While Mike Stearns has not always found his way into the winner’s circle this summer, he has positioned himself to capture the biggest prize in dirt track racing.

Through consistent top-four finishes all season, the Aberdeen Modified driver is near the top of the national points with the potential to quickly move to the front of the standings.

Stearns, who won a national points championship 11 years ago, knows how the system works and noticed that things were starting to come together for him earlier this season.

“This year is shaping up to be just about as good of opportunity for us,” Stearns said. “We don’t all have our shows in yet, so it’s hard to see, but if you know what you’re looking at, you can see the potential. We’ve got a very good opportunity in front of us here, that we need to kind of take care of.”

In short, drivers need 30 shows to be able to qualify for a national title. Stearns isn’t quite there yet. Once drivers hit that total, they can start eliminating their weakest shows.

“The points don’t mean a lot until you hit 30 shows, because it’s your best 30,” Stearns said. “Right now it’s just kind of whoever has the most shows. And once you get your 30 shows and they start throwing out shows, then it shows you what’s going on.”

Stearns, a regular at Brown County Speedway, Aberdeen, has done the math and figures he will be able to pass current points leader Buzzy Adams of Wisconsin once he reaches the 30-show plateau.

“My average is far and away better than his,” Stearns said. “If we hit 30 shows tomorrow, I’d be 200 plus points ahead of him.”

Stearns has been around racing his entire life. His father Rollin was a race car driver so it only seemed natural that he would follow in his footsteps.

Racing has changed a lot since then, and Stearns has adusted with it, moving from Super Stock to a Modified driver in 2008.

“When I was growing up as a kid, I guess I always admired Kent Arment,” Stearns said of the legendary Aberdeen driver. “He won a lot. He was fast. And he was tough to beat. …. He was good and as a kid, you like the winners.”

There was also something else about the Modified division that grabbed his attention.

“The thing with the Modified is it’s big horse power, and still has that little tire, the same tire we had always raced on in the Super,” Stearns said. “That was the draw for me, was putting all that power to the ground. It just always caught my eye. In my mind, that’s where I wanted to end up.”

Soon, like Arment, Stearns became a standout Modified racer and captured the WISSOTA National Points championship in the division in 2013.

“That was a huge deal for our team. There was absolutely not a person in the racing world that would have picked me to win the national championship, and probably rightfully so,” Stearns said. “We had run decent, we had run consistent or whatever, but by no means were we national championship caliber before that.”

Stearns said everything just fell into place that season, when he won a whopping 23 features. He said winning a national title is a compilation of a year’s worth of racing and not just one or two particular races.

“It’s a huge deal. That’s one of the greatest accomplishment you can have in WISSOTA, in our racing series,” Stearns said. “Obviously, crown jewel events like the WISSOTA 100, winning that would rank right up there with it. Those are just individual races which are very prestigious. That’s awesome to win those, where the national championship shows your entire season.”

The current season for Stearns has been one of consistency. While he has just six feature wins, he has only finished outside of the top four just four times so far this summer. Adams already has 11 feature victories, so Stearns knows he has some work left to do. He is hoping to at least double his feature win total the rest of the season.

“The later in the season, the more you think about it. I know that we have a very good season going, obviously. We’ve just put together a very good points sheet,” Stearns said. “You know the potential is there, but the biggest problem right now that holds me back from being a little bit more confident is that I only have six wins. … I feel like to give myself the best opportunity to try to win that deal again, I’m probably going to end up with, I’m going to have to be in that 12-15 win range just to go with the rest of the shows I have.”

Make no mistake about it, there are a lot of things more important than points to Stearns. One of those is the racing fraternity that has provided him with life-long friendships.

“It’s a big family. You meet a lot of great people,” Stearns said. “Some of the best people you meet in your life are through racing. It develops a lot of relationships with different people.”

There is also the joy of racing door-to-door with opponents trying to find the fastest way to the checkered flag. It’s a feeling that can’t be replicated.

“The thrill of victory, the adrenaline rush you get when you’re racing,” Stearns said, “when you’re in a good race and it’s a side-by-side deal for a win, it’s hard to beat that.”

Stearns recently received the opportunity to drive a Late Model car thanks to his friends Brian Diede and Warner Holt. While he has limited experience in a Late Model, Stearns appreciates the chance to give it a try.

“My pit help is awesome. They realize the opportunity that’s there,” Stearns said. “It’s not very often you get offered a ride, especially in these parts of the country.”

While he would like to get going in that Late Model, he knows his immediate focus has to be squarely on the Modified opportunity that lies in front of him.

Racing for a national title, yet not wanting to risk wrecking equipment is a bit of a conundrum. Drive too cautiously and you end up finishing lower than desired; drive too aggressively and you end up putting even more money and work into a vehicle.

“It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a national championship. I’m just one of those guys that doesn’t want to wreck equipment,” Stearns said. “I don’t care if it’s mine or somebody else’s car, I don’t like wrecking somebody else’s night, I don’t like wrecking my own equipment. I try to race and be as respectful and clean as I can.”

That said, it’s only reasonable that standout drivers have a built-in desire to outrace the competition.

“You have to be smart about it,” Stearns said. “You don’t want to wreck a race car and take yourself out, but you also don’t want to give away your opportunities. When a hole presents itself, you’re going to have to go for it.”

For those wanting to follow his racing exploits, Stearns has an extremeley active Facebook page that includes multiple videos from each race night. While Stearns said it is an opportunity for his fans to enjoy the races, he ends up being the biggest benefactor of the videos.

“I absolutely love it, because I can go back and watch those videos and study stuff,” Stearns said. “I learn from it. It’s very very, very useful in my opinion to be able go back. It’s not always what you think it was.”

It’s kind of like the race for national points right now, it’s not always how it looks on paper.

Stearns understands what’s at stake in the weeks ahead and what has already transpired so far.

“You just know when you have a good point sheet,” Stearns said. “We’re getting good finishes. Only four shows that are outside the top four. That’s almost unbelievable. … It’s just one of those years that doesn’t come around very often.”