaches over the past couple of weeks, put up a strong showing as he ran away with his third feature win of the season. Pole-starter Tyler Luger got the jump on the field twice – once at the initial start and a second time on the restart following Alex Van Natta’s spin during that first attempt.
On that restart Dalbeck followed Luger into second, and on the next circuit he used a high-line pass for the lead. Dalbeck increased his lead to nearly a full second during the next seven laps, before Rick Przybylski’s car slowed to bring about the second caution-flag slowdown of the 15-lap race.
The field ran off another five green-flag laps uninterrupted, during which rookie Cole Spacek moved up into third and points leader Travis Nye bantered with Neil Balduc for fourth. But just as Nye was putting a move on Spacek for second, the pace was slowed again for Ross Fuhrman’s spun ride. Paul Suzik got turned around on the ensuing restart, but from there Dalbeck raced away to a huge 1.5-second advantage at the finish line, while Spacek, Balduc and Nye overtook Luger for second, third and fourth during the last restart.
The best nailbiter of the night came in the six-cylinder A-feature, as Ashland’s Shawn McFadden Jr edged divisional points leader Pat Beeksma by three one-hundredths of a second – about a foot-and-a-half – at the finish line for his first win here in two seasons.
McFadden led right from the get-go and was scored as the leader on all but three of the 15 laps run. He beat Tad Bretting and Don Muzzy out of the first set of turns and sped away to a lead of nearly two seconds, while Beeksma used a split-the-difference move to pass both Bretting and Muzzy for second on lap 3.
Beeksma began to nip away at the buffer between himself and the leader, and by lap 7 he was only a car-length or so back of McFadden. Just then Jonathan Popp spun his racer in turn 4, allowing Beeksma to restart right on McFadden’s rear bumper. McFadden was able to withstand the challenges from the defending track champ for the next three laps, but Beeksma got another chance when the field was slowed again, this time for a spin by Bretting after contact with Dale Coddington while racing for third place.
Beeksma was able to get a run on McFadden off the restart with a strong move down low, and he was scored as the leader on laps 11 and 12, but McFadden’s car reacted well to the momentum it gained off the high line and he was able to push out front by a nose on lap 13. Beeksma made a determined run to the white flag and held a .006-second whisker of an edge at the line, but again McFadden came off the high side of corner 4 for the win the next time around, with the nose of his car just ahead of Beeksma’s. Bretting was not too far back in third, and Tyler Hudack and Muzzy filled out the top five.
The pure stock feature was also a wildly close one, but the end result may not be set in stone until Monday, when track officials rule on a possible techinical infraction found on Jeff Christman’s car after the race. Christman took the lead just before a spin by Joe Wolfe with three laps left and held off the field from there for the apparent win.
Jim Eliason claimed the early lead and was immediately challenged by Steve Udeen and Nick Nye. Christman and Ken Tody Jr joined in to the scramble for second, and things got a bit physical among the front-runners over the first half of the 12-lap race. In fact, as Tody was attempting to edge ahead of Eliason for the lead coming off turn 4, his car turned sharply to the right and he nailed the front-straightaway concrete wall nose-first. He made a quick trip to the work area in the pits and was able to continue.
On the restart Rita Anderson’s car pushed up the hill in turn 3 and she slapped the guardrail, stopping the action again, and a lap after the next restart Dean Waby’s ride stopped after contact with the turn 2 wall. Eliason led for the restart, but Christman used an inside move to take the point. Behind the leaders Tody, who had worked his way from the back of the field into the top five, drove inside on Tom Carbon in a move to take third, and the contact between the two seemed to ripple back to Wolfe, whose car stopped in turn 3 pointed the wrong direction.
In the green-white-checkered dash to the finish Udeen made one last dive to the inside to threaten Christman, but in the end the veteran driver from Superior held firm to the top spot, with Udeen and Eliason in hot pursuit. After a scoring error was corrected, Tody and Matt Deragon were listed as finishing fourth and fifth.
After a lengthy investigation of Christman’s car, track officials deemed it necessary to hold off on making a final ruling on the findings of the post-race inspection until Monday’s Board meeting.
Lawrence also collected a bonus for turning the fastest lap in the super stock A-main (17.463 secs), while Beeksma posted the fast lap time in the sixes (17.318 secs).
During super stock heat race action earlier in the show, Charlie Anderson was caught up in the middle of a five-car skirmish for third when his car got crossed up and he flipped it over onto its roof, coming to rest on the hoods of the cars of Ken Truscott and Greg Kuklinski. Anderson was unhurt in the incident and quickly climbed out under his own power, but the car suffered significant damage.
The Bumper-to-Bumper IRA Outlaw Winged Sprint Car Series will make their second-ever visit to the ABC Raceway this Saturday night, bringing some of the fastest race cars ever to run on the three-eighths-mile red-clay oval into action. The show will be presented by Wagner’s Shell and Arby’s, and will include the annual FastLane Motorsports Super Stock Challenge as well as the Raceway’s six-cylinder class. The mods, Mid-mods and pure stocks will have the night off.
