{"id":7162,"date":"2026-08-10T11:35:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/?p=7162"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:35:32","slug":"peterson-tops-winged-sprints-spacek-copp-return-to-abcs-victory-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/peterson-tops-winged-sprints-spacek-copp-return-to-abcs-victory-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Peterson Tops Winged Sprints; Spacek, Copp Return to ABC\u2019s Victory Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peterson Tops Winged Sprints; Spacek, Copp Return to ABC\u2019s Victory Lane<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Nick Gima<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ashland, WI, August 8 <\/strong>\u2013 Saturday night\u2019s WISSOTA Dirt Track Series program at the ABC Raceway offered up a little bit of everything \u2013 close finishes, long-absent winners, surprise repeat winners, and even winged sprint cars, just for good measure.<\/p>\n

The six-division race program, presented by the Bad River Lodge, Casino & Convention Center of Odanah, included 83 entries. The winged sprints were initially scheduled as part of the night\u2019s program before that group\u2019s organizing body disbanded earlier this week, but conversations between many of the group\u2019s drivers and the Raceway\u2019s Board during the week resulted in an invitation for those drivers to race at Ashland\u2019s historic track on Saturday, and an impressive showing of 16 winged sprints accepted the offer.<\/p>\n

Brett Peterson of Amery led the sprint car field to the green flag and, although challenged frequently, led every one of the 20 laps for his first-ever feature win at ABC. The run was interrupted often by both yellow- and red-flag stoppages, but Peterson maintained his composure and the pace.<\/p>\n

Outside-front-row starter Owen Carlson ran alongside Peterson on the opening lap, which ended with a Carl Wade spin. Carlson did get the better of Peterson immediately after the restart, but his pass was negated by a nasty rollover by Cole Stella, and Ken Hron got a good run past Carlson to take second on the subsequent re-do.<\/p>\n

Hron pressured Peterson for the next five laps until Jamey Ogston\u2019s car stalled on the back straight, after which Carlson took back the runner-up spot. On lap 6 Patrick Heikkinen, who started 12th<\/sup>, used a strong inside move to take fourth from Jack Berger just before Edison Aldrich\u2019s spin stopped the action again. Heikkinen then worked the low side to steal second from Carlson and began to threaten Peterson, but he bumped an infield marker tire on lap 12, which caused damage to his car, ending his run in heartbreaking fashion.<\/p>\n

This left Peterson ahead of Berger by over a second-and-a-half, but that gap was erased when Jackson Geragi spun with six laps left. Carlson grabbed second away from Berger two laps after that restart and closed on Peterson quickly, but Peterson held on to win by a mere tenth of a second. Berger was a few lengths back in third, followed by Hron and Ashley Williams.<\/p>\n

Cole Spacek of Woodruff returned to ABC\u2019s Victory Lane for the first time in over three years with a decisive flag-to-flag win in the Top Groove Racewear WISSOTA Modified A-feature. Spacek has had several opportunities to win races slip away all season long, but on this night neither he nor his racer missed a beat.<\/p>\n

After Nick Oreskovich stalled in turn 1 on the initial start, Spacek, who started outside on the front row, beat Jake Hiatt through the first pair of turns to grab the lead, and he took advantage of a long green-flag run to build what looked to be an insurmountable advantage. Divisional points leader Brandon Copp made his way to third early on, while second-in-points Andrew Mackey battled with visiting Cody Wolkowski for fourth.<\/p>\n

Copp caught and passed Hiatt for second six laps in, but by then Spacek\u2019s lead was over 1.6 seconds and growing. Mackey and Wolkowski also overtook Hiatt\u2019s fading racer during the race\u2019s middle stages.<\/p>\n

Spacek\u2019s advantage had increased to over 2.5 seconds when, with just four laps remaining, Oreskovich and Hiatt got together to bring about a yellow-flag stop. Then Hiatt and Cole Chernosky hooked bumpers to force another, longer delay, which Spacek admitted later tested his nerves. But the former two-time track champ cruised away from the final restart to a 1.65-second final margin of victory \u2013 the ninth of his career at ABC.<\/p>\n

Mackey slipped past Copp for second in the closing circuits, with Oreskovich following in Mackey\u2019s tire tracks for third. Wolkowski held strong to fifth.<\/p>\n

Brule\u2019s Kyle Copp started on the pole of the Bulldog Auto Repair WISSOTA Super Stock headliner, dominated until a mid-race caution, and held off a charging Matt Deragon to score his first feature win at Ashland in over two years.<\/p>\n

Copp ran away early from Don Livingston, Steve Stuart, Jakob Bond and Patrick Beeksma, who ran in close single-file formation for several laps. Deragon, who started the night tied for the division\u2019s points lead with Shawn McFadden, clawed his way into the top five within the first half-dozen laps, but the running order stayed fairly steady until lap 12, when Stuart\u2019s car mysteriously slowed and fell back, while at the same time visiting Kevin Salin\u2019s car stopped with significant front-end damage.<\/p>\n

Deragon completed a strong inside pass of Livingston for second a couple of laps after the ensuing restart, and although Copp sped away to a one-second advantage right away, Deragon charged to close the gap over the remaining laps. When the checkers flew Copp held barely a half-second lead, but it was enough for his ninth ABC Raceway feature win overall and third in a Super Stock. Beeksma held off a late threat by McFadden for third, while Livingston edged Trenton Bond at the stripe for fifth.<\/p>\n

