Rudolph excited in his return to SoBo

The few drivers scattered through the garage area following the Oct. 4 running of the Bailey’s 300 at Martinsville Speedway were not thrilled with their performances from the race.

Though, Dane Rudolph was perfectly pleased with his 15th-place finish, even though he probably could have finished higher in the race.

“It was fantastic. I loved it. I really enjoyed myself out there in the race,” Rudolph said. “It was enjoyable to be patient out there and calculate the right times to push and back off and miss the wrecks. Unfortunate we got caught up in one of those wrecks and hurt the car a little bit, but the guys did a good job at the halfway break and fixed the car up and we got back on track and managed to get a top 15 out of it.”

Rudolph will attempt to carry that momentum, plus his stellar qualifying record at South Boston Speedway, and turn it into a solid run in tonight’s 250-lap Late Model race that is part of the Mason Dixon 500 at SoBo.

The Late Model race is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. and will be followed by the PASS Super Late Model 250-lap race.

Rudolph ran well in his last few trips to SoBo — when he wasn’t spun out or encountered problems under the hood.

“He’s asked me a few questions about how I used to get around here or whatever and I told him what I used to do,” Barry Beggarly said. “He’s really got his own good line and he’s done a little road racing and he don’t try to pinch the corner off and stuff and he can roll in there and get on the gas. Have to contribute that to him. He’ll ask my opinion about something and I’ll tell him what I used to do.”

The speed of the car is not an issue and Rudolph has found a way to make his line work. The Australian won five poles at SoBo — four coming in twin races and one in the second-to-last race of the season — and one in the regular season finale at Motor Mile.

Rudolph came close twice of finishing on the podium at SoBo, recording two fourth-place finishes, one of which came in the Bailey’s 200. In the longest race of the regular season at SoBo, Rudolph’s car appeared to get better as the race went on. After starting fourth and falling back to as far as ninth, he ran times similar to or faster than that of race winner Nick Smith — a good sign of things to come in today’s 250-lap race.

“That race where we fell back to ninth, I was still driving it pretty hard at the start,” Rudolph said. “The setup just took a long time to come on and I feel like we’ve improved on that since that event. I don’t think we’ll be slow at all on a start or restart. I think we’ll be really quick.”

One thing that hampered Rudolph in his heat race run at Martinsville was not being able to get going on the restarts. He and the team are confident that problem is corrected and he should be able to contend for that coveted first podium finish.

“To win this weekend is my main goal and that would be huge for myself and the team,” Rudolph said. “I’m trying to build a resume at the moment for the future so that would be the best thing I could hope for.”