5-27 Page 3 | ATD Racing News

At ABC Raceway’s 61st season opener, Weinberger, Stuart, Ripley and Crosby crank out feature wins

By Nick Gima

ASHLAND, WI (May 24) - A crowd of hearty fans were on hand at ABC Raceway for the start of the 61st season of stock car racing Saturday, May 24.

The season-opening five-division program included a special Military Appreciation Night salute to those serving and who have served in our Nation’s Armed Forces, and WISSOTA Dirt Track Series winners included Justin Weinberger, Steve Stuart, Paul Ripley and Eric Crosby.

Weinberger scored his first-ever feature win at Ashland in the WISSOTA Modifieds Saturday night. It was the ninth win of his career overall at the historic northern Wisconsin oval and his first since July 2020.

Weinberger started on the pole and led every one of the 20 nonstop feature laps. He built a healthy advantage early in the run, extending his lead to as much as 1.1 seconds just three laps in, while fifth-starter Nick Oreskovich needed that many laps just to weave his way to second.

Once in the runner-up spot, however, Oreskovich whittled away at Weinberger’s cushion, as Oreskovich also drew away from the third-place battle between Cody Carlson and Pat Cook. Just past the halfway point Oreskovich was within .75 seconds of the leader, and in the closing laps Weinberger was not much more than a quarter-second ahead. Oreskovich poked the nose of his racer to the inside on Weinberger going through turn four as the leaders came to the white flag, but Weinberger maintained a sufficient margin over that final lap for the landmark win.

Tyler Vernon edged past Carlson on the final lap for third-place money, and Cook cruised to a comfortable fifth.

Steve Stuart scored his 49th-career victory Saturday - tying him for sixth on the track’s all-time win list, following the WISSOTA Super Stock feature.

Outside front-row starter Jakob Bond slid high through turn two on the initial start, allowing Stuart to follow polestarter Matt Deragon into second, with Andy Grymala claiming third. Stuart had an early opportunity at the lead on lap four as he moved to a higher lane and got a run on Deragon, but Bond and Myron Basina connected to bring about the first of three caution stoppages.

Stuart continued to work the outside line for the next couple of laps after the restart until a strong drive out of turn four on lap five earned him the spot. A five-car mess a lap later slowed the pace, followed by a two-car get-together on the ensuing restart, but Stuart used his preferred high-line route to hold off Deragon during the middle stages of the race.

On lap nine Deragon tried a low-lane challenge for the lead, and although Stuart held him off, he also dropped down to that lower line to protect his lead and foil any further attempts to pass by Deragon. This gave Terran Spacek unhindered use of the upper lanes to gain significant ground on the lead pair over the latter half of the run. Spacek got by Deragon on lap 13 and then trimmed Stuart’s .775-second margin down to less than three-tenths of a second with two tours remaining, but Stuart withstood the threat for the win.

Deragon kept third, with an impressive run by Super Stock rookie Dalton Truchon earning him a fourth-place finish ahead of Shawn McFadden.

Paul Ripley put together the most dominant feature performance of the night, besting David Simpson by nearly three full seconds to win the WISSOTA Midwest Modified feature.

After a spin by Matt Jacobson in turn one during the initial start of the race, the 20 laps were run without further interruption. Ripley grabbed the lead right away from the pole ahead of Simpson and defending Midwest Mod champ Marcus Dunbar, with Paul Suzik getting by Ryan Barningham for fourth.

Ripley put on a clinic, taking just seven laps to build a lead of more than two seconds, and he led Simpson by 2.5 seconds when he put backmarker Jonny Nowak a lap down during the 11th circuit. Ripley worked skillfully through the slower traffic over the final six laps, while Simpson and Tyler Vernon seemed to struggle to sift their way through.

With a winning margin of 2.984 seconds, Ripley scored his second-career win at ABC, with the other coming during the Memorial Day weekend show in 2023. Simpson held off Vernon for second, Dunbar finished a distant fourth, and Tanner Hicks faded early but fought his way back to finish fifth.

Defending national and ABC WISSOTA Pure Stock champion Eric Crosby made it very clear - both on the track and in victory lane - that he has every intention of defending both titles in 2025. He withstood several challenges after a late-race restart to take Saturday’s 12-lap feature win.

A last-minute shuffle in the starting lineup put visiting George Richards on the outside of the second row - with Crosby to his left - and he shot past the front-row pair of Zene Anderson and rookie Dylan Helget into the initial lead. Soon thereafter Crosby duplicated Richards’ move into second, then worked his way to the inside on Richards on lap three to take over the pacesetting duties.

Farther back Aaron Bernick and Shane Basina were temporarily mired in traffic before finally working past Anderson on lap four. Bernick and Basina needed a break to eliminate the huge margin that the lead pair had established, and they got it when a two-car tangle on lap seven erased the big deficit.

Crosby had a few car-lengths on Richards when that caution came out, but he was unable to re-establish that advantage. Nevertheless, Crosby held on to win his third-career ABC Raceway feature by four-tenths of a second. Richards had all he could do to fight off Bernick’s challenges for second, while Basina faded back a bit but still maintained fourth, well ahead of fifth-finishing Jason Simonson.

Basina, the two-time defending Six-Cylinder champ, had a much better result in that division’s feature, although it still was not a cakewalk. Basina started in row four - seventh out of the ten scheduled starters - and had to survive a late restart and threats from Roger Walker throughout the 15-lap run for his 11th feature win of his career.

