STAFFORD – He’s the king of the Late Model division at Stafford Speedway, but Tom Fearn hasn’t had much of a chance to hang out in his throne of late.
Fearn, the all-time winningest Late Model driver at Stafford Speedway, had 12 wins in 21 Late Model starts in 2018 and eight wins over the first 17 events in 2019.
It was absolute domination of the division, and then it all went away. One of the most surprising stories of the 2020 season at Stafford was Fearn going winless over 14 events.
Friday at Stafford Fearn finally got the chance to climb back on his throne.
Fearn, of East Longmeadow, Mass., snapped a 19-race winless streak Friday in rolling to victory in the 30-lap Late Model feature at Stafford.
“We got off to a bad start last year and we could just never seem to catch up,” Fearn said. “We were decent quite a few nights last year, just couldn’t put it in winner’s circle.”
Fearn’s last win before Friday was on Aug. 23, 2019.
“I’ve always said there’s nothing like winning,” Fearn said. “My favorite win is my next win. It was a while waiting here for this one though. Hopefully this will help the team moral.”
Fearn held off charges from Ryan Fearn and Andrew Molleur over the closing laps.
Ryan Fearn of East Longmeadow ended up second and Darrell Keane of Enfield was third.
It was the 57th career Late Model victory at Stafford for Tom Fearn.
“It’s a whole new year here,” Tom Fearn said. “We made some changes to the car over the winter. Ryan [Fearn] used to run my setup and now we’re trying a little bit of his setup. I swayed away in the last couple weeks from his a little bit. I guess I have to do what I feel is the best for my car. Both cars are fast so we can’t complain there.”
Tom Fearn said the winless streak was something that he tried not focus on.
“I tried to put it out of my mind,” Tom Fearn said. “It was discouraging definitely. Team moral gets down. A lot of time and effort put into these things. I’ve always said I have the best crew here. They stuck behind me through 19 races.”
Congrats to Tom and the Fearn Motorsports team for the win. Great job
Great job to team Fearn holding off the charges of the young guns. Moeller looked very comfortable and was fast running with some of the top runners. I’m sure we will see him in VL soon. 19 must have forget the parts that make him run up front.