Season Continues for ABC Raceway on Saturday

by Nick Gima

                Ashland, WI, June 3 — As bits and pieces of the 2020 stock car racing season schedule continue to fall into place for the ABC Raceway, night number two of the season will be held this coming Saturday night.

                The Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce will present a full night of heat and feature races for WISSOTA-sanctioned Modifieds, Super Stocks, Midwest Modifieds, Pure Stocks and Hornets, and the Raceway’s own ABC Six-Cylinders.

                A huge crowd came out for last Saturday’s season opener here, with fans and some of the 79 racing entries come from as far away as northern and central Minnesota, the Twin Cities area and the Chippewa Valley region to join the Raceway’s traditional contingent from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Twin Ports, Wisconsin’s Price and Taylor Counties, and throughout the Chequamegon Bay area.

                “Our opening night was an unexpectedly huge success,” noted ABC Raceway Board of Directors president Eric Erickson shortly after Saturday’s program was completed. “We were so appreciative of the racers and fans coming from such long distances to visit our track. We certainly hope they will come back as often as possible.

                “And I can’t say enough about our all-volunteer work crew. The hard work and intense planning in the face of the current situation, with the COVID-19 pandemic creating so many obstacles … everyone went above and beyond the call to put together a successful race program.”

                The on-track action was entertaining throughout the evening in all six classes, despite smaller numbers of entries in a couple of the divisions. In the WISSOTA Modifieds, Pat Cook of Washburn took advantage of an anxious Brandon Copp of Brule and held on for the feature win, while Superior’s Dave Flynn started out front and ran away from the field – including no less than defending national champion Kevin Burdick of Proctor – in the WISSOTA Super Stocks A-main.

                Tyler Vernon of Ashland looked strong as he walked away with the WISSOTA Midwest Modified headliner, and DeJay Jarecki, also of Ashland, earned his first career feature win to start his 13th season of racing as he took the checkers in the WISSOTA Hornet main event.

                Despite single-digit car counts in the WISSOTA Pure Stocks and ABC Six-Cylinders, the feature races in each class held some tense moments. In the Sixes, Ashland’s Forrest Schultz gave Randy Graham a sincere threat for the lead after a mid-race restart, but the defending division champ from Trego prevailed for the win. And Jared Akervik held off challenges from both Graham and impressive rookie Tanner Gehl of Solon Springs in order to collect the victory in the Pure Stocks.

                While the highly-modified 2020 schedule is still being finalized, weekly racing action will continue on the historic northern Wisconsin track each Saturday night throughout the month of June, with plans currently in the works to add WISSOTA Late Models to the program on Saturday, June 27. With opportunities rather limited for WISSOTA’s marquee division around the region, the intent is to offer those racers a chance to race on the three-eighths-mile red-clay oval.

                “We hope to draw Late Model drivers who might regularly race at tracks in Menomonie, Proctor, Hibbing and others,” Erickson said. “We’re looking forward to having them at our track, and we hope fans will appreciate the affordable grandstand price ($13) we have set for them.”

                For this Saturday night, the pit and grandstand gates will open at 5 pm; hot laps will kick off the on-track action at 6:15, and green-flag racing gets going at 7 pm. Adult grandstand admission tickets are just $11 per person, either at the gate or online via www.myracepass.com, and kids ages 12 and under are admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult. Ten-race punch passes are also available at the Raceway’s ticket window on race nights. Advance pit passes are also available online.

                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.