ESCANABA — The Escanaba Speedway opened the 2023 season with lots of great racing Sunday night.

The action started off with the Riverside Auto youth micro sprints with Bentley Richer winning heat one and Mason Meier winning heat two after starting fifth on the grid. Heat action continued in the sportsman micro sprints heat with Braxton Lundquist and Karl Warm each picking up heat wins. However, Warm was disqualified in the heat for not meeting the car weight requirements. The 600cc winged sprints had nine cars register for action with Austin Berg and Logan Getzloff picking up heat wins.

The vintage modifieds saw Scott Degnan and Jesse Denome win their heats from back in the field with Degnan starting fourth in his heat and Denome starting sixth. There were only eight street stock that made the trip for opening night with Neil Aaberg winning the heat race from the pole. The Bink’s Coca Cola sport modifieds had the best count of cars with 19 registered for three heats Jason Zdroik made his first ever trip to Escanaba and won the first heat with Cody Johnson and Lonnie Dalgord winning the other two heats. The Island Casino Sport Compacts rounded out the heat races on opening night with Meagan Scovronski and Tombo Waselesky picking up the heat wins.

The youth micro sprints finished their night off with an entertaining feature after Wyatt Amell and Abbie Lantagne moved up from the semi feature, Tanner Rae got the feature win narrowly over Bentley Richer who finished second and Kaled Warm came in third.

The sportsman micro sprints feature was a race of ups and downs with Ethan Manninen taking the win from a fifth place start, Braxton Lundquist came in second and Robert Knight was third. Karl Warm came away with a fifth place finish after starting the race at the tail of the grid and it was a tough night for Griffin Iverson who started in third place but did not finish the race.

The 600cc sprints battled it out for 20 laps with Tony Baeachamp picking up the feature win with Austin Berg second and Scott Richer finishing third.

The vintage modifieds had only five of the 11 cars able to start the feature Scott Degnan won the feature from the tail of the grid with Joe Piron coming in second and Drake Degnan finished third.

The street stocks raced for 20 hard laps with Ben Buckland winning his first feature race from fifth place on the grid, followed by Eric Mathieson in second and Brayden Lundquist in third.

The sport modifieds came out for a 20 lap main event and saw Jason Zdroik from Eagle River, Wisconsin complete the sweep taking the feature with a late race pass of Matt Valiquette who finished in second and Lonnie Dalgord finished in third.

The final feature of the night was the sport compacts with Reggie Lantagne winning the feature from dead last on the starting grid. It what was a very entertaining race from start to finish. Shawn Harry was second in the feature and Mark Isley came in third.

The Escanaba Speedway will induct its Inaugural class in the speedways Hall of Fame this Saturday night with a full night of racing action as Jerry Richer, Don Benoit, Bob Iverson and Allen Yelle will all be inducted. Gates open at 4 p.m. with racing at 6 p.m.