Hearn joins forces with Bradley

Hearn drove for the team for the first time today (Friday) at Kentucky Speedway and will be its test pilot for the rest of the season. Its current driver is Buzz Calkins, who lies seventh in the championship.

"We feel that adding a second driver will help accelerate the results of our testing programme," said Brad Calkins, owner of Bradley Motorsports. "Although there are many capable and deserving drivers out there, Richie's name kept coming up first. His talent, his past relationship with David [Cripps, Bradley team manager and chief engineer] and his potential sponsorship associations kept bringing Richie to the top of the list.

"Nothing is definite but, if everything were to go well with the testing programme, we'd like to run Richie in a race before the year is out," he added.

Hearn won the 1996 Indy Racing League race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and, most recently, he drove in the IRL for Sam Schmidt Motorsports at the Pikes Peak International Raceway event in June.

"I've been sitting around looking for something to do," said Hearn. "I am really excited about getting back in a car and getting to work with David again. We had a lot of success together in the past. I am also looking forward to working with Brad and Buzz. Hopefully, I can contribute to the team and we can put our programme together to join Bradley in the near future."