Tommy Meier - Tommy was AWESOME; Brett gets the win!

Tommy was AWESOME; Brett gets the win!

10/21/09

MIDDLETOWN — The King of Middletown earned another racing coronation on Saturday.

Brett Hearn extended his Eastern States win record to 12 small-block titles on a cold, overcast Saturday afternoon at Orange County Fair Speedway. It was Hearn's third title in a row, matching a feat set by Doug Hoffman (1982-84) and Hearn (1985-87).

"I guess you could say this is a pretty good race for me," Hearn said with a smile.

The drivers who followed Hearn across the finish stripe — Michael Storms, Rick Laubach, David Van Horn Jr. and Tim Hindley — all felt thrilled with their efforts, but one prominent driver was left to lament over a great opportunity that was lost.

Pole winner Tommy Meier lost his lead right off the bat to Laubach but battled back into the top running position for the majority of the race. He seemed to have relative ease dealing with lapped traffic until lap 70 when his day turned suddenly bad.

Meier was growing frustrated dealing with back marker Tim Bayles with Laubach very close behind. What Meier didn't know was the fact Hearn had discovered a means to challenge for the runner-up spot over the two previous laps. Using a mid-line on the race track through turn one, Meier had to check up on Bayles, which led Laubach to run his car into the left rear wheel of the leader. At that very moment, Hearn had dipped his car into the low line and shot past the two leaders, with Storms conveniently in tow. The collision damaged Meier's wheel and broke a shock on Laubach's car.

Hearn had little trouble holding the lead, Storms didn't have enough engine power from his spec motor to challenge, and Meier and Laubach were left to challenge for third and fourth. With two laps remaining, Meier's wobbly wheel finally snapped off, careening his car into the concrete wall in turn four and dropping him from third place to a finish of 24th.

"It didn't end up the way I wanted," a disappointed Meier said. "We're down. We're down."

Meier said he shouldn't have been so patient with the lapped traffic and he was unhappy that the race flagger wasn't more urgent with commands to the lapped cars (by waving a blue flag with a yellow stripe) to hold their lines better.

"I should have been moving them out of the way," Meier said. "The flagger wasn't, so someone has to be. If you just ride there, you are just stuck behind some wiggling cars."

"You have to lose one before you can win one," Meier added.

Hearn was sympathetic to Meier's complaint but the scenario certainly helped his efforts. Hearn said his car was set up to run stronger in the second half of the race.

"It was a combination of me just tweaking my line a little bit and the car kind of coming into its own at the end of the race," Hearn said. "That combination let me maneuver through lapped traffic better than I could at the beginning of the race."

Hearn came up short on two diving attempts to pass Laubach, but the third attempt was the charm with bonus results. "There were some lapped cars jostling around so the move on (Laubach) actually turned into a move on (Meier) as well," Hearn said.

Storms was a bit stunned that he was able to follow Hearn's line to pass the race leaders as well. "I started down there with him and actually pulled it off," Storms said. "I didn't think I would because I thought we were down on power. I don't really know how to explain it. You just do it."

Storms said his runner-up finish was just like a victory considering he had his mentor, Hearn, to chase down. Storms was using a car that had been built for Hearn but was left idle all season until the race cars Storms was using were stolen in Quebec last month.

"We definitely needed this run to get our confidence back up and get everything back to where it should be," Storms said. "The car deserved to be in the top three and win but we came up short today."

Laubach was a bit disappointed to finish third because he thought his car was good enough to win — he led laps one through 20 — but once the shock broke on his car, he felt fortunate to stay near the front. "The car had no support to the right rear anymore," Laubach said. "It was bouncing and laying. (There was no traction)."

Van Horn said the power steering broke on his car on the first lap so he had to muscle the car through the remainder of the race that took just over an hour to complete.