WEST LEBANON, N.Y. – When it was announced this winter that long time Lebanon Valley Speedway campaigner Brett Haas was taking the jump from small-block modifieds to big-block modifieds this year, it wasn’t much of a surprise given his talent behind the wheel.
However, Lebanon Valley has traditionally been one of the hardest race tracks in the Northeast for drivers to move up and win. Haas showed promise on opening night, running second in his first big-block modified attempt.
On Saturday, Haas registered his first big-block modified feature in his rookie season, beating Wayne Jelley and J.R. Heffner to the line in the caution free event.
When Haas crossed the line the emotion came out as he realized what happened.
“You hear that empty space?” Haas said. “That’s what I am thinking right now. To put it into words, you just can’t. It hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m crying right now because i don’t know what else to feel at this point.”
The Haas car is a family effort and Brett Haas knows his victory on Saturday was not just about the driver.
“It’s so much work to get to this point in a career,” an emotional Haas said. “It takes so many people, so much help, so many helping hands, so many hours. It’s indescribable. To finally do it with a good starting position it’s your race to lose. I knew we had to hit our marks and be good. I knew it was going to be hard to pass.”
For Haas, winning in the lower classes has been commonplace throughout his career while at Lebanon Valley. Winning in his rookie big-block campaign, however, takes things to another level.
“We’ve won a championship and races in every class I’ve been in,” Haas said. “With the shortened season this year I was not sure what our expectations were. We were running the experimental big-block motor that had problems. Olden Dwyer let us borrow this motor and I can’t thank him enough because our season would have been done three weeks ago. We were just hoping for a top-five this year with this shortened season.”
Haas said he hadn’t even considered the possibility of a caution flag during the feature, which could have changed everything. Luckily he didn’t have to worry about that as the feature was clean and green.
“A caution was the last thing to cross my mind,” Haas said. “I knew we were starting to catch lap traffic and it was slowing down. It actually got dusty and I was trying to not miss my mark and that’s what I was nervous about the most. My brakes started to fade and I just didn’t want to overdrive it because I knew someone couldn’t fire off the bottom. I can’t thank all my sponsors enough for everything, for everyone on this car, my crew busts their ass to get me a good car. This a dream come true.”