Rick Hudson knows his way around an engine and can certainly tell you a thing or two about horsepower. By weekday, he’s the Lab Operations Group Leader at Cummins High Horse Power Technical Center in Seymour, Indiana. But come quittin’ time on Friday, he’s likely at the tracks racing his Larry Shaw-built modified cart.
A Tier 1 winner in Team E3 Racing, Hudson impressed us here at E3 Spark Plugs with his racing talent, engine know-how and sportsmanship. He has raced go-carts since he was eight years old. Three decades, lots of wins and a few broken bones later, he’s in his eighth season in UMP Modified racing and has landed two fourth-place points positions and two sportsmanship awards.
In an effort to develop the best competition cart possible, Hudson took a set of E3 racing spark plugs he had raced with for a full season to the engineers at Cummins, Inc. where he works. Cummins is a global power leader with multiple business units that design, manufacture, distribute and service and related technologies including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation systems. The engineers analyzed the set of plugs and gave Hudson the confirmation he was looking for.
“There feedback was really positive,” Hudson said. “Most years, I would just can last season’s plugs but with [E3 Spark Plugs] I would not hesitate to run them some this year as well. They work.”
UMP, United Midwestern Promoters, is a short-track racing sanctioning body that focuses on dirt track racing and currently sanctions eight different racing divisions on more than 100 tracks in 19 states and a Canadian province. Look for Rick Hudson’s name in the list of UMP champions one of these days. In the meantime, check the E3 Spark Plugs blog and Facebook fan page for updates on Hudson’s career.