By: Kevin Ramsell
Elko, MN – Ty Fredrickson was born two months after Dan Ryan lost his battle with ALS in 2009. The Ryan and Fredrickson family’s close bond makes the 2025 ASA Midwest Tour’s Thunderstruck 93 victory a special win at Elko Speedway in Elko, MN.
The 16-year-old picked up his first win as he joins a list of past winners including his father Dan Fredrickson, a five-time winner.
“Yeah, this is super special for us,” Ty Fredrickson said after the win. “When Dan Ryan passed away from ALS in 2009, I was born two months later and my family gave me the same middle name that he had, Patrick. This is just really special to come out here and dominate in his memorial race with the car that his son, Jake Ryan drove when he was racing for my dad.”
Fredrickson started fifth in the 125-lap event. He was working his way up towards the front when a caution flew on lap 10 when Billy Mohn spun in turn one, collecting a few others.
On the restart, early leader Levon Van Der Geest lost the lead to current ASA Midwest Tour point leader Gabe Sommers. Fredrickson followed Sommers to take over the second spot.
Fredrickson made the winning move on lap 18 as he went to the outside of Sommers in turns three and four to take over the lead.
Caution flew again on lap 34 when Sommers came to a stop in three and four. He would go to the pits and said after the race that he had a coil wire issue. He would return to finish 10th.
Fredrickson has a three-second lead at one point, but at the break on lap 93, to honor Dan Ryan’s car number, Fredrickson was 1.8 seconds ahead of Jacob Goede and Casey Johnson, who were having a great side-by-side battle for the second spot.
After the break, Goede tried to get on the inside of Fredrickson to challenge for the lead. But Fredrickson was too strong and pulled away to the biggest win in his young career.
“The outside was really good tonight, dominant for me, and just made all my passes up there,” Fredrickson recalled. “I could roll the center really good and just get myself out there, so when they had to cut the straight away and turn off the entry, I could just roll on right by, such a really good car. I’m really happy about this.”
Goede had a big night himself as he won the first Elko Speedway Late Model feature, and unofficially cemented his second NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series National title. He backed up the victory with a strong second-place finish in the Thunderstruck 93.
“I knew that before the break that we didn’t have anything for him. I didn’t think,” Goede said. “I was going to try hard on the restart, but we were just too loose. Honestly, too loose in and loose off. I was just trying to baby it, but we didn’t have enough. He was really good. Ty was really good tonight.”
The point battle for the ASAMT championship really tightened after the checkered flag for Sommers and Johnson. Sommers came into the night with a 16-point lead. But with Johnson finishing third and Sommers tenth, Johnson has lessened that lead to single digits heading into the Oktoberfest 200 finale on Sunday, October 5th at La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway in West Salem, WI.
“Yeah, we definitely did. I mean, before that break, I was trying to race for a win, actually, but then after that restart, I had something sparking and smoking in the car. So that just turned into, let’s finish this race mode,” Johnson said.
But looking at the big picture, the three-time ASAMT champion accomplished his goal tonight.
“Oh, 100%. Yeah, I mean, me and Jacob, we race side by side and that was awesome. That was a good time,” Johnson exclaimed. These two local boys (Fredrickson & Goede), I mean, they’re really good up here. So for us to just pop in and do what we did, I can’t be too mad about it.”
Defending winner Justin Mondeik finished fourth, and Van Der Geest rounded out the top five.
A replay of tonight’s race can be seen on tracktv.com.
