MALTA, NY – Some drivers go for years without winning a race.

But when Brett Hearn goes on a 10-race winless drought, it becomes news.

Hearn ended one of the longest dry spells of his career at Albany-Saratoga Speedway Friday night when he recorded his first win of the season in the 35-lap modified feature.

Hearn recorded the 900th win of his career at the historic Malta track on Aug. 4, 2017, but hadn’t been to victory lane again until Friday night, a stretch of 10 races. And Hearn’s night started out badly, when he got into a jingle in his heat race and the car of Demetrios Drellos wound up sitting across the front of Hearn’s modified.

But after a quick trip to the pits, Hearn came out and easily qualified for the feature. After some early slicing and dicing in the modified feature, Bobby Hackel IV took over the point, Keith Flach right with him. Twice, Flach appeared to take the lead, but each time a yellow flag flew put Hackel back into the top spot.

Hearn, who had started 15th, moved into third place on lap 15 and with Hackel setting the pace and getting wound up on the high side of the speedway, Hearn began to run side-by-side with Flach in a battle for second.

The complexion of the race changed entirely on lap 22 when Hackel began to get into heavy traffic. On lap 23, Hackel saw his preferred path was blocked by a lapped car, and tried to squeeze to the inside. But Flach was already there, and he and Hackel made contact, with Hackel getting completely sideways, and dropping to third behind Flach and Hearn.

But as soon as the leaders got to the other end of the speedway, Flach made heavy contact with the car of Brian Gleason, and Hearn rocketed into the lead.

From there, it was just a matter of outrunning Ronnie Johnson and Hackel for Hearn to come away with the 132nd win of his career at Albany-Saratoga Speedway.

“The way things go here, you’ve got to get a lot of spots early,” said Hearn of his quick charge to the top three. “But it’s not easy.”

In the annual Mark Hughes Memorial sportsman feature, Joey Scarborough held off Tim Hartman Jr. to win the 25-lap event. Scarborough had started fifth, but took the lead away from Nick Lussier going into the third turn on lap 11.

Hartman Jr. charged from his 15th starting spot to move into the runner-up spot on lap 22, then got into a one-lap shootout with Scarborough when the final yellow of the race came out with one to go. But Scarborough got a good jump on the restart and beat Hartman to the checkered flag.

Dylan Bokus chalked up the first win of his career in the 20-lap limited sportsman race, which was run as a dedication to Scott Flanders. Bokus got the lead on lap eight when polesitter Emily Quinn pushed up in the fourth turn and outran Justin Buff to the finish line.

Josh Coonradt won the pro-stock feature, his second victory of the season, and Randy Miller continued to dominate the street stock class, getting his fourth win in as many starts.
Steve Ryan and David Frame were victorious in the double mini-stock features.

MODIFIEDS (35 laps) – 1) Brett Hearn, 2) Ronnie Johnson, 3) Bobby Hackel IV, 4) Matt DeLorenzo, 5) Kris Vernold, 6) Kenny Tremont Jr., 7) Jack Lehner, 8) Jackie Brown Jr., 9) Jeff Rockefeller, 10) Demetrios Drellos, 11) Bodie Bellinger, 12) Jeremy Wilder, 13) Jim Nagle, 14) Matt Depew, 15) Hector Stratton, 16) Jessey Mueller, 17) Matt Pupello, 18) Don Ronca, 19) Scott Huber, 20) Justin Barber, 21) Pep Corradi, 22) Dylan Scribner, 23) Keith Flach, 24) Rich Ronca, 25) Brian Gleason, 26) CG Morey, 27) Elmo Reckner, 28) Marc Johnson, 29) Jimmy Cottrell, 30) Jeff Trombley (subbing for Peter Britten).

MARK HUGHES MEMORIAL SPORTSMAN (25 laps) – 1) Joey Scarborough, 2) Tim Hartman Jr., 3) Nick Lussier, 4) Chris Johnson, 5) Nick Fretto, 6) Chad Edwards, 7) Robert Bublak, 8) Dave Constantino, 9) Brian Calabrese, 10) Adam McAuliffe, 11) Dave Baranowski Jr., 12) Jeremy Pitts, 13) Mike Coffey Jr., 14) Ken Conroy, 15) Jake Scarborough, 16) Jim Osgood, 17) James Meehan, 18) Daryl Nutting, 19) Lou Torres, 20) Jon Miller, 21) Scott Duell, 22) Chris Ronca, 23) Jack Speshock, 24) Connor Cleveland, 25) Derek Bornt, 26) Jason Gray, 27) Andrew Buff, 28) Mike Ostrander, 29) Pat Jones, 30) Jesse Edward, 31) Jason Rheome, 32) Fred Proctor, 33) Elliot Lussier.

PRO STOCKS (25 laps) – 1) Josh Coonradt, 2) Luke Horning, 3) Dean Charbonneau, 4) Norm Loubier, 5) Walt Brownell, 6) Brandon Emigh, 7) Kenny Martin, 8) Nick Arnold, 9) Ed Thompson, 10) David DePaulo, 11) Kim Duell, 12) Matt Roberts, 13) Jimmy Eaton, 14) Scott Towslee, 15) Peter Porter, 16) Dan Madigan, 17) Darrell Older.

LIMITED SPORTSMAN (15 laps) – 1) Dylan Bokus, 2) Justin Buff, 3) Paolo Pascarella, 4) Michael Wagner Fitzgerald, 5) Ryan Heath, 6) John Stowell, 7) EJ McAuliffe, 8) Stephen Kneer, 9) Derrick McGrew Jr., 10) David Boisclair, 11) Jacob Volpi, 12) Travis Billington, 13) Jason Miller, 14) Steve Birch, 15) Jason Baker, 16) Thomas VanVorst, 14) Bryan Jones Jr., 18) Josh Rozelle, 19) Gerard LeClair, 20) Lenny Blllings, 21) Brandon Daley, 22) James Hinman, 23) Jeff Jenkins, 24) Emily Quinn, 25) Scott Bennett, 26) Gary VanAlstyne, 27) Matt Rich.

STREET STOCKS­­ (20 laps) – 1) Randy Miller, 2) Al Relyea, 3) David Cook, 4) Damon Anderson, 5) John Filaracki, 6) John Hayes, 7) Mark Burch, 8) Phil Arnold, 9) Justin Taylor, 10) Jason Bennett, 11) David Shippee, 12) Scott Lawrence, 13) Pete Vila, 14) Jimmy Duncan, 15) Chase Aussicker.

4 Cylinder Single Cam Results – 1) Robert Garney, 2) Johnny Bennett, 3) Tyler Burch, 4) Cordelle Younger, 5) Dave LeBarge, 6) Dan Mitchell

4 Cylinder Dual Cam Results – 1) David Frame, 2) Steve Ryan, 3) P.J. Bleau, 4) Jason Lang, 5) Jared Powell, 6) Derek Quintero Sr., 7) Todd Burch