Story by: Adam Glatczak
MARSHFIELD, Wis. (June 13) – Close a number of times before, John Beale finally broke through in the Bob & Bev Aschenbrenner Memorial at Marshfield Motor Speedway and won his first TUNDRA Super Late Model Series feature since 2017.
Beale saved his best for last, taking the lead from Justin Mondeik of Gleason on lap 58 and pulling away late. He came out on top after a bumping, grinding battle among four contenders in the race’s latter stages to win a TUNDRA start for the first time since 2017.
“Yeah, it was a different one. I like to be up front and lead all the laps that way, so this one was a little bit different,” said Beale in an interview with Loran Leech after the race. “I was just hoping for a podium at best, and then everyone does what they do on these big races and they were getting together and a lot of yellows…there’s no way I thought we were going to win, we would’ve lost a lot of bets, but we just do what we do, slowly move on up and get what we can and ended up with the win.”
Beale figured to be among the favorites in TUNDRA’s second of five stops this season, having won the season-opening super late model feature at Marshfield in May. He also finished no worse than fourth in six previous starts in the Aschenbrenner Memorial, including runner-up finishes in 2022 and 2024.
The field spent most of the race chasing Mondeik, though, as the driver who aced out Beale for Aschenbrenner Memorial wins in 2022 and 2024 started on outside of the front row and was the clear-cut best car in leading the first 52 laps.
The race started with just one caution in the first 38 laps, but things heated up over the second half of the race and especially over the final 32 laps. The cautions bunched up the field and allowed closest pursuers Beale, Ty Fredrickson of Webster, Minn., Penn Sauter of DeForest and last year’s race winner Jerad de Boer of Sherry to all size up a shot at Mondeik, with Fredrickson going first. He got inside Mondeik with a crossover move on a lap 43 restart before dropping back. De Boer was running as high as fourth but slowed on lap 51 and exited the race, and Sauter’s race was finished two laps later when a blown tire resulted in his car going into the turn one wall.
Fredrickson then edged ahead of Mondeik at the line to lead laps 53 and 54 shortly after another restart. Mondeik and Fredrickson traded paint several times with Beale lurking right behind both, and Beale even took a look inside both on lap 55. Mondeik was back out front by lap 57, but Beale got inside him the next lap and cleared Mondeik for the top spot on lap 59.
Beale was in the clear from there, with Mondeik, Fredrickson and the rest appearing to fade and their cars used up compared to Beale driving away from the field. Mondeik appeared headed to a runner-up finish but slowed out of turn four on lap 69 and stalled on the backstretch, his race over.
Fredrickson would hold off Wausau’s Travis Volm for second. Volm put on a show with a charge through the field all the way from 19th to a podium finish.
Volm was running in the top five in the opening laps before contact coming off turn two sent Beale spinning, with Volm tapping out to take blame for the incident, giving Beale his spot back while Volm restarted at the tail of the field. He was in the top 10 again by lap 13, though, surpassed Carter Christenson of West Salem for seventh on lap 31, and passed the slowing de Boer for fifth on lap 49. Volm was hounding Fredrickson for the runner-up spot in the final laps, looking high and low before finishing third by half a car length.
Weston Marthaler of Glenwood, Minn., finished fourth with Jevin Guralski of Wausau fifth and M.G. Gajewski of Wausau sixth. Mondeik and Beale won heat races, Volm won the fast dash and de Boer was the quickest qualifier with a lap of 17.957 seconds.
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