By MIKE MALLETT
Erick Rudolph’s whole night could have easily gone down the tubes, but the Ransomville, N.Y., driver rallied after an early race crash to complete the podium in Friday night’s opening round of the Indoor Racing Series in the PPL Center in Allentown, Pa.
Rudolph was racing for the runner-up position when the leader broke coming off of turn two causing a chain reaction. Rudolph got into the back of Ryan Flores, hoping his right rear, which sent his car high into the air. He came down on all fours, fired the car up and rejoined the field.
Rudolph wasn’t sure what happened in front of him that sent him into the air. One second he was on the throttle, the next he was flying through the air.
“We are all running hard coming out of the corner,” mentioned Rudolph. “I was full on the gas figuring we were coming out of the corner. I don’t know, someone got crossed up or they broke all of a sudden. I got the worst of it. I hopped a tire and looped it.”
From there, Rudolph battled his way back to the front to finish right where he started in third.
“We had a few spots given to us by cars wrecking out, but a lot of them we had to pass on the way through whether it be in traffic, one-on-one or on the restarts,” stated Rudolph. “We battled back.”