Earl Pearson Jr. enjoying resurgence with Papich Racing

Earl Pearson Jr. has recorded one of the most successful careers in all of Dirt Late Model racing history. The 50-year-old driver has achieved 40 wins and four championships with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series as well as victories in the World 100, the Dirt Track World Championship, and the Colossal 100. But over the past couple of seasons, the trips to victory lane have become much less frequent than had been the case in the decade before that time.

Near the end of 2021 season, the driver known as ‘The Hurricane’ parted ways with Black Diamond Race Cars and owners Ronnie and Terry Stucky, who he had raced with since 2018. That team reached their high water mark in their first campaign together when they won the ‘Dirt Million’ together in Mansfield, Ohio to receive a paycheck valued at more than $200,000. Pearson went on that season to finish fourth in the final Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings. After that season, the wins came in fewer numbers as overall performance dropped off.

Now, however, Pearson’s career seems to be in midst of a revival of sorts. Near the end of the 2021 season, the veteran driver joined forces with Californian Jason Papich and his Papich Racing organization. Since then, the No. 46 machine has been contending for podium finishes.

“It’s been good,” Pearson explained to InsideDirtRacing.com of his union with the Papich-owned team. “Me and Jason have been friends for quite some time. We’ve hunted together and raced around the country together a little bit here and there and just became friends. Our families are friends as well. It’s working out good and we’ve got a good group of guys here. The shop is over in Missouri which is kind of centrally located for the series schedule so it ain’t too bad on that part.”

While Papich may not get to race as often as he would like, Pearson says his new team owner knows what the sport is all about.

“He understands racing and he’s got a lot on his plate in California so he can’t race as much as he wants,” Pearson said. “He’ll come and race with us at times and do his thing whenever he feels like he can. All in all, it’s been a really good change for me and him, the crew, and everybody. We’ve got two new guys with us and they’re going to do SpeedWeeks with us and hopefully right on through the year.”

Pearson points out that it is much easier to keep a team’s morale high when good finishes are part of the equation. With so much time spent on the road in the confined space of a motor home/car hauler, it can be easy for the relationships between team members to sour quickly.

“Everybody knows how critical it is when you travel up and down the road in these rigs,” he stated. “That box is only so big, when you’ve got three guys in there, things can get out of hand. I’ve learned over the years to try to keep everybody together and having a good time.”

Running well makes the travel easier. And those solid results not only lift the mood inside the truck but in other important locations as well.

“Running well helps everybody,” he declared. “It don’t just help me, it helps the team, it helps the people back home, it helps the owners and the sponsors. When you’re racing out here and you know you don’t have a chance of winning, I get down, the team gets down, the sponsors get down, and the owners get upset which makes things go south in a hurry. If you’re competitive and consistently in the top-5, the wins will come.”

And obviously, good finishes are essentially when it comes to achieving the most important of goals.

“The ultimate goal here is to do the best we can and have a good showing in the points deal,” Pearson insisted. “Hopefully we’ve got a good chance of winning that. What happens on that race track usually comes back and goes right in that truck when you’re going down the road. If you win, everybody’s pumped up and wanting to go to Waffle House, but if you wreck and run 15th, everybody’s down and out and ready to go to bed.”

So far in 2022, Pearson has logged a total six top-5 and nine top-10 finishes in his 15 total starts. The team entered the Wild West Shootout in January at New Mexico’s Vado Speedway Park then headed east to race with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in Georgia and Florida at Golden Isles Speedway, Bubba Raceway Park, All-Tech Raceway, and East Bay Raceway Park.

Please consider also reading “The real value of the Clash is about to reveal itself“

Part of the reason for Pearson’s resurgence has been his reunification with Longhorn Chassis. That company was fostered into existence by former NASCAR champions Terry and Bobby Labonte as well as Terry’s son Justin. In the earliest days of that chassis building operation, he served as somewhat of a test pilot. The star racer says the difference in those cars from then to now is nothing short of remarkable.

“There ain’t no doubt,” he said. “It was in the development stage of it. Bobby was involved, Terry, and Justin. You had the whole Labonte family. A lot of things have changed in the four years since I was there. They’ve got a lot of people involved now, really good people in the fabricating shop and different people putting them together. I think it’s a really good deal.”

There is strength in numbers.

“They’ve got a lot of teams running Longhorns and a lot of teams working together so when you’ve got that you get feedback,” he explained. “The last couple of years where I was, when you’re out here on an island by yourself, it makes it tough. This deal here, we’ve got probably six guys working together and Rocket has got six or eight guys working together. When you have something like that, it’s pretty tough to outrun.”

And it’s not just the cars themselves but the similarity of the many components on those cars that are helping them go faster.

“I think that’s a critical part of it. Most of the teams that come out of the Longhorn stable, everything is pretty much the same- rear ends, a lot of the motors are the same, Bilstein Shocks. I mean, you name it, it’s pretty much the same so that makes it easier to work together and share information. I think that’s a key part of it, keeping it all together and the drivers communicating together. Me and (Tim)McCreadie work together quite a bit, and (Mike)Marlar some. Maybe we’ve got different driving styles but we can put our ideas together and make something work.”

Respond to this post on Twitter by following @RichardAllenIDR and @MichaelRMoats or by liking the InsideDirtRacing.com Facebook page.

Also, NASCAR and pavement racing fans can check out InsideCircleTrack.