Sussex, New Jersey’s own is Closing In on Another Career Milestone and Chasing Two More Track Championships at the Same Time
Story By: MATT NOLES / RACERSGUIDE.COM Photos By: MATT NOLES & DAVE DALESANDRO / RACERSGUIDE.COM
SPRAKERS, NY- August 11, 2016- Athletes often have their careers defined by the numbers.
Where words can be bent and twisted to tell the tale of our proverbial warriors in one light or the other, numbers cannot and therefore they never lie. In the case of Brett Hearn, the numbers tell the story of an incredible career and what’s more, he’s not even through yet.
With 891 career wins and 78 track and series championships over the entirety of his career, it’s easy to understand why he has broken the mold and become the indelible benchmark of modified racing success. Some records are meant to stand the test of time, some are unbreakable even; the driver of the familiar No. 20 Madsen Overhead Doors Teo Pro Car has managed to not just transcend time; he’s also transcended reality.
Though success was the ultimate goal when he started his journey decades ago, even Hearn seems taken aback by his success behind the wheel. “I never really counted how many wins we had,” said Hearn with a chuckle. “I thought that 500 wins was a big deal and it doesn’t seem that long ago so for us to be nine away from 900 is pretty incredible.”
With over two months left in the season, there is the possibility of reaching that milestone before the year closes out in Charlotte; but Hearn is keeping expectations realistic. “We’ve had a lot of close races this year,” He continued. “And we’ve also had a lot of races where we weren’t nearly as good as we needed to be. So to get nine more wins this year with the amount of races I’m going to pass on could be tough, honestly. But I’m hopeful.”
Over the course of his illustrious career, Hearn has seen more changes than most. One of those has been the amount of quality competition that he now faces weekly at both of his home speedways and on the road with the Super DIRTcar Series.
“I think the competition has really tightened up,” stated Hearn. “We’re in a different age where the technology is readily available to everyone and it’s hard to keep anything in-house. Information spreads so quickly and it’s really hard to get an edge so in that respect, racing and getting wins has become more difficult. Stew [Friesen] has been consistently good and Matt [Sheppard] has been outstanding but aside from those two guys, I think we’re all pretty equal.”
With only a handful of weeks remaining in the 2016 point season at both Lebanon Valley [Speedway in West Lebanon, New York], and Albany-Saratoga [Speedway in Malta, New York], Hearn is locked in a tight point battle with his ageless nemesis Kenny Tremont and the young upstart Marc Johnson, respectively. Needless to say, improving his track and series championship total to 80 won’t be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but Hearn is certainly up to the task.
“To beat those guys is going to take pure determination,” concluded Hearn. “We haven’t been in the shop in a month because we’ve been on the road so we need to get back to the shop to make sure our cars are as good as they can be for the rest of the year so that we don’t have any mechanical issues and we can be as perfect as possible. We’re just going to have to outwork them.”
If there’s anyone that understands maintenance and work ethic, it’s Brett Hearn. After all, races are always won in the shop, not at the track and because of that mindset Hearn’s win total is officially at 891; and climbing.
Matt Noles is a contributing writer for Racers Guide and Dirt Track Digest. He currently resides in Sprakers, New York and can be reached via e-mail @ matt_noles@yahoo.com.
