Three capture maiden victories at Eagle River Speedway

It was a night of firsts at Eagle River Speedway last Tuesday night as a trio of hometown racers scored their first feature flags of the 2024 campaign.

Neenah’s own Dave Bennett, Ryan Brown and Quentin Morrison each pulled off popular wins in the Late Model, B-Modified and Street Stock divisions, respectively.

Bennett, racing for just the second time at Eagle River this season, sprinted into the lead at the drop of the green of 15-lap contest and never looked back en route to winning the feature. Defending division champion Jason Zdroik finished second, with Travis Friske, Josh Nevoraski and Jesse Aho rounding out the top five finishers. With his heat win earlier in the evening Bennett scored a clean sweep.

Brown, the 2023 division rookie-of-the-year, bolted from his front row starting spot into the lead but his win was anything but a gimme. During the last half of the contest Brown had his hands full with a pair of grizzled veterans — Dave Dishaw and Dustin White. The sophomore B-Mod ace withstood the heavy pressure from the duo to earn his first career feature flag in Eagle River. Dishaw and White took second and third and the pay window, respectively. Michigan drivers Kory Joliff and Frank Gasperini placed fourth and fifth, respectively.

In the street stock feature Morrison, who started sixth on the grid, battled his way up into the top three early as he scrapped for the lead with Blake Hartman and Cole Bennett. A massive pileup coming out of turn two forced a red flag with five laps remaining. The melee sidelined no less than six cars — among them was the leader Hartman.

Morrison inherited the top spot with a five-lap dash remaining at the checkers and hung on for his first feature flag of 2024. Ben Pitlik finished second in his first outing of 2024, followed by Bennett, Teagan Melton and Kim Brown who finished third through fifth, respectively.

Hometown driver David Blackberg stormed from his third place starting spot into the lead and never looked back, winning the IMCA Stock Car feature. Trailing Blackberg in the caution-free event was Rod Snellenberger, Jonathan Miller, Jason Zdroik and Jason Eisel.

Rookie Blake Joslin of Rhinelander scored his second straight 600 Micro Sprint feature win. Earlier in the evening, Joslin also picked up his heat win, earning a clean sweep for the night.

In the 300 Micro Sprint classes. Mason Meier of Eagle River and Tomahawk’s Blake Wilke each earned clean sweeps in the pro and semi-pro classes, respectively.

Racing resumes Tuesday, Aug. 6 and the action kicks off at 7 p.m. It will be “Back To School” night as dozens of backpacks stocked with school supplies will be given out to kids.