Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – That Brett Hearn was fun to watch! That Brett Hearn was the owner of over 900 career wins.
That Brett Hearn showed everyone he’s still just as amazing of a talent behind the wheel as he ever has been.
The owner of 141 career Super DIRTcar Series wins came home one spot short of #142 during the rescheduled Battle for the Fairgrounds Series event Wednesday night at the Orange County Fair Speedway.
Hearn started the 75-lap main event from the fourth position but was up challenging leader Larry Wight before the lap counter hit double digits.
He took the lead from the Gypsum Racing driver for the first time on the night at lap 11 before losing the lead back to Wight when they began to encounter lap traffic.
A restart on lap 22 re-racked the field and Hearn wasted no time in challenging for the top spot once again, fighting again with Wight for a number of laps before wrestling the lead away on lap 41.
“To come out here, part-time, and do that was awesome,” Hearn said. “I know this is my home track and I can run around here with my eyes closed, but still, you have to have a good piece and we did tonight.”
Hearn would end up relinquishing the lead to eventual winner Matt Sheppard just four laps later, but didn’t give it up without a fight.
“I feel like, the way Matt passed me for the lead, we may have had him worried a little bit,” he said. “It was not really the cleanest pass of all-time.”
In Hearn’s mind, though, he wasn’t able to challenge as hard as he wanted to keep the lead because his Miller & Miller Pole Line Construction #20 began having issues set in.
“The car had a water leak and it was overheating from about halfway on,” he said. “I had to back it down a little bit and just try to keep the temperature under check. It’s a little hot but this was simply a phenomenal new Teo Pro Car tonight.”
Hearn, along with his brother, Bobby, nephew, Matt and Sportsman campaigner Matt Janczuk, have been working hard to develop the new Teo Elite RXD chassis. Wednesday night’s performance sure made a lot of people stand up and take notice.
“We’ve been doing our homework on this RXD Teo Car,” he said. “Matt Janczuk’s been killing them upstate with his. I’m fairly confident that we got the tune-up from the last race where we were just mediocre and tonight was fun.”
Wight Leads Laps, Gets First Top 10 Of 2023 On Tour…
Third place on Wednesday night was a driver who desperately needed a good finish, Larry Wight, and he got one.
Wight’s been struggling so far this year on the Super DIRTcar Series so leading laps and finishing on the podium was a huge shot in the arm for the Gypsum Racing driver.
“We had a really good car tonight,” Wight said. “We’ve been struggling at these Series races. We seem to be good at our home tracks but once we get traveling, we’ve been struggling.”
Did Wight feel like he gave everything he could in the Battle for the Fairgrounds or could he have done more?
“Tonight, I think we were just a little too conservative,” he said. “We didn’t tighten the car up quite enough.”
From the drop of the green, the FX Caprara Honda #99L was fast and Wight led multiple laps but the car seemed to fade as the race went on.
“The beginning of the race, the car was good,” he said. “Usually, when you’re that good that early, you know you’re going to be struggling at the end and we were.”
Even though he didn’t win, Wight was extremely pleased with how his night went and made gains in his program,
“Matt (Sheppard) was able to make the extreme outside work and I was just too loose to even try it,” he said. “I figured it was just salvage a good night and try to get our points back for the end of the year. We’ve got something to work off of now.”
With the way his season began on the Super DIRTcar Series, finishing third on Wednesday, his first top 10 on tour this season, was big for the Phoenix, NY pilot.
“It’s been a rough start for us,” he said. “We’ve had some bad luck. We’ve had some self-induced bad luck and I think we’re getting it all worked out now.”
Williamson Works Hard For 14th Place Finish…
On the flip side, Mat Williamson had a tough night with his Buzz Chew Racing #88 team.
Williamson wasn’t locked into the 75-lap event as of the original date in May, so he had to run one of the Last Chance Qualifiers on Wednesday night, which he won handily.
He then started the feature event in 20th and got close to the top 10 during the course of the race but had to settle for 14th at the finish.
“I think if we didn’t have to run the consi, we might have had a better finish tonight,” Williamson said. “Even at the beginning of the race, I was up to around 12th and the caution came out.”
That’s when things changed for the 2019 Super DIRTcar Series champion.
“At that time, Anthony Perrego and myself were working up through the field pretty good,” he said. “That caution just killed the outside lane.”
In Williamson’s mind, from that point, Orange County turned to a one-groove track.
“You just couldn’t see on the outside at all,” he said. “I think the dust just settled on the outside and all of the sudden, it was like the track turned for the worse. Before that, I didn’t think the track was that bad.”
Hindsight being 20/20, Williamson knows it couldn’t have happened, but when that caution came out, a little bit of track prep was probably needed.
“I think if they could have gone out and watered the top at that point, the race would have been much better,” he said. “But they’re obviously not going to do that during a race.”
Unfortunately, with Matt Sheppard taking the win and Williamson coming home 14th, the St. Catherines, ONT driver lost ground in the season-long Super DIRTcar Series points race. However, there’s still a long way to go.
“Obviously, it wasn’t a good points night for us with Matt winning,” he said. “That’s the overall goal…to beat him and win the championship but we’re lucky we got what we did and now we can move on to Big Diamond on Tuesday.”