ABC Crowns Copp, Deragon, Dunbar, Basina, Walker as 2026 Champions
by Nick Gima
Ashland, WI, August 22 – Saturday night’s regular season-ending program at the ABC Raceway saw plenty of drama and excitement, as well as the crowing of its 2026 track points champions.
Mountain Dew Championship Saturday Night, presented by North Star Beverage of Hurley, saw a couple of points battles that were not decided until the closing laps of their respective features, as well as one historic run and a first-time feature winner.
Once the dust settled at the end of the fast-paced WISSOTA Dirt Track Series program, the champions would include Brandon Copp of Brule in the Fast Groove Racewear WISSOTA Modifieds; Matt Deragon of Ashland in the Bulldog Auto Repair WISSOTA Super Stocks; Marcus Dunbar of Marenisco, MI, in the Dalbeck Sales WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds; Shane Basina of Bayfield in the Bill’s Collision Center WISSOTA Pure Stocks; and Roger Walker of Phillips in the Berglund Customs ABC Six-Cylinders.
Copp put a decisive cap on his second career “big Mod” title here – his other coming in 2022 – with his fourth feature win of the season and 18th overall at Ashland. Copp, who nailed down the trophy after winning his heat earlier in the program, battled with polestarter Pat Cook over the first three laps of the non-stop 20-lap A-feature before sweeping around Cook for what turned out to be the winning pass.
Nick Oreskovich, who was Copp’s closest points challenger coming into the night, did not race like he was eliminated from championship contention, working his way around Cook on lap 4 and staying within a half-second of the leader. Justin Weinberger also stayed close to the lead pair, with the trio swapping “slide jobs” on each other a handful of times during the middle stages of the run.
As the leaders began to work through slower traffic, Andrew Mackey reeled them in to become part of the discussion, and Weinberger got by Oreskovich with a couple of laps remaining for second, but Copp held on for a half-second margin of victory. Brady Uotinen got by Cook late to claim fifth.
The battle for the Super Stock title was still up for grabs as their 20-lap feature started, with Deragon holding a slim six-point lead over Shawn McFadden after the heats were completed. But ten-time track champ Steve Stuart of Ashland stole a bit of their spotlight as he posted his third feature win of 2026 here and the 55th of his career at Ashland, moving him into a tie with ABC Raceway Hall of Famer Dick Christman and 14-time track champion Scott Lawrence for fourth-most all-time.
Stuart started on the pole and, after Myron Basina’s spin after the first lap, decided against his preferred high-groove line in favor of a low-line path around the red-clay oval to protect his lead on the black-slick surface. He exercised great patience as Terran Spacek, McFadden and Deragon stayed close behind him in close formation. McFadden moved up a lane on lap 3 to work his way past Spacek, then stayed there to draw alongside Stuart for several laps during the early stages, but Stuart eventually edged ahead to stay.
The lead trio of Stuart, McFadden and Deragon raced nose-to-tail for the uninterrupted balance of the race, with Stuart’s winning margin a mere third of a second. Deragon only lost one point of his championship-winning margin as he claimed his first Super Stock title to go along with his three Pure Stock trophies earned in 2012, ‘14 and ’15. Spacek and Kyle Copp trailed at a distance for fourth and fifth.
Dunbar nailed down his third straight Midwest Mod championship and fifth overall by simply taking the green flag in his heat race, and he finished well ahead of Jimmy Latvala in the final standings.
The feature win saw polestarter James Vendela, fellow front-row starter Paul Suzik, and Paul Ripley battle for the majority of the 20-lap distance, with Vendela, of South Range, eventually scoring a hard-fought win. After a four-car mess in the first turn on the initial start, Vendela and Suzik went at it for the lead for a couple of laps before Ripley joined the mix by getting by Suzik on lap 3.
Vendela couldn’t get far enough away for comfort as Ripley quickly erased the deficit to the leader, and on lap 8 Ripley worked an inside move to take control of the pace. By mid-race the lead pair began putting backmarkers a lap down, while further back Dunbar, who started the run on row 4, moved past David Baxter for fourth and was in the process of getting by Suzik for third when the two made contact and spun, sending Suzik to the back and Dunbar to the pits for repairs.
The pace was delayed again for Bryan Lund’s seriously-injured racer on the next green-flag lap, and over the final six laps Vendela fended off a brief challenge by Baxter and then used an outside move to swing around Ripley to edge ahead with two laps left. Vendela then held on for his third feature win of the season and ninth of his career here.
Ripley trailed by a half-second for runner-up honors, with Baxter holding third ahead of 13th-starting Kolby Reed and fellow Canadian visitor Austin Polonoski.
The most dramatic of the points battles came down to the final lap of the Bill’s Collision Center WISSOTA Pure Stock feature, where Shane Basina saw his lead trimmed to just three points over Dylan Helget going into the 12-lapper. Helget and Basina stayed close to polestarter Tom Treviranus, who grabbed the lead at the drop of the green flag, and to each other; on lap 2 Basina and Helget bumped each other while racing side-by side in turn 4, with Basina slipping back to fourth as Aaron Bernick replaced him behind Helget.
Treviranus pulled away from the three-car dogfight for second and held a .8-second edge when Dnae Rose’s car stopped on lap 8 to bunch the field together for the dash to the finish. Bernick worked his way past Helget on the restart for second, and the running order held pat until the white-flag lap, when Helget pushed too hard in turn 4 in a last-ditch effort to gain positions, spinning directly in front of Basina and the rest of the field.
