It was like a desert, with nary an oasis in sight. Earl Pearson talks easily of the longest stretch of his life, when a championship racer suddenly found himself locked out of victory lane.

Twenty-eight months it was, the span from the 2010 Dirt Track World Championship to his recent win at the finale of the Dart Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park. Long months and weeks and days, when he surely wondered when the prolonged dry spell would end.

Pearson was a prolific champion over the past MORE