After three straight WISSOTA super stock national championships, someone dethroned Shane Sabraski, and that someone was Dexton Koch (78K). Koch did so by using a super stock with a Ford Crown Victoria front clip.
Koch finished runner-up to Sabraski the past two seasons.
“Shane has raced twice the amount of time that I have, and I’ve been driving 12 years,” Koch, of Becker, Minnesota, said. “Being beaten by Shane drove us to be better. We started the season with a goal to win the championship.”
Affordable Chassis built Koch’s chassis, which he has run for five years. The company has constructed 25 Crown Vic super stocks. WISSOTA super stocks use a square tube frame with a stock front stub. Most racers use a Camaro front clip, said Joel Henkemeyer, of Affordable Chassis.
“Our company likes to be different — we built the first super stock with a Crown Victoria front stub in 2015,” said Joel Henkemeyer, of Affordable Chassis. “Tim Johnson began winning with it when Dexton was an up-and-coming kid. Dexton wanted one, and he wound up buying Johnson’s car. Then, in 2018, he ordered a brand-new Affordable with a Crown Vic front end.”
A Crown Vic offers advantages over other front stubs.
“Crown Vic parts are readily available, [and] they are strong,” Henkemeyer said. “The length of the steering arm, Pitman arm, and drag link make desirable geometry. A Crown Vic stub [is] wider, but it weighs more than the Camaro or G-body metric stub. Weight in the front takes traction from the rear, but the advantage of the width negates the weight. The difference is in the geometry. Basically, the lower control arm on a Crown Vic is a longer lever. The frame dimension with the Ford steering geometry is easier work with, which results in a car that has better steering.”
Others are taking notice, with more Crown Vic super stocks being built. Koch won 28 features among 12 tracks. He took home track championships at a trio of Minnesota dirt ovals — Granite City Motor Park, Ogilvie Raceway, and Princeton Speedway.
“[It] turned into our dream season, filled with lots of ice cream and great memories,” Koch said. “It was a banner year — top five almost every night and no bad luck, except the WISSOTA 100 week. We wrecked on Wednesday but came back to win the Thursday feature, the championship feature. We went from the lowest low to the highest high in one week.”
Next season, Dexton Koch hopes to move into WISSOTA late models.
“I’m talking to my sponsors,” said Koch. “The cost would be three times that of running a super stock. If I’m running in the WISSOTA late model division, I won’t be driving the super stock as much. I don’t know if I will pursue another super stock championship.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
