by Mike Sweeney

Scarborough, ME — In the midst of a year full of personal milestones and record setting accomplishments, harness driver Drew Campbell added yet another accolade to his impressive list of credentials on Saturday afternoon (December 5) as the torrid teamster recorded the 2,500th driving win of his career by confidently cajoling a front-end journey and proving his ability to ‘cut the mustard’ while securing the milestone victory behind the pacer Passthegreypoupan.

Michael Newman photo

Campbell is all smiles after the winner’s circle session marking his landmark win.

“Well, it’s out of the way now” Campbell remarked following the landmark victory, “Usually you get into a rut as you count down these things but I didn’t realize I was so close to 2500 until I was almost there so it wasn’t like a pressure thing.”

Campbell and fellow driver Leigh Fitch have both delighted the local fans while taking dead aim on personal benchmarks in recent weeks — Fitch needing just one more win to register the 7500th victory lap of his career.

“Fitch was one win away and I’m one away so I said to him today, “Look, now all we have to do to get into the record books is to get a dead heat for our milestones. Wouldn’t that be cool? To battle into the stretch and get a dead heat?”

“I was rooting for The Fox” Campbell continued, “If I couldn’t do it today I was hoping he could do it. We have a good relationship that way.
It would have been great if we could have both gotten it today, but Leigh will get it tomorrow, I’m sure.”

Campbell, who has all but wrapped up back-to-back driving titles at Scarborough Downs, has had precious little time to reflect upon his latest accomplishment. The top-rated pilot does however, seem to appreciate the historical foundation from which such accomplishments spring.

“One thing I’d like to say is my hat goes off to the guys who have had so many wins – it’s a LOT of work. I worked my tail off to get this far and these guys have done double, triple what I’ve done. It’s a lot of travel and a lot of dedication and a lot of hard work. But worth all the effort.”

While the future looks bright for Drew Campbell, he’ll continue to take a work-a-day approach to his career as he contemplates his upcoming goals.

“Now I’ll start to concentrate on working toward 3000 wins. And I’m going to just do it one day by one, until I get it all done. It’s been a great year – One of the best of my career – The experience has been wonderful.