Born in Paterson, New Jersey, to parents Gordon and Kay, Hearn had his first exposure to racing at age eight at Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, New York. When he turned sixteen, his father Gordon encouraged him to try stock car racing and purchased a car from Glen Carlson. The Hearns built the engine themselves in their family room. Hearn crashed his number 20 blue-and-silver Pinto-body car on his first outing — and on numerous subsequent attempts — before finding his footing in competition.
Hearn's first-ever Modified feature win came at Nazareth Speedway, a historically significant victory: he was also the last Modified driver to win on that half-mile track before it was demolished to make way for a strip mall and grocery store.
His most dominant association was with Orange County Fair Speedway, where he became the all-time wins leader with 302 victories — 174 in the Modified division and 112 in Small-Block Modified, plus 2 Sprint Car wins. At Albany-Saratoga Speedway he amassed 108 wins, another all-time record at that venue. Over the course of his career he won at 49 different racetracks in eleven US states and two Canadian provinces.
Among his career totals, 363 of his wins came in races of 50 laps or longer — a figure that underscores consistency at the highest levels of regional competition, not merely success in sprint formats.
Hearn also competed in twenty NASCAR Busch Series events between 1985 and 1989, using the same chassis throughout. He earned one top-ten finish, a tenth place at Dover International Speedway, and his best points finish was 41st in 1986.
Hearn's final career win tally reached 920 victories: 574 in Modified, 343 in Small-Block Modified, and 2 in Sprint Car. He held 79 track and series championships, and his breadth of success across venues and divisions made him one of the defining figures of Northeastern American modified racing.
Following his competitive career, Hearn transitioned into race administration. He currently serves as race director at Orange County Fair Speedway, the track where he built much of his reputation as a driver. He also operated BH Enterprises, Inc., which encompassed his racing team, a fabrication shop, a driving school, and a performance equipment manufacturing business.
Hearn's career win total of over 900 features places him among a very small number of drivers in any discipline to have achieved that volume of victories. His dominance at Orange County Fair Speedway over multiple decades made him the defining figure in the history of that track, and his longevity across four decades of competition against changing generations of rivals reflects both skill and adaptability in the Modified ranks.