MERCER, PA – By Jim Balentine – On a beautiful mid July Saturday night, Michaels Mercer Raceway held the Michaels memorial which featured twin $3000 to win events for the 410 sprint cars and the BRP modified tour. Brandon Spithaler would take a popular win in the 410 Sprint cars and Erick Rudolph would capture another BRP modified tour win. Veteran Andy priest would dominate the racesaver 305 sprint car feature for his 14th career 305 win, Aiden Cipriano would capture his third career 602 crate modified Mercer feature, and Andy Thompson would return to victory Lane in the mini stocks, capturing his 19th career mini stock feature. 100 cars in 5 divisions would grace the pit area.
In the BRP modified tour Ransomville New York’s Erick Rudolph has been dominating the tour for the past couple years and last night was no exception as he came from his eighth starting spot to pick up the $3000 Michaels memorial in the 35 lap affair. Shannon Whaley would lead the first 2 laps from the outside pole until former BRP mod Mercer winner Garrett Krummert would take over in lap 3. While Krummert was looking for another BRP mod tour win eighth starting spot Erick Rudolph with methodically work his way up through traffic in his usual style. He would be up to fourth by lap number four and then overtook veteran Dave Murdick for second on lap number 11. It would then turn into the Rudolph Krummert show as Rudolph would chip away at Krummert’s lead going from 2.2 seconds back to just .044 on lap 20 and then it would be go time as he would get around Krummert on lap 21 and would then dominate leading the rest of the 35 lap affair winning by 2.7 seconds over Krummert. Canadian Tyler Willard would get around Murdick for 3rd on lap 28, Murdick would finish 4th and Rex King Jr., who would come from the rear of the field after suffering a flat tire would make his way all the way back to fifth at the finish
Rudolph would say, “We actually had a flat tire at the end. That’s what took me so long to come back out so we didn’t ruin the wheel, but my guys gave me an awesome car tonight you know we had to put her together and figure out a way to get through those rollers out there and able to put something together I thought we might had something and we were pretty good out there in the feature.”
BRP MODIFIED TOUR
1. 25-Erick Rudolph[7]; 2. 29-Garrett Krummert[3]; 3. 777-Tyler Willard[6]; 4. 61-Dave Murdick[4]; 5. 165-Rex King Jr[12]; 6. 9-Will Thomas[8]; 7. 5C-Ayden Cipriano[11]; 8. 11R-Brad Rapp[15]; 9. 20P-Mike Kinney[10]; 10. 44-Shannon Whaley[2]; 11. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[16]; 12. 18-Colton Walters[9]; 13. 3K-Shawn Kozar[21]; 14. 64-Rodney Beltz[20]; 15. 25B-Steve Barr[17]; 16. 60-Tom Holden[1]; 17. 74-Kevin Green[19]; 18. 8M-Macey Adamik[22]; 19. 6F-Kyle Fink[5]; 20. 35-Steve Slater[13]; 21. 18JR-Jeff Walters[18]; 22. 9R-Chad Reitz[14]; 23. (DNS) JD57-Jordan Ehrenberg
Heat 1 | 00:03:40.270
1. 25-Erick Rudolph[2]; 2. 44-Shannon Whaley[4]; 3. 60-Tom Holden[1]; 4. 35-Steve Slater[3]; 5. 25B-Steve Barr[6]; 6. 3K-Shawn Kozar[5]
Heat 2 | 00:05:47.611
1. 165-Rex King Jr[5]; 2. 6F-Kyle Fink[1]; 3. 18-Colton Walters[6]; 4. 9R-Chad Reitz[2]; 5. 18JR-Jeff Walters[4]; 6. 8M-Macey Adamik[3]
Heat 3 | 00:02:36.341
1. 29-Garrett Krummert[4]; 2. 61-Dave Murdick[3]; 3. 20P-Mike Kinney[2]; 4. 11R-Brad Rapp[5]; 5. 74-Kevin Green[6]; 6. (DNS) JD57-Jordan Ehrenberg
Heat 4 | 00:02:39.062
1. 777-Tyler Willard[2]; 2. 9-Will Thomas[3]; 3. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[1]; 4. 64-Rodney Beltz[5]; 5. (DNS) 5C-Ayden Cipriano