Deragon moved into the points lead \u2013 albeit by a single point over McFadden \u2013 with two regular-season shows remaining.<\/p>\n

Two drivers accomplished amazing repeat performances on this night, as both David Baxter and Cody Eichmann followed up their first career wins at Ashland a week ago with each\u2019s respective second straight wins on this night.<\/p>\n

Baxter, of Eau Claire, used a late-race pass to run away to a dominant win in the non-stop 20-lap Dalbeck Sales WISSOTA Midwest Modified headliner. Baxter started inside on the third row and soon found himself in the midst of a three-car dogfight for third with Paul Ripley and Jacob Anderson, just behind a great battle for the lead between front-row starters James Vendela and Paul Suzik, which Suzik eventually won on lap 3.<\/p>\n

Suzik pulled away to a relatively comfortable three-quarter-second margin, while Baxter worked his way into a position to challenge Vendela for second. But on lap 12 Suzik\u2019s car suddenly slowed and he coasted into the infield, giving up the lead. Vendela and Baxter then caught the tail-end of the running order, and when Vendela got trapped behind a slower racer Baxter slipped by and ran away.<\/p>\n

Over the final five laps Baxter built an impressive three-second lead for the victory, with Vendela well ahead of Ripley. Judd Skubal continued his strong late-season efforts with a fourth-place run, while divisional points leader Marcus Dunbar came home fifth.<\/p>\n

Eichmann, of Park Falls, won the Berglund Customs ABC Six-Cylinders feature by an extremely slim margin, but the race may be remembered by the fact that it took over 12 minutes to score a single lap, thanks to four restarts and a crash that involved over half of the 11-car field.<\/p>\n

Eichmann, who started on the pole, was maybe the only car not involved in one of the delays, which included separate spins by Dale Coddington, Justin Pratt and Kyle Weber, and a huge crash triggered by contact between Travis Swanson and Cameron Bond that damaged or eliminated four other cars and caused a long delay for the clean-up.<\/p>\n

With only six cars able to continue, the race was cut to ten laps, and the caution never appeared again during that timeframe. Eichmann was constantly harassed by the division\u2019s points leader, Roger Walker, throughout the run, with Walker trying the high route to get by, to no avail. With three laps left Walker switched to the low side and tried again, but Eichmann, showing coolness under pressure, stuck to his line and held off the determined points leader by .094 seconds \u2013 the second time that the margin of victory in a Sixes feature was less than a tenth of a second in the past three weeks.<\/p>\n

Swanson raced hard with Shane Basina throughout the green-flag run to claim third, while Mathew Rohlfing nursed his wounded racer home in fifth.<\/p>\n

The Bill\u2019s Collision Center WISSOTA Pure Stocks feature ran off in non-stop fashion, with Tom Treviranus of Hawthorne earning his second feature win of the season here. Treviranus started outside on the front row, beat polestarter Dustin Follett \u2013 making his first start in several years \u2013 out of the first pair of corners, and set the pace throughout the 12-lap run, leading by as much as three-quarters of a second in the early going, although he had plenty of challengers as the race reached its conclusion.<\/p>\n

Basina, the division\u2019s points leader, moved past Follett for second after just two laps, and visitor Tyler Wahlstrom came from his third-row start to take third just a lap later. The lead trio pulled away to run in close formation for several laps during the race\u2019s middle stages, with second-in-points Dylan Helget \u2013 in a car borrowed from Treviranus\u2019 daughter Jessie \u2013 moving up to fourth on lap 8.<\/p>\n

Over the final couple of laps Treviranus and Wahlstrom gained a little separation from Basina and debated the lead right up to the checkered flag, where Treviranus edged out Wahlstrom by four-tenths of a second for an exciting win. Helget kept pace with Basina in the standings by taking third on the final lap, bringing Austin Fencl along to fourth ahead of the points leader.<\/p>\n

The FastLane Motorsports Northland Super Stock Series closes out its seven-race 2026 schedule with its championship event at the ABC Raceway on Saturday, August 15. Dylan Nelson, the 2022 Series champ from Merrifield, MN, has been on a strong run of late and leads the Series\u2019 points standings going into its final two nights (including Friday at Superior), with plenty of purse money and contingencies on the line for the Series\u2019 twelfth finale.<\/p>\n

All five regular weekly divisions will be in action. The pit gates will open at 4 pm on Thursday, while the grandstand gates will open at 5:30. Hot laps will start at 6:30, and the first heat-race green flag is slated to drop at 7 pm.<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/a>, or check out its FaceBook page. Advance tickets are always available on the My Race Pass website and app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peterson Tops Winged Sprints; Spacek, Copp Return to ABC\u2019s Victory Lane by Nick Gima \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ashland, WI, August 8 \u2013 Saturday night\u2019s WISSOTA Dirt Track Series program at the ABC…Continue readingPeterson Tops Winged Sprints; Spacek, Copp Return to ABC\u2019s Victory Lane<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsandupdates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7163,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7162\/revisions\/7163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcraceway.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}