ABC Raceway Set for 56th Season Opener

by Nick Gima

                Ashland, WI, May 26 — The Board of Directors of the Ashland-Bayfield County Racing Association and its all-volunteer staff are ready to kick off the 2020 stock car racing season at the ABC Raceway this coming Saturday night.

                The Northern State Bank of Ashland will present the 56th season opener at the historic three-eighths-mile northwestern Wisconsin red-clay oval on May 30, with 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.

                The start of the season was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, wiping out the first two originally-scheduled shows, but the Raceway’s staff has been busy over the past two months putting together a plan to help racers and fans feel safe and welcome at the venerable speedplant. By incorporating many recommendations and ideas from public health organizations, municipalities and other tracks, Raceway Board president Eric Erickson hopes that the precautionary measures taken will help assure those in attendance at the track this Saturday that the spread of the virus will be minimized as much as possible in the open-air public setting.

                “We hope that fans will see that the ABC Raceway has their health, safety and well-being as its first priority,” Erickson recently said. “We are preparing our facility to be very fan-friendly by implementing a number of safeguards to protect our fans and our track workers from the possible spread of this highly-contagious virus.”

                Fans coming into the ABC Raceway on Saturday will immediately notice many of the changes designed to help minimize possible health hazards. Plexiglass shields have been installed at all service windows where customers would typically make casual contact with track workers, such as at the ticket booths and concession areas.

                Hand-sanitizing stations will be placed throughout the Raceway grounds for fan and track worker use, and the food and beverage concession area accesses will be rearranged to better promote safety through minimal food handling and social distancing. More self-service vending machines will be available at the track for various purchases. There will also be frequent scheduling of the cleaning of commonly-contacted surfaces throughout the Raceway grounds, and Raceway staff will be required to wash their hands frequently during the course of the race program.

                Fans will be encouraged to practice safe distancing while sitting in the grandstands, and race teams will be asked to maintain a minimum of one full parking space between their trailers in the pit area in an effort to help minimize contact.

                For fans wishing to use them, protective masks will be available for purchase at the Raceway.

                In order to minimize the possible transfer of the virus by passing currency, fans are strongly encouraged to go online to www.myracepass.com, enter “ABC Raceway” in the Search box at the top of the web page, and follow the links to purchase advance grandstand tickets for this Saturday’s show. Racers are also asked to purchase their pit passes via the My Race Pass web page so as to help keep the potential for spreading the disease to a minimum.

                In addition to all of that, the ABC Raceway staff still intends to host the best possible stock car racing program in the region. After all, exciting side-by-side dirt-track racing is what the facility is well known for.

                Many interesting storylines should develop as the Summer goes along. Several drivers have moved their programs from one division to another, a couple of popular drivers have hung up their helmets, and a slew of new names will grace the line-up sheets at ABC in 2020.

                In the Modified division, Ashland’s Steve Stuart has sold off his race equipment and will not be competing in 2020, leaving that division’s crown open for the taking. On the other hand, Nick Oreskovich of Mason will be back to defend his fourth straight Super Stock track championship at ABC last summer.

                Midwest Mods should once again bring out the largest numbers of weekly visitors to the Ashland track – all with their sights set on defending champ George Dalbeck of Wakefield, MI. And Trego’s Randy Graham enjoyed a dream season in 2019, becoming the only driver in ABC Raceway history to win points titles in two classes in one season as he ran away with both the Pure Stocks and the Six-Cylinders.

                The entry-level Hornets ran as a regular offering at ABC for the first time in 2019, and Paul George of Princeton, MN, who spent his weekends last summer in the Iron River area, made Raceway history by becoming its first-ever Hornet points champ.

                The pit and grandstand gates will open at 5 pm on Saturday, while hot laps will lead off the on-track action at 6:15 before the 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.

                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.