WEEDSPORT, N.Y. – On July 23, DIRTcar’s all-time winningest modified driver, Brett Hearn of Kinnelon, N.J., will be inducted by the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame, joining an exclusive company of talented racers.
The 29th annual induction ceremonies will be held in the Hall of Fame Museum located on the grounds of Weedsport Speedway in New York.
Now 61, Hearn is considered the greatest dirt Modified driver in the history of stock car racing – so the honor is no surprise.
“It really hasn’t sunk in yet but the numbers warranted this for a while,” said Hearn from his new office at Orange County Fair Speedway, where he assumed the role of general manager late last year. “Even though I’m finding myself looking back lately and sharing stories, I am more about looking forward.”
Hearn’s incredible stats, and the stories surrounding his success, will be hard – if not impossible – to top by any upcoming superstar.
His body of work: A mind-boggling 919 career wins at 48 different tracks in 11 states and two Canadian provinces; 97 track and series championships, including eight overall Mr. DIRT Modified titles; 10 Super DIRTcar Series titles; and crowns in every other title series DIRTcar ever designed. Hearn is a six-time Super DIRT Week winner in both the big-blocks and small blocks (a dozen overall) and a 12-time winner of Orange County’s crown jewel Eastern States 200, topping the companion Eastern States 358 modified event 17 times.
He is Orange County’s all-time feature winner with 308 victories in four divisions, and the winningest driver at Albany-Saratoga Speedway with 136 wins. Hearn was named Driver of the Year in 1986 by the Eastern Motorsports Press Ass’n, and was number one on Area Auto Racing News’ 2013 list of the 50 Greatest Drivers of the Past 50 Years.
Always driven and determined, Brett Hearn’s laser-focus on the ultimate prize enabled his rapid rise over the past four-plus decades. As a boy, he tried other sports and also tried to focus on his studies – but the idea of racing engulfed his thoughts.
“We had a club on our block and would race bicycles,” recalled Hearn of the Jersey neighborhood gang. “I think I groomed myself from the age of 11 to race – go karts, dirt bikes. I was always racing something.”
His dad Gordon did some racing at OCFS in the early ’70s, and became acquainted with car owner Tony Ferraiuolo. On the occasional visit to Ferraiuolo’s race shop in nearby Whippany, Brett was eager to tag along with his father.
“I hung out enough to know what I wanted to be like – I don’t think there was much more that impressed me at that time than seeing how a real race shop operated,” Hearn said of the Ferraiuolo outfit. “It certainly influenced me.”
Gordon put the younger Hearn in a Sportsman car at Orange County in 1975 at the age of 16. With guidance from chassis wizard Eric Koster, and help from speed shop owner Pete Van Iderstine, Hearn invaded victory lane during his sophomore season, winning 12 times at OCFS and Nazareth Speedway. In 1977, it was 20 wins and championships at both ovals.
“He had that Van Iderstine car that Whip Mulligan had built and we got a chance to set the chassis up and take him to the race track to see his ability,” Ferraiuolo’s superstar driver Gary Balough recalled. “There was so much talent there. And he just got better and better.”
Hearn gives a lot of the credit for his early success to Pete Van Iderstine.
“I was working in his speed shop and my dad and I started beating on Pete to give me a chance in his car,” said Hearn. “Pete had a good car – I mean a really good car.”
Van Iderstine also had stout power: Hearn showed up for his third season with a Tony Feil engine under the hood that belonged to Van Iderstine.
“The engine we had in our first car was built in our family room at home, from junkyard parts that we had gathered up,” Hearn related. “So for us to be able to run a professionally built engine was huge! It was really much better than what most guys had at that time.”
After three years in the Sportsman ranks, Hearn believed he was ready to move up to the big-league modifieds. His father agreed.
“So here I think, OK, I’ve got him on the hook and we’re going to go big-block racing,” Hearn remembered. “But he looked at me and said, ‘Good luck.’”
Gordon Hearn’s unexpected response didn’t set well with his overachiever son.
“I was mad – I thought, I’ll show him,” said Hearn. “A few days later my dad came to me and said, ‘I will be there to help you but I won’t do it for you.’ That was smart: he set me up to be self-sufficient.”
The family-owned car was sold for $6,000; Gordon split the sale price with his son.
“I took my $3,000 and what I saved from working at the speed shop and I started making deals,” said Hearn. “Pete worked out an engine deal with me and we won (OCFS) the third week out in the big-block. I went home with that $1,000 (night’s payout) and thought I was a millionaire.”
With his GQ good looks, his professional presentation and his ability to speak articulately about himself and the sport, Hearn was able to effectively elevate everyone’s idea of a local stock-car racer. As comfortable in a corporate conference room as he was in the cockpit, Brett brought sponsor procurement and representation to a whole new level. By the early ’80s, he was the Jeff Gordon to everyone else’s Dale Earnhardt.
And that didn’t really sit well with the old-school diehards.
“They say in sports, if you can’t visualize yourself winning then you are probably not going to win,” said Hearn. “You have to visualize yourself as the guy to beat.”
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