Brett Hearn made the trip to Florida this week hoping to do some gator hunting. While Mother Nature made its best attempt at derailing Hearn’s hunting trip, he couldn’t be stopped on Saturday night. Hearn led all 40 laps of the Super DIRTcar Series feature on his way to winning the race and the overall Big-Block Modified title.
The win for Hearn is his second straight Super DIRTcar Series victory on the final night of racing at the DIRTcar Nationals. The championship is the eighth of his storied career, but his first since he won the title in 2008.
“That’s the first overall that I’ve gotten in a long time,” Hearn told Speed51.com powered by JEGS. “They just keep getting bigger and heavier; it’s nice.”
Starting from the outside of the front row, the veteran driver got the best of sophomore driver Max McLaughlin to lead the opening lap. From that point on, “The Jet” would remain relatively unchallenged en route to his 25th career Big-Block Modified win in the State of Florida.
“We didn’t know how fast it was going to narrow up; I thought it was going to at some point, which it did,” Hearn said of the track conditions. “Early on I was able to roll top and middle really, really well. I just knew that as good as the car felt, as long as it didn’t go out underneath me at some point in the race, we were going to be in good shape and we were.”
One year ago, Hearn put on a show by charging from the 24th starting spot to score the win on the final night of the DIRTcar Nationals. This time around, he only needed to make one pass to pick up the victory.
“I’d much rather do it the way we did it tonight; trust me,” Hearn joked.
Driving for a new team owned by Ray Graham, Tim Fuller finished a distant second to Hearn Saturday night. “The Doctor” Danny Johnson charged from 14th to finish third, while McLaughlin recorded his second straight top-five finish to start the year. Petter Britten, driving the Troyer TD2 No. 21a, rounded out the top five.
Hearn, who was held winless in Super DIRTCar Series regular season competition in 2016, hopes to use the win to build momentum for the upcoming season.
“We just got to get in a rhythm and get our program really solid,” Hearn commented. “We made some changes in the shop and strengthened the shop, so we should be good.”
The 2017 Super DIRTcar Series regular season will kick off on April 29 at Fulton Speedway (NY).
Saturday’s on-demand Trackside Now coverage presented by JRi Shocks can be seen by clicking here. Highlights of Saturday’s race, as well as a video recap, will be available soon on the Speed51 Network.
-By Brandon Paul, Speed51.com Editor – Twitter: @Brandon_Paul51
-Photo credit: Speed51.com
Super DIRTcar Series Unofficial Results
| 1 | 20 | Brett Hearn |
| 2 | 19 | Tim Fuller |
| 3 | 27j | Danny Johnson |
| 4 | 6h | Max McLaughlin |
| 5 | 21a | Peter Britten |
| 6 | 25r | Erick Rudolph |
| 7 | 44 | Stewart Friesen |
| 8 | 14j | Alan Johnson |
| 9 | 98h | Jimmy Phelps |
| 10 | 99l | Larry Wight |
| 11 | 43h | Jimmy Horton |
| 12 | 8 | Rich Scagliotta |
| 13 | 7m | Mike Maresca |
| 14 | 109 | Billy Whittaker |
| 15 | 96 | Jean-Francois Corriveau |
| 16 | 22 | Brandon Walters |
| 17 | 30 | Jamie Mills |
| 18 | 7m | Mike Maresca |
| 19 | 9s | Matt Sheppard |
| 20 | 19m | Jessey Mueller |
| 21 | 88 | Mike Mahaney |
| 22 | 5 | Billy VanInwegen |
| 23 | 54 | Steve Bernard |
| 24 | 3 | Justin Haers |
| 25 | 71 | Mike Bowman |
| 26 | 96c | Mario Clair |
| 27 | 85 | H.J Bunting III |
| 28 | 49 | Billy Dunn |
