Aaron Reutzel won Roseburg debut in SugarBee Apple Showdown
NXTbets Pro | Published On: September 1, 2026
Reutzel won Roseburg
Aaron Reutzel won the 35-lap SugarBee Apple Showdown on the River at Douglas County Dirtrack in Roseburg, Oregon, and he did it in full control. Reutzel drove the Ridge & Sons Racing No. 87 car to the front and never gave up the lead. He led all 35 laps in his debut at the track, then reached victory lane with a flat right rear tire. The win gave Reutzel his 10th Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing victory of the season and his 17th career High Limit Racing triumph. It also marked a clean response after a rough California swing, because he arrived in Roseburg and left with the result that mattered most. The performance fit the kind of night Reutzel needed, with speed at the start, control through the middle stages and enough pace at the finish to hold the field off even after the tire went down. He turned a first visit to Douglas County Dirtrack into a wire-to-wire victory and added another strong chapter to a season that has already produced double-digit wins.
Lap 1 wreck
The race changed before the first lap was officially complete. A Lap 1 wreck with front-row starter Tyler Courtney set the tone for the main event and put the field in survival mode right away. Courtney started on the front row, but he ended up 15th after the early trouble. Reutzel stayed clear of the opening chaos and built the race around that advantage. The main event also featured early crashes involving James McFadden and Tanner Holmes, and those incidents added to the stop-start rhythm of the night. Max Mittry suffered a flat tire during the race, another problem that shuffled the order and added to the damage around the field. Dylan Bloomfield brought out a caution as well, giving the race another interruption. Reutzel worked through all of it without losing control of the lead. He kept the car in position at the front while the rest of the field dealt with contact, flats and cautions. That kind of discipline mattered on a night when the opening lap never settled into a clean run and the race kept asking drivers to recover from problems instead of building momentum.
Championship chase
The finish also carried weight in the championship fight. Reutzel cut his deficit to 36 points behind Rico Abreu and the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing No. 24 team. Abreu finished fifth, so the top end of the standings stayed tight even after Reutzel’s win. Brent Marks finished second, Tanner Thorson was third and Justin Sanders took fourth, giving the race a strong closing order behind Reutzel. Those results show how valuable the victory was, because it moved him closer in the title race and kept him in striking distance as the series moved on. The next stop was the $126,000-to-win Skagit Nationals, a major payday and another test for the High Limit Racing field. Reutzel’s night in Roseburg put him in position to carry momentum into that event, and it did so with a result that was decisive from start to finish. He led every lap, beat a crowded field through a race full of cautions and damage, and left with both the win and a better spot in the championship picture.
