Ervine “Brother” Eastman

“Brother” a nickname he earned when he was young, his family would say to his sister “go help little
brother” and it stuck, eventually most everyone would refer to him as “Brother”. A week before he left for
Vietnam 1968-1969 he and his father attended a race at Bear Ridge Speedway where he told his father
“when I get back I’d like to try it”. Try it he did, he became a dominant force at Bear Ridge for 20 years,
ranking third all-time in championships at the Bradford, VT dirt track with nine championships. The Fairlee, VT native started racing in the Flathead Coupe class not long after its construction and opening, he was rookie of the year in 1970, and he earned his first title in 1971, and then three more in a row. As the division evolved into the Modified Coupes, Eastman grabbed two more titles in 1976 and ’77, giving him six in seven years.

In 1978, Eastman looked for another challenge, and he found it on the asphalt at Catamount Stadium and Thunder Road. Driving in the Grand American division, Brother won over legions of fans with his dirt-track driving style, and by August he was in victory lane. Brother found a ride for the second half of the year at Bear Ridge, running Friday nights on the clay (where he was the only driver who could beat NEAR Hall of Famer class of 2018 C.V. “Butch” