Erick Rudolph Wins Modified Main Event Friday Night At Michaels Mercer Raceway

Story By: JIM BALENTINE / MICHAELS MERCER RACEWAY – MERCER, PA – On a beautiful early fall Friday evening Michaels Mercer raceway was able to complete night one of the historic 25th annual little guy nationals with 137 cars in 6 divisions filling the pits.

Picking up his first ever win in a car was Ace Pruitt in the racesaver 305 sprints; Eric Rudolph continued a banner season picking up the small block modified win; Josh Sieppel won the Pro stock feature; Garrett Krummert picked up the nonstop 602 crate modified win; Andy Thompson picked up his 20th career mini stock win; and Brendan Warner won the Economod event.

Many sprint car drivers in the illustrious 73 year history of Mercer Raceway have won their first career features at the speedway including 19 year old Dave Blaney in 1982, and last night, 19 year old Ace Pruitt became the next young driver to score His first career win dominating the racesaver 305 sprint feature leading the entire event. Veteran Greg Dobrosky would hound Pruitt in the early stages of the event until lap 8 when Andy Priest would overtake Dobrosky and set his sites on the rookie. Nolan Groves who has been showing vast improvement was able to get around Priest at the halfway point trying to catch Pruitt. Groves would close the gap to .146 of a second on lap 14 but then Pruitt would pull away and pick up his 1st career win by .756 over Groves. Priest would settle for 3rd, Dobrosky 4th and Rod Jones 5th.

A jubilant Pruitt would say “This is my third ever race in anything so I don’t really know what I’m doing quite yet, yeah it’s good. I’ve never raced anything growing up and this season we got going about four weeks ago.

My grandfather raced everything and then my dad got into it…he is the crew chief for Logan McCandless.This track is definitely a weird shape kind like a weedsport dogleg on the back stretch and tight three and four and wide in 1 and 2…its a different race track that’s for sure!!!”

In the small block modified feature two of the winningest drivers of the year would battle back-and-forth for the win with Erick Rudolph and Rex King Jr. Hayden Holden would hold the lead until lap 5 when Rex King Jr would overtake him. Erick Rudolph would then pass Holden for 2nd on lap 7 and then would pressure King for the lead as the two drivers would swap positions running high and low all around the speedway. On lap 8 coming out of turn 4 Rudolph would make a daring move to the very inside of the racetrack to get around King and take the lead. King however would not give up still battling side-by-side with Rudolph until unlucky lap 13 where King would hit a rut in turn 4 and flip getting upside down. He was OK in the incident. Rudolph would again takeoff under green and pick up another big payday beating Rick Regalski by 1.4 seconds at the checker. Phil Vigneri would finish 3rd, former track champ Mike Kinney fourth and Hayden Holden would fall back to fifth.

Rudolph would say in victory Lane , “we’ve had really good cars this year this one especially…we havent really done much to it all year. We’ve had a good couple runs here at Mercer. We’ve been pretty good. I know Cooter (Rex King Jr) must’ve took a pretty good tumble over there. I hope he’s OK first and foremost, but you know just just happy to get victory lane especially with all the hard work my guys put in.”

On passing Rex King Jr for the lead, “I found a little something up top and then after that restart you know Cooter really came on strong on the bottom so I went back to the bottom and just kind of ran the rest of the race there. We will try again tomorrow night, just go through the car once and hopefully have similar luck tomorrow.”

Dirt Big Block Modifieds

A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 25-Erick Rudolph[5]; 2. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[8]; 3. 47V-Phil Vigneri III[6]; 4. 20P-Mike Kinney[4]; 5. 28H-Jimmy Holden[10]; 6. 25B-Steve Barr[7]; 7. 58-Lonny Riggs[12]; 8. 60-Tom Holden[14]; 9. 50-Craig Casher[16]; 10. 5-Max Smoker[13]; 11. 35-Steve Slater[9]; 12. 25P-Levi Picard[11]; 13. 2B-Ron Cartwright Jr[1]; 14. 72-Trent Ogden[15]; 15. (DNS) 1R-Brandon Ritchey; 16. (DQ) 27H-Hayden Holden[2]; 17. (DQ) 165-Rex King Jr[3]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 47V-Phil Vigneri III[3]; 2. 20P-Mike Kinney[1]; 3. 25B-Steve Barr[5]; 4. 35-Steve Slater[6]; 5. 25P-Levi Picard[7]; 6. 5-Max Smoker[8]; 7. 72-Trent Ogden[2]; 8. (DNS) 1R-Brandon Ritchey; 9. (DQ) 27H-Hayden Holden[4]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 25-Erick Rudolph[1]; 2. 165-Rex King Jr[6]; 3. 2B-Ron Cartwright Jr[5]; 4. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[2]; 5. 28H-Jimmy Holden[8]; 6. 58-Lonny Riggs[3]; 7. 60-Tom Holden[7]; 8. (DNS) 50-Craig Casher

305 Sprints – Winged

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 20-Ace Pruitt[2]; 2. 25G-Nolan Groves[14]; 3. 21N-Andy Priest[9]; 4. 88-Greg Dobrosky[1]; 5. 82M-Rod Jones[5]; 6. 25-Jarrett Rosencrance[3]; 7. 18-Arnie Kent[6]; 8. 25GX-Tyler Groves[17]; 9. 42-Jim Pattock[15]; 10. 21C-Jarrett Cavalet[12]; 11. CIII-Jimmy Hawley[10]; 12. 47-Brett Brunkenhoefer[4]; 13. 72-Mike Mathieson[7]; 14. 4J-Jacob Gomola[21]; 15. 71-Joe Coggin[18]; 16. 51-Shelby Kelly[13]; 17. 347-Nevan O’Donnell[16]; 18. 36-Seth Harrelson[20]; 19. 20M-Vivian Jones[11]; 20. 154-Shamus O’Donnell[19]; 21. 27K-Jeremy Kornbau[8]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 18-Arnie Kent[1]; 2. 25-Jarrett Rosencrance[4]; 3. 72-Mike Mathieson[2]; 4. CIII-Jimmy Hawley[6]; 5. 51-Shelby Kelly[5]; 6. 347-Nevan O’Donnell[7]; 7. 154-Shamus O’Donnell[3]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 82M-Rod Jones[1]; 2. 20-Ace Pruitt[2]; 3. 27K-Jeremy Kornbau[3]; 4. 20M-Vivian Jones[4]; 5. 25G-Nolan Groves[6]; 6. 25GX-Tyler Groves[5]; 7. 36-Seth Harrelson[7]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 47-Brett Brunkenhoefer[2]; 2. 88-Greg Dobrosky[1]; 3. 21N-Andy Priest[7]; 4. 21C-Jarrett Cavalet[3]; 5. 42-Jim Pattock[5]; 6. 71-Joe Coggin[6]; 7. 4J-Jacob Gomola[4]

Limited Modified

A Feature 1 (8 Laps): 1. 10S-Garrett Krummert[3]; 2. 5C-Ayden Cipriano[2]; 3. 41-Brian Schaffer[6]; 4. 2-Kole Holden[4]; 5. 7P-Caden Petry[10]; 6. 58-Logen Lockhart[7]; 7. 312-Ryan Gutherie[11]; 8. 1-Jim Bryce[1]; 9. 23-Darin Gallagher[15]; 10. 12L-Patrick Lane[5]; 11. 71-Gage Priester[21]; 12. 7 11-Todd English[8]; 13. 1R-Brandon Ritchey[20]; 14. 14-Dave Murdick[23]; 15. 404-Michael Kristyak[12]; 16. B4-Brayden Beatty[22]; 17. 29-Cole Edwards[18]; 18. 29A-Anthony Antus[24]; 19. 165K-Karsten King[16]; 20. 12-JC Boyer[13]; 21. 4S-Adam Hilton[19]; 22. 28J-Jacob Jordan[17]; 23. 46R-Doug Rutana[14]; 24. (DQ) C3-Chas Wolbert[9]

B Feature 1 (10 Laps): 1. 4S-Adam Hilton[6]; 2. 1R-Brandon Ritchey[9]; 3. 71-Gage Priester[8]; 4. B4-Brayden Beatty[1]; 5. 14-Dave Murdick[10]; 6. 9H-Jacob McElravy[15]; 7. 29A-Anthony Antus[12]; 8. 7-Brenten Kay[14]; 9. 57R-Jacob Rutana[5]; 10. 07L-Mark Sevin[7]; 11. 119-Joe Gibson[4]; 12. 24M-Troy McGregor[13]; 13. 717-Bill Adams[3]; 14. 318-Eric Gabany[2]; 15. (DNS) 02-Jeremy Beichner

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 2-Kole Holden[1]; 2. 1-Jim Bryce[2]; 3. 58-Logen Lockhart[3]; 4. 7P-Caden Petry[7]; 5. 12-JC Boyer[5]; 6. 165K-Karsten King[6]; 7. B4-Brayden Beatty[10]; 8. 119-Joe Gibson[4]; 9. 07L-Mark Sevin[9]; 10. 14-Dave Murdick[8]; 11. 24M-Troy McGregor[11]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 10S-Garrett Krummert[4]; 2. 12L-Patrick Lane[1]; 3. 7 11-Todd English[3]; 4. 312-Ryan Gutherie[7]; 5. 46R-Doug Rutana[5]; 6. 28J-Jacob Jordan[8]; 7. 318-Eric Gabany[11]; 8. 57R-Jacob Rutana[9]; 9. 71-Gage Priester[2]; 10. 02-Jeremy Beichner[6]; 11. 7-Brenten Kay[10]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 5C-Ayden Cipriano[1]; 2. 41-Brian Schaffer[2]; 3. C3-Chas Wolbert[3]; 4. 404-Michael Kristyak[10]; 5. 23-Darin Gallagher[4]; 6. 29-Cole Edwards[7]; 7. 717-Bill Adams[5]; 8. 4S-Adam Hilton[9]; 9. 1R-Brandon Ritchey[11]; 10. 29A-Anthony Antus[8]; 11. 9H-Jacob McElravy[6]

Stock Cars

A Feature 1 (20 Laps): 1. 84S-Josh Seippel[2]; 2. 777-John Boardman[4]; 3. 948-Joey Zambotti III[6]; 4. 11B-Tim Bish[8]; 5. 101-Bruce Hartzfeld[3]; 6. 21W-Chris Withers[11]; 7. 68-Andrew Hammond[16]; 8. 67J-Jamie Duncan[19]; 9. 44-Jacob Wheeler[13]; 10. 20J-Hayden Fosnaught[20]; 11. 22-Chase Lambert[22]; 12. 02-Grant Richard[25]; 13. 31-Nick Robie[15]; 14. 00L-Cole Miller[12]; 15. FUZ-Gary Fisher[17]; 16. 19T-Troy Norman[23]; 17. 71-Joey Anderson[26]; 18. 47-Dalton Gabriel[18]; 19. 23HJR-Hunter Exley[9]; 20. 1M-Gary Miller[1]; 21. 7B-Matt Bernard[21]; 22. 29-Curt J Bish[5]; 23. 61M-Charlie McMillen[14]; 24. 81-Mike Miller[10]; 25. 23-Pat Fielding[7]; 26. 8C-Russ Coyne[24]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 948-Joey Zambotti III[1]; 2. 101-Bruce Hartzfeld[3]; 3. 23-Pat Fielding[2]; 4. 81-Mike Miller[7]; 5. 44-Jacob Wheeler[9]; 6. 68-Andrew Hammond[6]; 7. 67J-Jamie Duncan[8]; 8. 22-Chase Lambert[5]; 9. 02-Grant Richard[4]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 29-Curt J Bish[3]; 2. 84S-Josh Seippel[2]; 3. 11B-Tim Bish[9]; 4. 21W-Chris Withers[1]; 5. 61M-Charlie McMillen[7]; 6. FUZ-Gary Fisher[4]; 7. 20J-Hayden Fosnaught[5]; 8. 19T-Troy Norman[8]; 9. 71-Joey Anderson[6]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 777-John Boardman[1]; 2. 1M-Gary Miller[2]; 3. 23HJR-Hunter Exley[3]; 4. 00L-Cole Miller[7]; 5. 31-Nick Robie[4]; 6. 47-Dalton Gabriel[5]; 7. 7B-Matt Bernard[8]; 8. 8C-Russ Coyne[6]

