Adam Papin/MDN Bottineau’s Gabriel Deschamp is all smiles after picking up the win in the IMCA Northern SportMod A Feature at Nodak Speedway on Sunday, May 6, 2024.

A year ago, Gabriel Deschamp won the IMCA Northern SportMod championship at Nodak Speedway before being crowned the champion of Motor Magic. Deschamp picked up right where he left off, winning the class during the ‘Playground of Power’s opening night on Sunday.

“It was a really good night,” said Deschamp, after piloting his No. 21D car to victory lane. “Definitely hard driving, and I was fortunate to get to the front in the first couple of laps and that helped a lot. There wasn’t a lot of passing after all the cars kind of shuffled their way to the bottom, but definitely a hard drive and a lot of fun.”

Deschamp outlasted Darren Medler, who finished second in the No. 74 car, and Taylor Stenvold in the No. 21 car. Dirk Miller, who started on the pole in the No. 0M car, finished in seventh.

Deschamp also raced in the IMCA Stock Car A-feature where he finished in fifth-place after starting in the same position, but he almost didn’t complete the 20-lap A-feature.

“The stock car just about rolled, and I had a little bit of a scary moment, but it was definitely a lot of fun,” said Deschamp.

The Stock Car class was won by Mike Hagen in the 27X car, in what was an emotional victory for the Williston driver. Hagen’s son Travis was noticeably absent after dominating the IMCA Modified class last season, not just at Nodak Speedway but across the state. However, the younger Hagen has been battling health concerns, and following Mike’s win, he dedicated his win to his son.

“The win feels wonderful,” said M. Hagen. “We’ve had a great, great night here. It was a long winter for us with Travis sick, and we just wanted this one bad. Put it that way.”

M. Hagen started in the seventh position and moved up to the front before racing to victory. Aaron Olson, in the No. 14 car, and Brendon LaBatte, finished second and third respectively. Defending Nodak champion in the class Adam Goff, of Minot, finished in sixth place in the No. 30A car.

With T. Hagen absent, the IMCA Modified A-feature was fairly wide open on the night, and a local driver capitalized. Steven Pfiefer began the night in the fourth position before moving his No. 11 car to the front of the pack and into victory lane. Pfiefer outlasted Williston’s John Flory in the No. 19 car and Minot’s Erik Laudenschlager in the No. 49 car for the win.

“It’s super fun to get out and start the first night on a high note and hopefully carry that through the rest of the season,” said Pfiefer. “The goal is to win at least one every year, and that makes pressure for the rest of the season a lot less. We’re just here to have fun and do the best we can the rest of the season.”

The IMCA Sport Compact class saw a car go from being raffled off by the Nodak Speedway to being handed down to Minot’s Benjamin Burke by fellow area driver Drew Christianson to being in victory lane. Burke took the No. 47 car and outlasted Zach Hughbanks in the No. 27Z car for the win. Nicholia Topolski finished third in the No. 19T car after starting the A-feature on the pole.

“Drew [Christianson] ended up winning it, and said go ahead and race it,” said Burke. “So we put a seat in there and it was a blast. I was grinning ear to ear; that was so much fun.”

A scary moment occurred at the the start of the IMCA Hobby Stocks A-feature when a nasty wreck happened right at the green flag that ended a trio of cars’ night, including that of defending track runner-up Caden Appelt, who won seven features in the class at Nodak Speedway last season.

In the end, it was Diezel Raynard, of Lamplan, Sask., who used his pole position to get out in front of the wreck and ride it all the way to the win, beating out Trever Haas, of Mandan, who ran in the 99H car.

“It felt amazing. I can’t really describe it,” said Raynard. “Kind of speechless honestly. I just kept my nose clean, and found my line, kept my car straight and let my driving do the rest. Hopefully, I’ll make it to every Minot race, and I’ll be grinding points at my home track [Estevan Motor Speedway in Estevan, Sask.]

Full results from the A-features are below:

IMCA Hobby Stock

A Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 97R-Diezel Raynard[1]; 2. 99H-Trever Haas[4]; 3. 51X-Brennor Grinstead[3]; 4. 51E-Ethan Neu[9]; 5. 44-Tim Anderson[13]; 6. 15-Connor Hansen[11]; 7. 22-Kyler Satran[6]; 8. 41-Ty Saxon[12]; 9. 23-Jason Ruby[7]; 10. 82T-Tyson Grinstead[15]; 11. 19T-Thomas Goldsberry[14]; 12. 52-Scott Joern[2]; 13. 103-Alex Tvedt[8]; 14. 102-Brian Tvedt[16]; 15. 7-Erik Wenstad[19]; 16. 12B-Beth Ann Goudy[17]; 17. (DNF) 13R-Dawson Reese[22]; 18. (DNF) 64-Emerson Ree[5]; 19. (DNF) 34-Thayne Harris[18]; 20. (DNF) 85-Gene Brunelle[20]; 21. (DNF) 70-Caden Appelt[10]; 22. (DNS) 53-Nate Joern.

