Earl Pearson Jr. wasn’t looking for a ride. Sure, he missed climbing into a race car — who wouldn’t after spending three decades as a driver? — but plotting a Dirt Late Model comeback, even a brief, one-off deal, didn’t consume him. Pearson was quite comfortable with his new life operating a campground in Georgia and occasionally joining the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series staff in an official’s role.
But then the 54-year-old Pearson received a mid-summer inquiry from Matt Langston, a Longhorn Chassis employee whose stint as a crew member alongside Pearson at Dunn Benson Racing during the 2000s was highlighted by EPJ’s career-topping victory in the ’06 World 100. Langston wondered if Pearson might be interested in returning to action with Longhorn equipment for Oct. 9-10’s Lucas Oil Series doubleheader at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
“He had kind of started putting some stuff together if I wanted to do it, so we talked about it,” said Pearson, who was a Lucas Oil Series regular from 2005-23 but hasn’t raced since running October 2024’s MLRA weekend at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., in a Black Diamond Chassis fielded by his buddy Ronnie Stuckey. “And he started talking to the guys at Longhorn — Steve Arpin, Justin Labonte, (Kevin) Rumley — and we had a conference call and kind of put it all together.
“I really didn’t understand why we was even doing it at one point, but Matt, he wanted to do this. He wanted to bring back the old (car) scheme and the old crew guys to go up there to Eldora.”
This weekend brings it all into reality at Eldora. Pearson driving a No. 1 machine, just like in his World 100 triumph. Langston and Jason Fitzgerald, Pearson’s longtime friend and his crew chief for that memorable World 100 win two decades ago, turning wrenches. Kemp Lamm, the son of late Dunn Benn Racing owner Carlton Lamm, in the pit area looking on. And Pearson piloting what’s effectively a Longhorn house car, reprising his role as the company’s first house car driver when it was formed in 2010 by famous NASCAR brothers Bobby and Terry Labonte and Terry’s son Justin.
Throw in a big group of other intimates from Pearson’s life coming to Eldora to experience the weekend with him — including his son Trey, who will spend the event as a crewman, family members, longtime sponsors like the Etchbergers from Illinois and perhaps even Pearson’s former car owner Jason Papich who is hoping to make it from California — and it’s going to be a special experience for the veteran driver. It would almost be the perfect scenario for the weekend to officially serve as Pearson’s last race, but he’s not quite willing to term it that just yet.
“It’s like throwback, just getting a lot of people together that’s helped me over the years, crew guys, sponsorship-wise, family, friends, the whole nine yards,” Pearson said. “We want to win the race or make the race or whatever the outcome is, but the main thing is to leave there smiling and everybody having a good time.
“What I’m gonna do is go there all weekend and just see how I feel after it, after the deal. You know, going with the Lucas Series, being an official, you just watch how they drive the cars nowadays. Me and Dale McDowell talk about it — it’s a whole different ballgame from even two years ago, how hard they drive the car. And, you know, the cars are faster, they stick better. The aerodynamics is different.
“So I just need to see how I feel after everything’s all said and done and then we can go from there, you know?” he continued. “If there’s some other opportunities, we may take it if I feel like it. If not, this will be the closure of it.”
Speaking earlier this week, Pearson indicated that he wasn’t feeling anxious about his approaching return. Two years out of the seat is a long time, but a driver with his resume — he’s a four-time Lucas Oil Series champion, multitime crown jewel winner and in August was inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame — possesses an initiate confidence regardless of how long they’ve been inactive.
“Once I get to the track, maybe the nerves set in, but right now it ain’t bad,” said Pearson, who noted that last week he put on his driver’s uniform and “walked around the house” and felt normal. “I mean, of course, I ain’t been in one in two years and haven’t been to Eldora in probably three or four years, so, I mean, who knows?
“But the good thing of it is, we’re going to test and I can get everything back in place, I hope, and be OK with that part. And I grew up at a racetrack with a lot of speed, so the speed part of it, I don’t think is gonna bother me.
“We don’t know how many cars will show up or what the track conditions may be or anything like that,” he added. “But you know, it’s just a good feeling for someone to even do this for me with Longhorn and all the guys behind it and all the great sponsors we're going to have with it. So just go up there and just have a good time with it.”