B Modifieds

A Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 12*-Brendan Warner[2]; 2. 71L-Dennis Lunger Jr[6]; 3. 12C-Garrett Calvert[5]; 4. 16-Ty Rhoades[4]; 5. 99-Cameron Nastasi[3]; 6. 5M-Donnie May[1]; 7. 26X-Carter Bidwell[8]; 8. 12-Troy Pinch[7]; 9. 1C-Chip Davis[15]; 10. 71A-Donald Watson[10]; 11. 89-Junior Mechling[9]; 12. 6-Dave Shagla Jr[14]; 13. 44R-Gary Robinson[12]; 14. 15-Erice Nellis[11]; 15. 21J-Justin Cutshall[13]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 71L-Dennis Lunger Jr[3]; 2. 16-Ty Rhoades[2]; 3. 12*-Brendan Warner[4]; 4. 12-Troy Pinch[6]; 5. 89-Junior Mechling[8]; 6. 15-Erice Nellis[7]; 7. 21J-Justin Cutshall[1]; 8. 1C-Chip Davis[5]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 12C-Garrett Calvert[1]; 2. 99-Cameron Nastasi[2]; 3. 5M-Donnie May[3]; 4. 26X-Carter Bidwell[4]; 5. 71A-Donald Watson[6]; 6. 44R-Gary Robinson[5]; 7. 6-Dave Shagla Jr[7]

Sport Compact

A Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 5-Andy Thompson[4]; 2. 13S-Chaz Smith[6]; 3. 02-Devin Haley[5]; 4. 11D-Matt Duvall[2]; 5. 0-Carl Ealy[7]; 6. 84S-Brayden Seippel[12]; 7. 1-Linwood Thorne[14]; 8. 11-Chad Lidwell[8]; 9. 5X-Daniel Hostetler[22]; 10. 99-Mike Aley[16]; 11. 38-Randy Ealy[10]; 12. 10S-Trevn Schaffer[13]; 13. 999-Adam Aley[20]; 14. 9R-Ben Aley[17]; 15. 10-Corey Bice[18]; 16. 42-Matt Daugherty[19]; 17. 95-David Seibert[15]; 18. 22D-Chuck Davis[1]; 19. 54-Tim Callahan[3]; 20. 44-Jordan Wheeler[9]; 21. (DNS) 4T1-Allen Robinson; 22. (DNS) 2873-Wes Staley; 23. (DNS) 98-Austin Mcllvain; 24. (DNS) 45-Andrew Thompson; 25. (DNS) 60-Dillon Thorne

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 13S-Chaz Smith[3]; 2. 54-Tim Callahan[5]; 3. 0-Carl Ealy[4]; 4. 38-Randy Ealy[6]; 5. 10S-Trevn Schaffer[9]; 6. 99-Mike Aley[8]; 7. 42-Matt Daugherty[1]; 8. 5X-Daniel Hostetler[2]; 9. 4T1-Allen Robinson[7]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 02-Devin Haley[7]; 2. 11D-Matt Duvall[5]; 3. 11-Chad Lidwell[2]; 4. 60-Dillon Thorne[4]; 5. 1-Linwood Thorne[8]; 6. 9R-Ben Aley[1]; 7. 999-Adam Aley[6]; 8. (DNS) 45-Andrew Thompson

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 5-Andy Thompson[2]; 2. 22D-Chuck Davis[4]; 3. 44-Jordan Wheeler[8]; 4. 84S-Brayden Seippel[3]; 5. 95-David Seibert[6]; 6. 10-Corey Bice[1]; 7. 98-Austin Mcllvain[5]; 8. (DNS) 2873-Wes Staley