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Eder, Bellefeuille, Jensen and Myers make it to the podium to kick off Gondik Law Northern Nationals

By Nick Gima

SUPERIOR, WI (September 5) - Mother Nature cooperated just enough to provide a crisp but rain-free night on Friday for the 37th annual Northern Nationals at Gondik Law Speedway.

A huge crowd braved the cool, windy conditions to watch as 132 entries made for full fields of WISSOTA Late Models, Modifieds, Super Stocks and Midwest Modifieds.

Kevin Eder, Jody Bellefeuille, Curt Myers and Joey Jensen were winners in WISSOTA Dirt Track Series racing.

Eder won the 35-lap Late Model main event for his third Northern Nationals title, with the others coming in 2013 and ’15 in a Modified. He started third, but initially fell behind fourth-starter and 2025 GLS points champ Dave Flynn, as the pair chased front-row starters Sam Mars and Billy Kendall during the first lap. The next time around Eder stormed past Flynn and Kendall to grab second before Mars began building a commanding 1.35-second advantage.

The lead group was well spaced during the first eight laps, with a charging Jeff Massingill overtaking Kendall for fourth on lap six and Ashley Anderson following suit to fifth. Things changed dramatically on lap eight, as the yellow came out for debris in turn four. At that same time Massingill gave up his top-five position to replace his flat right-rear tire in the pits.

After the restart Eder made an inside move to pull alongside of Mars, and over the course of lap nine he took the lead away. Flynn took the same route to get by Mars for second two circuits later, and the lead pair gained some separation from the rest of the field as the race stayed under green until lap 15, when Mike Prochnow’s spin brought everyone together again.

Twelfth-starter Kyle Peterlin restarted fourth and dove low to the inside of Mars and Flynn to take second as the green flag was shown again, and he began a nonstop assault on Eder for the duration of the run. Eleventh-starter Kevin Burdick got by Mars on lap 18 and gradually cut the distance to the lead pair, making it a three-car race by lap 26 as backmarkers became a factor.

Eder held to the track’s lower line and fended off Peterlin’s threats behind backmarkers Prochnow and Darin Meierotto, who were racing side-by-side for position. This forced Peterlin and Burdick to try the higher lane in an effort to get by, and on the white-flag lap Peterlin pulled alongside Eder behind the lappers. Eder stuck to his strategy and beat Peterlin to the checkers by less than a quarter-second.

Burdick came home a close third just ahead of Anderson, who had caught the leaders over the final two laps; the top four came across the line within a second of each other. Mars trailed at a distance in fifth.

Bellefeuille - the 2025 WISSOTA Modified track points champion - grabbed the lead after an early restart and fought hard for his fourth Northern Nationals feature win in that division’s 30-lap headliner.

Bellefeuille started on the outside of the front row and spent the first five laps chasing polesitter Jack Rivord, with Kennedy Swan following Bellefeuille into third. Cody Wolkowski took the spot from Swan on lap four, just before a two-car get-together erased Rivord’s full-second lead.

Bellefeuille used the ensuing restart to take over at the point, as Swan and Kaden Blaeser ended up in the turn two infield, costing them valuable positions before stalling on the track a lap later. Brady Uotinen was the beneficiary of that restart, getting by both Wolkowski and Rivord to move into second, and bringing Nick Oreskovich along in his wake to third.

Bellefeuille quickly ran off to a 1.9-second buffer by lap nine, but the man on the charge was 20th-starer Mike Anderson; he used smart high-side decision making to work his way past Andrew Inman and Wolkowski to take fifth on lap 10.

Oreskovich had just gotten by Uotinen on lap 12 before Curtis Stieh’s spin brought about a yellow-flag slowdown, and Anderson grabbed fourth from Rivord just before Inman’s spin a lap later. Uotinen regained second on that restart and then used a strong inside run to take the lead from Bellefeuille on lap 15.

From seemingly out of nowhere, 22nd-starter Nick Ayotte became an enormous factor, getting by Anderson for third as Oreskovich’s ride failed him and he pulled off the track. Then, after Anderson’s racer stalled on the front straight with seven laps remaining, Bellefeuille and Ayotte ganged up on Uotinen to take first and second on the restart; Uotinen tried to recover with an inside move on Ayotte, but spun to slow the event again.

Fifteenth-starter Brandon Copp was in third for this redo, but Rivord got by him with the green flag back out. Blaeser recovered from his earlier setback to replace Rivord in third on lap 26, just before Rivord spun for another delay.

Bellefeuille had all he could handle with Ayotte for the next three laps, but debris on the track set up a one-lap dash to the finish, in which Bellefeuille drew away to a final .845-second margin of victory.

Ayotte crossed the final stripe in second, but was disqualified after his post-race technical inspection, handing runner-up honors to Blaeser. Stieh made a nice recovery for third, ahead of Wolkowski and 23rd-starting Tanner Williamson. Only nine of the 25 cars on the starting grid made it to the finish.

Myers, in the midst of a hotly contested battle for WISSOTA’s national Super Stock championship, patiently waded through a half-dozen restarts to claim that division’s feature win Friday.

After Jordan Henkemeyer’s spin in turn three on the initial start sent several cars behind him scattering, and caused Danny Young to spin and back onto the turn three wall, polesitter Joey Jensen and front-row mate Rick Simpson battled tooth-and-nail over the first five laps for the lead, with the fifth-starter Myers taking third. A bobble by Simpson on lap five allowed Jensen to break away to a lead of more than a second-and-a-half before debris slowed the proceedings again on lap 10.

Myers got by Simpson on the restart and was pressuring Jensen on the next lap when something broke on Jensen’s car, sending him spinning into the infield off the back straight and nearly rolling over. Myers survived an initial challenge from Simpson on that restart before drawing away to a 1-second lead before Kyle Copp’s stalled ride on lap 16 kicked off a series of yellow-flag stoppages.

A delay for debris on lap 18 was followed by a strong charge forward by Trevor Nelson, who passed Simpson for second a couple of laps prior to a chaotic series of events on lap 22 when sixth-place Terran Spacek slowed up in traffic, top-five-running Matt Deragon caught an infield marker tire and got up on two wheels, and 17th-starting Kolby Kiehl spun - all practically at the same time.

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