Pearson, who lives in Jacksonville, Fla., has been at the Longhorn shop in China Grove, N.C., since last week helping the company’s staff prepare his car. It’s the vehicle that Arpin, Longhorn’s managing partner, drove a couple times this summer, but reskinned with a new wrap and the Cornett engine under the hood tuned to full song. (Arpin’s appearances with the car were in races that required the open-competition engine to be restricted.) He was joined in the shop by Langston and Fitzgerald, and the plan was to take Pearson to a Southeast track on Thursday to turn some practice laps before heading to Eldora.
“And that’s gonna be huge for me,” Pearson said of a pre-Eldora test. “I need to get in it and I think all of it comes back to me fairly quickly, so I think that will be a big plus.
“I mean, when I drove them a couple years ago vs. today, I’m sure it’s different, but it's still got the same concept — you got to know how close you can get to the car in front of you without pushing, or turn out and get away from the air. And like on the restart, at a bigger track, you get to turn one and you got to get the car turned left so you gotta know what to do with that situation as well. I think all that will come back to me with no problem.”
Pearson traveled to North Carolina with Fitzgerald, 50, and they’ve been staying at the 46-year-old Langston’s home near the Longhorn shop. Reuniting the trio that enjoyed so much success together on the Dunn Benson team, and after the operation was purchased in 2007 by Bobby Labonte, has turned back the clock for them all.
“It ain’t changed,” Pearson said of the three interact with each other. “We go to (Langston’s) house, and he’s a (Atlanta) Braves fan, so we watched the baseball game, we sit around and cook out on a grill. And when we come back to the shop, it’s just joke after joke after joke. They’re never down. They work really, really good together and with me as well.
“I mean, all week, it’s just been jokes, laughing. We go to lunch and have a good time and talk about old stories. It’s the same old deal. Yeah, it's all good, all good times, and I think all weekend (at Eldora) that’s our strategy. We’ll do the best we can and have a good time with it and laugh and carry on and go from there.”
One of the barbs Langston and Fitzgerald have been throwing around in the shop regards the irony of Pearson’s racing return apparently about to coincide with the arrival in the Southeast of the first hurricane of 2026. Pearson’s nickname, of course, in the Hurricane.
“These guys are already kind of kidding around, but anyway, there’s a hurricane brewing in the Gulf that’s actually, kind of, headed our direction (in northern Florida),” Pearson said. “They’re making jokes of, ‘Yep, the hurricane’s coming in.’What timing. The first one of the year for us and I’m going to Eldora.”
Pearson said he hasn’t discussed his comeback with Bobby or Terry Labonte. He would “love to see them, but Justin (who remains involved at Longhorn) said Bobby’s at Joe Gibbs (Racing) most of the time and Terry, he’s actually in Texas.”
Nevertheless, being in North Carolina for the past week rekindled the early Longhorn days with the Labontes for Pearson.
“We went by Bobby’s old shop the other day,” Pearson said, referring to Longhorn’s original home. “It’s just bringing back a lot of memories from where we started with Longhorn to where it’s at today.”
Pearson conceded that “there has been a lot of talk” about him running Oct. 16-17’s Dirt Track World Championship at West Virginia Motor Speedway in Mineral Wells if the Eldora weekend is successful. Maybe Nov. 3-7’s World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., would be a possibility as well.
But he pumps the brakes on that talk, remaking “we’ll just wait and see how this weekend goes and we’ll go from there.”
Pearson is “part time” as a driver, if even that, and at the moment he’s just hoping for a fun time at Eldora. He will definitely be at the DTWC, but most likely in his position helping the Lucas Oil Series with technical inspection and other items.
“I’ll be back at West Virginia Motor with the guys and do that over there if we happen to not race,” Pearson said. “Either way, I’ll be at West Virginia in the car or teching.”
Pearson can’t do both jobs, no matter how much he’d like to.
“I’ll weigh my own car,” he said with a laugh when asked about this weekend at Eldora. “I’ll just close my eyes. I’ll just keep going” across the scales.