Treviranus, of Hawthorne, came home with a three-quarter-second margin of victory, his third of the season and fourth of his career here, with Bernick second. Basina followed in third for an eight-point final championship buffer, giving him his fourth championship in as many seasons, after three straight in the Six-Cylinders. Visiting Bob Klein and rookie Alex Larson completed the top five.
The Six-Cylinders’ final feature of the season went to Alex Bond of Iron River, the first ever of his four-year career to go along with his first-ever heat win earlier in the program, while Walker already had staked down his second ABC title after heats had been completed, to go with his 2006 WISSOTA Street Stock championship.
Bond started the 15-lap A-main on the pole and had to fight off an early threat from Basina, who worked to pull alongside Bond and nose ahead on lap 4 by two one-hundredths of a second at the start-finish line. But Bond fought back to retake the lead – by seven one-hundredths of a second – the next time around, and he eventually built an advantage of a full second over the next four laps.
On lap 9 second-in-points Travis Swanson drove outside in an effort to get by the pack of Basina, Cody Eichmann and Walker to take second, but in the process his car broke loose and spun to bring about the race’s only caution stop. On the restart Eichmann moved around Basina for second and pressured Bond over the remaining laps, only to finish a half-second back of the winner. Walker got by Basina with three laps remaining for third, with a recovering Swanson in tow to fourth.
Preparations are now underway for the 51st annual Red Clay Classic powered by Enbridge, to be held Friday and Saturday, October 2-3, at the ABC Raceway. A potential field of over 200 WISSOTA Late Models, Modifieds, Super Stocks and Midwest Mods are expected for one of the region’s most prestigious end-of-season racing invitationals, with an estimated purse in excess of $135,000 on the line.
Advanced tickets, as well as a very limited number of reserved seats and on-site primitive camping sites, are still available for the Classic. Advance ticket packages are currently available online via the My Race Pass website and app, and more information is available by calling Patti at (715) 685-4694.
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, log on to the track’s website, www.abcraceway.com, or check out its FaceBook page.
Results
Top Groove Racewear WISSOTA Modifieds
Feature: 1-10: Brandon Copp, Brule; Justin Weinberger, Menomonie; Nick Oreskovich, Mason; Andrew Mackey, Ashland; Brady Uotinen, Superior; Pat Cook, Washburn; Colin Chaschuk, Thunder Bay, ON; Marcus Dunbar, Marenisco, MI; Jeff Spacek, Phillips; Jake Hiatt, Mason.
11-13: Cole Spacek, Woodruff; Ross Fuhrman, Ashland; Bryan Hessler, Chetek.
Heat 1: Weinberger; Mackey; Cook; Uotinen; C Spacek; Chaschuk; Hessler.
Heat 2: Copp; Oreskovich; J Spacek; Dunbar; Hiatt; Fuhrman.
Bulldog Auto Repair WISSOTA Super Stocks
Feature: 1-10: Steve Stuart, Ashland; Shawn McFadden, Ashland; Matt Deragon, Ashland; Terran Spacek, Phillips; Kyle Copp, Brule; Don Livingston, Washburn; Patrick Beeksma, Ironwood, MI; Trenton Bond, Iron River; Dalton Truchon, Washburn; Jason Melton, Rhinelander.
11-13: Jakob Bond, Marengo; Myron Basina, Bayfield; Rita Anderson, South Range.
Heat 1: Stuart; Copp; Beeksma; Basina; Truchon; J Bond; Anderson.
Heat 2: McFadden; T Bond; Spacek; Deragon; Livingston; Melton.
Dalbeck Sales WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds
Feature: 1-10: James Vendela, South Range; Paul Ripley, Duluth, MN; David Baxter, Eau Claire; Kolby Reed, Thunder Bay, ON; Austin Polonoski, Thunder Bay, ON; Judd Skubal, Rhinelander; Marcus Dunbar, Marenisco, MI; Paul Suzik, Ironwood, MI; Jimmy Latvala, Solon Springs; Jacob Anderson, Superior.
11-14: Ryan Barningham, Bayfield; Glen Brown, Rosslyn, ON; Bryan Lund, Ashland; Connor Kaseno, Marengo.
Heat 1: Suzik; Vendela; Dunbar; Polonoski; Barningham; Lund; Kaseno.
Heat 2: Skubal; Brown; Latvala; Ripley; Baxter; Anderson; Reed.
Bill’s Collision Center WISSOTA Pure Stocks
Feature: 1-8: Tom Treviranus Hawthorne; Aaron Bernick, Duluth, MN; Shane Basina, Bayfield; Bob Klein, Grand Rapids, MN; Alex Larson, South Range; Dnae Rose, Gordon; Anthony Ravina, Duluth, MN; Dylan Helget, South Range.
Heat: Treviranus; Helget; Bernick; Basina; Larson; Rose; Ravina; Klein.
Berglund Customs ABC Six-Cylinders
Feature: 1-8: Alex Bond, Iron River; Cody Eichmann, Park Falls; Roger Walker, Phillips; Travis Swanson, Ashland; Shane Basina, Bayfield; Mathew Rohlfing, Grand View; Cameron Bond, Mason; Kyle Weber, Drummond.
Heat: A Bond; Swanson; Walker; Eichmann; Basina; C Bond; Rohlfing; Weber.