IMCA Sport Compact

A Feature 1 (12 Laps): 1. 47-Benjamin Burke[7]; 2. 27Z-Zach Hughbanks[14]; 3. 19T-Nicholia Topolski[1]; 4. 16-Alex Thompson[3]; 5. 18W-Kyle Eklund[5]; 6. 03-Brian Hughbanks[2]; 7. 14B-Tayven Blackaby[10]; 8. 14-Abby Tallman[4]; 9. 81-Lily Christianson[8]; 10. B52-Jordan Bauer[15]; 11. 15C-Averie Lageson[12]; 12. 79-Christian Berg[16]; 13. (DNF) 00-Krys Yost[6]; 14. (DNF) 83-HARRISON SCHWARTZ[9]; 15. (DNS) 87T-Dustin Thompson; 16. (DNS) 113-Tiffany Tuchscherer.

IMCA Northern SportMod

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 21D-Gabriel Deschamp[4]; 2. 74-Darren Medler[3]; 3. 21-Taylor Stenvold[2]; 4. 29-Darren Schatz[10]; 5. 22G-Keenan Glasser[12]; 6. 132-Chad Strachen[14]; 7. 0M-Dirk Miller[1]; 8. X-Shawn Keena[15]; 9. 72-Stan Tomlinson[11]; 10. 0-Robby Rosselli[5]; 11. 69Z-Christopher Zenz[9]; 12. 61-Lane Hanna[23]; 13. 35L-Jesse Long[19]; 14. 82-Cole Hanshew[13]; 15. 89-Tim Goodwin[7]; 16. 125-Macaulay Nelson[21]; 17. 35-Dave Rivinius[8]; 18. 1-Evan Stenvold[6]; 19. 91S-Devin Seney[22]; 20. 2A-Bruce King[24]; 21. (DNF) 5-Lance Lochthowe[18]; 22. (DNF) 47-Max Beeter[20]; 23. (DNF) 11B-Levi Wald[17]; 24. (DNF) B52-Brent Burckhard[16].

IMCA Stock Car

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 27X-Mike Hagen[7]; 2. 14-Aaron Olson[3]; 3. 57-Brendon LaBatte[9]; 4. 68-Jeremy Swanson[11]; 5. 21-Gabriel Deschamp[5]; 6. 30A-Adam Goff[2]; 7. 46-Jason Berg[10]; 8. 33-Daniel Aberle[14]; 9. 5T-Marcus Tomlinson[16]; 10. 77-Will Scheresky[4]; 11. 2-Kyle Scholpp[20]; 12. 7S-Shawn Green[15]; 13. 67-Joren Boyce[6]; 14. 12G-Gary Goudy Jr[24]; 15. 25-Brett Green[21]; 16. 6T9-Jevin Damm[18]; 17. 7-Gary Goudy Sr[23]; 18. (DNF) 8-Eric Anderson[19]; 19. (DNF) 16-Jason Storbakken[8]; 20. (DNF) 19-Cody St Croix[17]; 21. (DNF) 48-Brock Beeter[13]; 22. (DNF) 88-William Matejovic[12]; 23. (DNF) 36-Chase Conway[1]; 24. (DNS) 1X-Mark Dahl.

IMCA MODIFIED

A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 11-Steven Pfeifer[4]; 2. 19-John Flory[10]; 3. 49-Erik Laudenschlager[2]; 4. 5T-Marcus Tomlinson[7]; 5. 9H-Robert Hellebust[8]; 6. 3S-Logan Schmitz[9]; 7. 12S-Isaac Sondrol[3]; 8. 12-Dexter Saxon[12]; 9. 80-Mark Dahl[17]; 10. 18-John Flory Jr[16]; 11. 86-Aaron Aaseth[14]; 12. 65-Jerad Thelen[6]; 13. 30A-Adam Goff[18]; 14. 1G-Caden Germundson[13]; 15. (DNF) 73T-Chris Tuchscherer[1]; 16. (DNF) 28C-Austin Caruthers[11]; 17. (DNF) 15-Travis Tooley[5]; 18. (DNS) 28-Dylan Barnhardt.