Constantino’s confidence rewarded

Call it a premonition.

“I told everyone from Wednesday on that I was going to win Saturday,” said Dave Constantino, who claimed the modified feature at Fonda Speedway last weekend.

Constantino led the entire 30-lap distance to pick up his

first win in three years at the “Track of Champions.”

The 42-year-old Constantino was in one of his DKM (Damn Kids Motorsports) designs. Constantino is one of the founders of the fabricating company so the win was hugely satisfying.

“It (the business) has been a lot of work, but we have been doing our homework and right now our cars are doing well,” said Constantino of the business formed in 2012. “It’s a proud moment for us when we see our cars running so good.”

The father of three (Rocco, Gio and Nola) pre-celebrated Father’s Day. He came home from the races and treated himself to ramen noodles and a soak in his hot tub.

“That was a great start to Father’s Day,” Contantino said. “I was already happy so they didn’t have to do much.”

A week full of good stuff for Constantino and company. Earlier in the week a news release came out naming Constantino’s business partner, Eric Mack, as the recipient of the 2022 Mechanic/engineering Award, part of the Hall of Fame ceremonies at the Northeast Dirt Modified Museum in July.

As young boys, both Constantino and Mack were taken under the wing of veteran racer Maynard Forette. He mentored the boys about racing, growing up, and about life.

“It’s fun to look back at where we came from. We are brothers,” Constantino said. “Eric started babysitting me when I was 3 and we have been kicking, screaming and fighting and have had some unforgettable times in our lives. We raced rc (radio-controlled) cars, go-karts and now we are able to come to work every day and build race cars and live our dreams out.”

Forette would be so proud. “Eric and I talk about that a lot. I wish he was still here to see some of this.”

The Hearn return

Modified sensation Brett Hearn will be coming out of retirement and has added his name to the roster for the $10,000-to-win Bryan Goewey Memorial event scheduled for July 2 at Lebanon Valley Speedway.

Hearn went into semiretirement to focus on his role at Orange County Fair Speedway. Since he left that position he has decided he may want to get back behind the wheel a few times each month, catching some of the higher-paying shows with little travel involved.

“I don’t miss traveling at all,” said Hearn, who spent decades hauling the highways for the tour every year. “We lived on the road the entire summer going up and down the Thruway, to Canada and back — it was getting more and more difficult to be excited about living like that but we made the most of it.”

Hearn also wants to be part of this year’s 50th anniversary of Super DIRT Week which is held at Oswego Speedway in October. And he’s currently eyeing when the tour heads to Charlotte, N.C., in late fall.

Ironically last year’s Charlotte tour was Hearn’s last time in victory lane. The event at the Valley will be Hearn’s first time getting back in the car.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Hearn said. “I’m not interested in getting back in the car and doing it every week. We are going to be as good as we can be and have some fun with it.”

Fun — something that Hearn felt was missing.

“I have no more employees, guys come to the garage and we work on the car,” Hearn said. “There’s no pressure anymore, it’s fun and that is what had gotten away from us because we always had a tight timeline that we were working under. So it's nice.”

He’s been training for a month now — to fit into the fire suit. Can he find his way back into victory lane?

“We won our last race with this car and I have a lot of confidence in this car. We sorted out a lot of stuff and I think we have the ride to get it done if the circumstances are right.”

Numbers

Talk about an age gap. When Ron Proctor won the sportsman feature event at Albany-saratoga Speedway on June 10 he had recently celebrated his 69th birthday.

Following Proctor across the finish line that evening was Brock Pinkerous, who celebrated his 12th birthday earlier this year.