Ashland, WI — What promises to be an exciting and historic stock car racing season is scheduled to begin this Saturday night at the ABC Raceway.
The summer of 2014 will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ashland-Bayfield County Racing Association, which began as a small group of intrepid, hard-working enthusiasts who organized auto racing events in the Chequamegon Bay area.
The club hosted regular racing programs on Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the summers of 1965 and ‘66 at the Ashland County Fairgrounds in Marengo and the Bayfield County Fairgrounds in Iron River, while at the same time renovating a site just south of Ashland that it purchased from the Frank and Verna Brevak family in order to create its own permanent race facility. The Association – made up entirely of local folks volunteering their time, efforts and, in some cases, money – along with generous help from several local businesses, finally hosted its first race event at the current ABC Raceway location in the summer of 1967.
Fifty years later, the Association has hosted over 650 race events, and it has established what is widely considered one of the premiere and most prestigious stock car race programs in the Midwest – the Red Clay Classic – which it has run at the end of each of the past 38 summers. The club has become one of the more successful and respected organizations in the sport, as evidenced by being named the WISSOTA Promoters Association Track of the Year in 2002, and being the recipient of the North Region Auto Racing Promoter of the Year award by national trade publication Racing Promotion Monthly after the 2012 season.
And the one aspect of the organization that still holds true 50 years later is that of the volunteer efforts of the track workers and members of the club. “We get forty to fifty people out here every Saturday night who truly donate their time to help us put on our race programs in a huge variety of ways,” Association president Kurt Beeksma proudly states, “and the majority of those people donate dozens of hours during the week with clean-up and preparation work as well.
“Every penny we’ve ever taken in here has either gone to our drivers’ purses, to pay our operating expenses, or into improvements within the facility. We’ve never paid out a paycheck to any worker – ever – in 50 years of this organization’s existence.”
The Association will celebrate its 50-year run with a schedule chock full of events geared to honor its proud history, starting Saturday night with the announcement of its first-ever class of inductees into its new ABC Raceway Hall of Fame. The announcement will be part of the first of 14 race programs slated between now and August 23, along with the 39th Red Clay Classic in September.
The Hall of Fame, which many within the Association admit is long overdue, has been established to pay tribute to the many men and women who contributed to the creation, operation and success of the Raceway. Through fan nominations and a selection committee, additional inductees will be added during each upcoming season.
The opener, to be presented by new track sponsor Auto Value Auto Parts of Ashland, will include all five divisions featured at ABC on a weekly basis – WISSOTA-sanctioned Modifieds, Super Stocks and Midwest Modifieds, plus the track’s own Six-Cylinder and entry-level Pure Stock classes – on its three-eighths-mile red-clay oval.
The racing itself figures to be well worth the price of admission again this summer, with each of the division championships becoming very hotly contested over the course of the entire season. Superior’s Al Uotinen was the model of consistency during his 2013 Modified campaign at Ashland, finishing in the top six in eight of the nine feature races run to earn his fifth ABC points title.
In 2014 Uotinen expects to be challenged by young guns Kevin Eder and Steve Stuart, both of Ashland, and Neil Balduc of Bessemer, MI, as well as seasoned veterans Curt Myers of Cameron, Jeff Spacek of Phillips and Bill Byholm of Glidden.
In the Super Stock class, the bar has been set pretty high by Scott Lawrence of Superior, who has won ten straight titles in the division and 13 championships overall at Ashland; both are track records. But Lawrence knows that the field at ABC is one of the best around, and he admits he has to be on his game every night out.
Those who hope to end Lawrence’s streak include veterans like Myers, who is off to a white-hot start already this Spring; Randy Spacek of Phillips, and Ken Truscott of Greenland, MI, as well as an eager group of younger drivers led by Shawn McFadden Jr of Ashland, Mason’s Nick Oreskovich and Cory Casari of Montreal.
With two-time defending champ Travis Nye of Ashland moving up to compete in the “big Mod” class, the Midwest Mod chase could be very much up for grabs. Young hotshoes like Cole Spacek of Phillips, Paul Suzik of Ironwood, MI, and Ryan Adamzak of Ashland are very capable of staying out front, but cagy veterans like Duane Dunbar of Marenisco, MI, Paul Niznik of Medford and John Kallas of Hurley are also championship-caliber.
Dale Coddington of Hayward is expected back to defend his Six-Cylinder title of a year ago, but, as has been the case for several years, he will have his hands full in one of the most competitive divisions at the track. Last year Tyler Hudack of Ashland challenged for the crown right up to the final race of the summer, and Tiffany Hudack of Ashland impressed many with her ability to race “with the boys.” Marengo’s Scott Ovaska and Ron Hmielewski are long-time veterans of the Six-Cylinder wars, but with several drivers from this division moving into other classes, this might be the year for an up-and-coming star to emerge.
Ashland’s Nick Nye won a very popular Pure Stock championship at ABC in 2013, making him and son Travis the only father-son duo to win titles in the same season at the track in its history, and giving Nick his first championship since 1982. The senior Nye has stated that he is retired from racing, leaving the door open for several solid contenders to grab the division’s crown.
Among the Pure Stock drivers to watch for in 2014 are Tim Carbon of Highbridge, Ashland’s Matt Deragon, Jeff Christman of South Range, and young Terran Spacek of Phillips. And like in the Sixes, this class will also field a fair share of newcomers.
Also on Saturday, the Auto Value Auto Parts store will host a car show in its parking lot on Sanborn Avenue in Ashland’s West End from 10 am-2 pm; the public is invited to attend.
At the track the grandstand and pit gates will open at 5 pm, hot laps will follow at 6:15, and the first green flag of the season is set to drop at around 7 pm. Admission tickets for adults (ages 13 & older) are only $10, while fans ages 12 and under are welcome for free when accompanied by a paying adult. An adult-ticket “punch pass” is also available for only $90, offering admission to ten regular-season shows (excluding the IRA Sprint Car special and Red Clay Classic) for the price of nine.
Prior to Saturday’s race program, “Race Night” will provide up-to-date track news and weather information live on WBSZ, 93.3 FM, and online at www.wbszfm.com, from 4:30-6 pm. 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.