By Jason D Searcy
The 13th Thunderstruck93 event took place Saturday night at Elko Speedway. The ASA Midwest tour Super Late Models were the prime attraction during this event that raises awareness and funds to battle ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease in memory of ELKO Hall of Fame driver and car owner Dan Ryan who died in 2009 of the disease. The trophy for this event is a unique custom painted electric guitar widely considered the best trophy in all Super Late Model racing across America.
Sixteen year old #36 Ty Fredrickson from Webster (MN) won this prestigious 125 lap event, he started the race 5th on the grid, moved up through the field to take the lead on lap 18 and never gave it up after that, winning by 2.507 seconds. “The whole Ryan family is here and that is really special,” said Ty Fredrickson in victory lane, “I managed my gap and saved the right rear tire, I was starting to lose it at the end but was able to keep the lead.” Ty Fredrickson’s father Dan won this memorial race 5 times in the past and he was joyful during the post race celebration that included the traditional ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. “I couldn’t be more happy,” said Dan Fredrickson “Dan Ryan meant so much to me and this is one of Dan Ryan’s old cars, it is 23 years old, this means the world to our family.”
It is the second win of the season for Ty Fredrickson in the ASA Midwest tour. Another Minnesota driver #72 Jacob Goede finished second place, "It's my best finish in a Super Late Model in a long time, we are getting better, I just need to race this car more and we could be up there too, congrats to Ty he had the best car by far,” said Goede. Goede set the fast time in qualifying with a 13.883 second lap, he started the race in 8th and passed a lot of cars on his way to a second place finish. 3-time ASA Midwest Tour Champion Casey Johnson #5 from Edgerton (WI) finished third, “In the first 93 we were really good but after the restart something started smoking and sparking so at that point we were just trying to finish,” said Johnson. “This is a heck of a facility, (at ELKO) one of the best I’ve been to, it raced great and had two grooves, what more could you ask for,” said Johnson post-race.
Defending Thunderstruck93 Champion #44 Justin Mondiek finished fourth, #23 Levon Van Der Geest led the first 10 laps and finished 5th. Elko (MN) driver #91 Tristan Swanson was 6th, #119 Dalton Zehr was 7th, #77 Jonathan Eilen who won the first ever Midwest Tour event in 2007 was 8th, #30 Joe Valento was 9th and Tour point leader #15 Gabe Sommers led 7 laps early in the race but dropped back with mechanical problems, he did return to finish 10th. An impressive 13 cars of the 23 in attendance did finish on the lead lap.
For ASA Midwest tour results go to https://starsnationaltour.com/
Here is the full race call of the event with Jason Searcy and Dean Reller on the race call. https://soundcloud.com/speedtalkon1360/thunderstruck93-2025-full-race
This is our Speed Talk 5 of 2025 where Dean and Jason recap the exciting Thunderstruck93 ASA Midwest tour race at Elko Speedway.
