HEARN'S THIRD TRY A CHARM IN VALENTINE'S DAY VICTORY AT VOLUSIA
BARBERVILLE, FL.....For the second straight year Brett Hearn celebrated St. Valentine's Day in victory lane at Volusia Speedway Park after scoring a convincing win Friday night during round three of the 2003 Florida Tour.
Coming on the heels of tenth and fourth-place feature finishes, Hearn's first win of Raceweek was his tenth in Volusia County, with the Sussex, New Jersey standout now posting at least one triumph at Dick Murphy's Barberville oval each of the past six Februarys.
"We haven't performed up to our expectations the last couple nights but we can't be held back for too long," said Hearn, 44, following his 288th DIRT big-block triumph. The three-time defending Florida Tour points champion pocketed $2,000 after improving his all-time leading Winter Tour total to 13 wins in the Sunshine State.
"We've got a new TEO Eliminator, not the standard 2003 chassis but an optional version. We were slow out of the blocks this year, obviously needing more time to test all the ideas we put together during the winter. But when we can win it's nice to have taken a new car and made it work in such a short time," Hearn added.
The 30-lap DIRT Modified main got underway with pole-sitter Tim Fuller jumping out front early only to slow for the first caution on the initial circuit caused by a turn one spin by Pennsylvanian Doug Hoffman. Fuller retained the point when the action resumed but could not hold back his north country rival Tim McCreadie who rode the high side to grab the lead on lap four.
Head flagman Kenny Golden dropped the second yellow flag for Vic Coffey on lap seven but it was determined soon after that the liquid was a common overflow from the fuel cell only evident when Coffey was navigating through the turns.
Back under green flag conditions eighth-place starter Hearn wasted little time putting his latest experiments to the test as he sized up the leaders in his charge to the front. In a spectacular three-wide maneuver Hearn forged the final lead change on lap eight when he split between the high-flying McCreadie and the low running Fuller as the trio wound their mounts sideways through turn two.
Hearn needed only seven more laps to reach traffic and those congested lanes ahead of him offered the only chance for McCreadie to regain command. But just as McCreadie closed in on the no. 3 Budweiser Racing machine the third and final caution period arrived on lap 25 for Frenchman Pierre Dagenais, who had slowed in turn two.
The brief race stoppage gave Hearn a clear track ahead and on the ensuing restart he put to an end any hopes McCreadie had conjured up of repeating last year's final turn pass of Hearn in the 2002 Tour finale. The 'Jet' flew out of the gate early on the last restart and when the checkered flag flew he had sprinted out to nearly a full straightaway lead on the ultra-smooth Barberville half-mile oval.
"It's really fun to run here and I think the track was even better than last year," Hearn assessed. "It's great to be able to use both the top and bottom grooves when you need to. Tonight I knew we were pretty good in the middle, a huge advantage when everybody else was either running way high or low, so when the hole opened up I just filled it as fast as I could."
Runner-up McCreadie settled for his best feature finish of the week while Fuller crossed the line third ahead of Thursday night's winner Danny Johnson and 2003 DIRT big-block Modified rookie candidate Matt Sheppard. Two-time Syracuse Eckerd 200 champions Alan Johnson and Jimmy Horton, Steve Hulsizer, Pat Ward and Keith Hoffman filled in behind while Vic Coffey piloted the last car to be scored on the lead lap.
Through three of the four scheduled Florida Tour races run at Volusia, Danny Johnson and Fuller are tied at the top of the point standings, each with 160 markers, while Hearn (148), Alan Johnson (136), Tim McCreadie (134) and opening day winner Craig Von Dohren (126) come next in line. D.J. has scored one win and posted a pair of fourth-place tallies to claim a share of the points lead with Fuller, who owns a second and two third-place finishes entering Saturday's show down.
Open-wheel action at Volusia concludes for the DIRT Modifieds on Saturday night with a 50-lap big-block main paying $5,000 to win headlining the 32nd Winter Nationals finale in Florida.