VERNON, NY – The weather gods finally smiled on the Utica-Rome Speedway on Sunday night as the speedway completed just it’s third racing program of the season. There must be something about Sprint Cars as all three shows Mother Nature has allowed this season featured the winged warriors. The Lucas Oil Empire Super Sprints along with the DirtTrackDigest.com DIRTcar 358-Modifieds, the DIRTcar Sportsman Series, the Ted’s Body Shop DIRTcar Pro Stocks as well as the Bernie’s Extreme Performance Parts Rookie Sportsman completed the card presented by Broedel Fuel Group and Pioneer Window Manufacturing. Feature winners on the night included Erick Rudolph, Davie Franek, Matt Janczuk, Luke Horning and Carter Gibbons.
For DirtTrackDigest.com DIRTcar 358-Modified winner Rudolph, it was his second triumph of the 2019 season at Utica-Rome Speedway. He was able to quickly get forward from 12th starting spot to earn the win.
“I found a nice line down here and down there,” commented Rudolph. “The car was just going tonight. We made a couple of fine tune adjustments before we came out. I was really happy with how the car worked. I like racing here at Utica-Rome. It’s always in mint condition and easy on equipment. Hopefully we’ll be back.”
Claude Hutchings Jr., opened the race by leading the first lap before Glenn Forward found something on the top of the speedway allowing him to secure the best spot at the front of the field on lap three.
Rudolph methodically worked his way forward taking third position just six laps into the 30-lap Modified main. He watched as Pat Ward ran down Forward and got his taste of the front on lap 11. At that point Rudolph made his moved to get around Forward as well before beginning to stalk Ward.
Ward ended up missing the bottom lane in turns one and two on lap 14 making way for Rudolph to make the pass. Rudolph tucked low on the speedway allowing him to drive under Ward for the best spot in the running order.
The only other challenge for Rudolph came with a handful of laps remaining as the back-end of the field came into play. As he had been the rest of the feature, he was flawless keeping the field behind him.
Rudolph took the checkers while Ward hung on to finish second. Billy Whittaker had his best run of the season in finishing third after starting sixth. Billy Dunn motored his way forward from 13th to finish in fourth with Western New York invader Ryan Susice coming home a strong fifth.
UTICA-ROME SPEEDWAY RACE RESULTS (7/8/19) – BROEDEL FUEL GROUP / PIONEER WINDOW MANUFACTURING
DIRTTRACKDIGEST.COM DIRTCAR 358-MODIFIEDS FEATURE FINISH (30-LAPS): 1 ERICK RUDOLPH 2 Pat Ward 3 Billy Whittaker 4 Billy Dunn 5 Ryan Susice 6 Lance Willix 7 Bobby Varin 8 Dave Marcuccilli 9 Glenn Forward 10 Brad Godshalk 11 Randy Shantel 12 Rusty Smith 13 Dave Doig 14 Claude Hutchings Jr. 15 Lucas Heintz 16 Jim Walsh 17 Collin Dubois 18 Aaron Jacobs 19 Billy Shantel Jr. 20 Brian Murphy 21 Kevin Poitras 22 Mat Williamson 23 Anthony Cardamone