Tom Fearn has long said when the temperatures start rising so does his success on the track.
Friday the East Longmeadow, Mass. driver proved that right.
On the hottest night of the 2023 season at Stafford it was Fearn bouncing back from a rough week to score victory in the 30-lap Late Model feature Friday.
“We got out there early to the lead and ran my speed I could,” Fearn said. “I’ve always said when it gets hot we get hot and it was a hot one tonight. I’ve got to thank my crew. We had a tough week last week. It was good to rebound and come back here and win. The best we can do.”
It was the second win of the season and 64th career Late Model win at Stafford for Fearn, extending his lead on the track’s all-time win list for the division.
Overall it was Fearn’s 81st career feature win at Stafford, moving him into tie for second with Woody Pitkat on the track’s all-time win list. Fearn also has 17 career victories in the old Pro Stock division from 1992 to 2000. He has three Pro Stock championships and three Late Model championships at Stafford. The late Ted Christopher leads the overall win list at Stafford with 131 wins.
“With the history of this track, I guess if there was any track you wanted to be in the top two or three all-time it would be Stafford Speedway,” Fearn said. “I guess I’m blessed to have had longevity here and have had so much success throughout the years in whatever cars I’ve driven here.”
(Editor’s Note: After this story was published on Friday Pitkat won the GAF Roofing Open Modified 80 to retake sole possesion of second place on the all-time win list)
Kevin Gambacorta of Ellington was second and Chris Meyer of Franklin third.
Fearn went to the lead past Alexandra Fearn on lap six and went unchallenged the rest of the way, beating Gambacorta to the checkered by just over 1.5 seconds.
“They don’t make it easy for me but it’s a lot of fun passing cars like that,” Gambacorta said. “When you have an awesome car like that you can do things like that. We were really rolling the middle good.”
Gambacorta got by Wayne Coury Jr. for second on lap 29. Coming out of turn four on the final lap, contact between Coury and Adam Gray sent Coury spinning to the frontstretch wall. It allowed Meyer to move from fifth to third out of the final corner.
“We had a pretty decent car,” I felt like I was making a lot of adjustments driving and we were able to keep the speed in it. We were able to be in position to take advantage of whatever mishap happened.
Congratulations to Tom, Stuart and the whole Fearn Motorsports team, for your second win of the season. Great job team, jeep it up.
Who was calling who a morron last week
someone on the flo broadcast asked “what happened at the finish ” ..LOL they were focusing on the leader coming to the checker…pretty obvious once we saw the replay.. no surprise … what a hack !!. should be a crowded penalty box this week in the tower at Stafford.
The 97 must have wanted to be on the podium really bad and tried to drive over the 10 to get there with the end result being 2 wrecked race cars and the 97 not getting on the podium after all.I guess he thought 8 wheels corner better than 4
Boy talk a hypocrite! 97 was quick to call another competitor a moron multiple times last week. Yet 97 pulls the moron move of the season last night! 10 races clean and hard, 97 blatantly raced him dirty at the end, and cleaned out multiple cars while doing it!
On another note,, 97 runs Gambacorta up the track after being passed cleanly..
Hopefully the track starts penalizing 97 for the nonsense.