Hot laps will start at 6:15 pm, followed by time trials for the sprints, while racing will follow at 7. “Race Night” will air on WBSZ, 93.3 FM, and online at www.wbszfm.com from 4:30-6 pm with live at-the-track news and weather updates. The ABC Raceway is located 3-1/2 miles south of Ashland on State Highway 13 and one mile west on Butterworth Road. For raceday information call (715) 682-4990, or log on to the track’s website, www.abcraceway.com.
Results
WISSOTA Modifieds
Feature: Curt Myers, Cameron; Jared Loos, Loyal; Bill Byholm, Glidden; Steve Lavasseur, River Falls; Jeff Spacek, Phillips; Kevin Eder, Ashland; Ross Lightner, Washburn; Destin Lorimor, Superior; Al Uotinen, Superior; Scott Hudack, Ashland; David Baxter, Eau Claire; Pat Cook, Washburn; Rick Rivord, Superior; Paul Niznik, Medford; Steve Stuart, Ashland; Brian Mikkonen, Iron River.
Heat 1: Myers; Lightner; Byholm; Lorimor; Hudack; Rivord; Uotinen; Eder.
Heat 2: Stuart; Lavasseur; Niznik; Loos; Cook; Baxter; Spacek; Mikkonen.
WISSOTA Super Stocks
Feature: Scott Lawrence, Superior; Curt Myers, Cameron; Dave Flynn, Superior; Randy Spacek, Phillips; Andy Grymala, Superior; Willie Johnsen, Superior; Nick Oreskovich, Mason; Brian Mikkonen, Iron River; Ken Truscott, Greenland, MI; Greg Kuklinski, Ironwood, MI; Cory Casari, Montreal; DJ Keeler, Superior; Jake Hiatt, River Falls; Ron Hmielewski, Marengo; Dave Elliott, Minocqua.
Heat 1: R Spacek; Lawrence; Oreskovich; Hmielewski; Truscott; Kuklinski; Charlie Anderson, Ironwood, MI; Mikkonen.
Heat 2: Grymala; Myers; Flynn; Johnsen; Casari; Hiatt; Keeler; Elliott.
WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds
Feature: George Dalbeck, Ironwood, MI; Cole Spacek, Phillips; Neil Balduc, Ironwood, MI; Travis Nye, Ashland; Tyler Luger, Iron River; John Kallas, Hurley; Kent Baxter, Colfax; Jesse Aho, Twin Lakes, MI; Rick Przybylski, Ashland; Duane Dunbar, Marenisco, MI; Rob Weber, Ashland; Kevin Monteith, Thunder Bay, ON; Paul Suzik, Ironwood, MI; Chris Bretting, Washburn; Cody Carlson, Superior; Ross Fuhrman, Ashland; Tanner Byholm, Glidden; Andy Nezworski, Buffalo, IA; Alex Van Natta, Minocqua.
Heat 1: Dalbeck; Nye; Balduc; Aho; Dunbar; Suzik; Monteith; Baxter; Weber; Byholm.
Heat 2: Van Natta; Fuhrman; Luger; Nezworski; Kallas; Przybylski; Spacek; Bretting; Carlson; Bill Muhlig, Calumet, MI.
Six-Cylinders
Feature: Shawn McFadden, Jr, Ashland; Pat Beeksma, Ironwood, MI; Tad Bretting, Ashland; Tyler Hudack, Ashland; Don Muzzy, Ironwood, MI; Greg Jaeger, Mellen; Scott Ovaska, Marengo; Bill Anderson, Wakefield, MI; Forrest Schultz, Ashland; Aaron Mashlan, Ashland; Jonathan Popp, Iron River; DeJay Mihalek, Ashland; Zach Pagels, Marengo; Dale Coddington, Hayward.
Heat 1: Coddington; Hudack; Muzzy; Mashlan; Pagels; Mihalek; Schultz; Jim Pelto, Ashland; Jaeger.
Heat 2: Beeksma; Ovaska; McFadden; Bretting; Anderson; Popp; Ron Lillie, Wakefield, MI.
Pure Stocks
Feature (unofficial): Jeff Christman, Superior; Steve Udeen, Superior; Jim Eliason, Ashland; Ken Tody Jr, Ashland; Matt Deragon, Ashland; Brandle Pupp, Ashland; Dean Waby, Ashland; Bob Anderson, Iron River; Tiffany Hudack, Ashland; Tim Carbon, Highbridge; Joe Wolfe, Ironwood, MI; Nick Nye, Ashland; Rita Anderson, South Range.
Heat 1: Nye; Tody; Udeen; Carbon; Waby; Hudack; R Anderson.
Heat 2: Christman; Eliason; Deragon; Wolfe; Pupp; B Anderson.
ABC 7/21/12