SUMMARY

WISSOTA Modifieds:

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 11-Justin Weinberger[1]; 2. 21-Nick Oreskovich[5]; 3. 40JR-Tyler Vernon[6]; 4. 32III-Cody Carlson[2]; 5. 32-Pat Cook[7]; 6. 7XJR-Marcus Dunbar[10]; 7. 3H-Jake Hiatt[9]; 8. 22S-Cole Spacek[4]; 9. 9-Brady Uotinen[8]; 10. 7-Andrew Mackey[11]; 11. 74-Shaun Kreyer[12]; 12. 22-Jeff Spacek[3]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 22S-Cole Spacek[4]; 2. 32III-Cody Carlson[6]; 3. 9-Brady Uotinen[2]; 4. 22-Jeff Spacek[1]; 5. 3H-Jake Hiatt[5]; 6. (DNS) 74-Shaun Kreyer

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 32-Pat Cook[1]; 2. 40JR-Tyler Vernon[3]; 3. 11-Justin Weinberger[6]; 4. 21-Nick Oreskovich[2]; 5. 7XJR-Marcus Dunbar[5]; 6. 7-Andrew Mackey[4]

WISSOTA Super Stocks:

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 80-Steve Stuart[3]; 2. 22T-Terran Spacek[7]; 3. 27-Matt Deragon[1]; 4. 62-Dalton Truchon[5]; 5. 51JR-Shawn McFadden[6]; 6. 24-Andy Grymala[4]; 7. 21-Patrick Beeksma[8]; 8. 7B-Jason Melton[14]; 9. 77-Jake Nevala[10]; 10. 42-Myron Basina[11]; 11. 82-Paul Gucinski[9]; 12. (DNF) 44-Trenton Bond[12]; 13. (DNF) 11R-Rita Anderson[13]; 14. (DNF) 9-Jakob Bond[2]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 9-Jakob Bond[1]; 2. 21-Patrick Beeksma[4]; 3. 62-Dalton Truchon[6]; 4. 24-Andy Grymala[7]; 5. 82-Paul Gucinski[2]; 6. 42-Myron Basina[3]; 7. 11R-Rita Anderson[5]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 80-Steve Stuart[1]; 2. 22T-Terran Spacek[2]; 3. 51JR-Shawn McFadden[3]; 4. 27-Matt Deragon[6]; 5. 77-Jake Nevala[4]; 6. 44-Trenton Bond[5]; 7. 7B-Jason Melton[7]

WISSOTA Midwest Mods:

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 28-Paul Ripley[1]; 2. 70-David Simpson[3]; 3. 41-Tyler Vernon[7]; 4. 7X-Marcus Dunbar[4]; 5. T17-Tanner Hicks[6]; 6. 91-Paul Suzik[5]; 7. 15-James Vendela[8]; 8. 23DD-George Dalbeck[10]; 9. 21+7-Ryan Barningham[2]; 10. 47-Tad Schoonover[9]; 11. 20-Judd Skubal[13]; 12. 8-Jonny Nowak[12]; 13. 22B-Matt Jacobson[11]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 41-Tyler Vernon[3]; 2. 7X-Marcus Dunbar[2]; 3. 15-James Vendela[7]; 4. 21+7-Ryan Barningham[1]; 5. 47-Tad Schoonover[4]; 6. 22B-Matt Jacobson[5]; 7. 20-Judd Skubal[6]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 70-David Simpson[3]; 2. 91-Paul Suzik[2]; 3. 28-Paul Ripley[1]; 4. T17-Tanner Hicks[6]; 5. 23DD-George Dalbeck[4]; 6. 8-Jonny Nowak[5]

WISSOTA Pure Stocks:

A Feature 1 (10 Laps): 1. 28-Eric Crosby[4]; 2. 5R-George Richards[5]; 3. 17-Aaron Bernick[6]; 4. 69ER-Shane Basina[8]; 5. 33S-Jason Simonson[7]; 6. 5M-Michael Pederson[2]; 7. 5Z-Zene Anderson[1]; 8. 24-Dylan Helget[3]; 9. 15-Ryan LaBorde[10]; 10. 6A-Keith Arnett[9]

Heat 1 (6 Laps): 1. 28-Eric Crosby[1]; 2. 5R-George Richards[3]; 3. 5Z-Zene Anderson[5]; 4. 24-Dylan Helget[2]; 5. 6A-Keith Arnett[4]

Heat 2 (6 Laps): 1. 17-Aaron Bernick[4]; 2. 69ER-Shane Basina[3]; 3. 33S-Jason Simonson[2]; 4. 5M-Michael Pederson[1]; 5. (DNF) 15-Ryan LaBorde[5]

6-Cylinders:

A Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 69ER-Shane Basina[7]; 2. 5-Roger Walker[2]; 3. 23-Mathew Rohlfing[1]; 4. 73-Dale Coddington[6]; 5. 42-Cameron Bond[11]; 6. 43-Jim Anderson[4]; 7. 23G-Tyler Gervais[9]; 8. (DNF) 92-Cody Eichmann[8]; 9. (DNF) 97-Alex Bond[3]; 10. (DNF) 41-Mady Anderson[5]; 11. (DNS) 28-Travis Swanson

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 92-Cody Eichmann[3]; 2. 5-Roger Walker[6]; 3. 73-Dale Coddington[5]; 4. 43-Jim Anderson[1]; 5. 23G-Tyler Gervais[4]; 6. (DNF) 42-Cameron Bond[2]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 69ER-Shane Basina[5]; 2. 23-Mathew Rohlfing[4]; 3. 97-Alex Bond[3]; 4. 41-Mady Anderson[1]; 5. (DNF) 28-Travis Swanson[2]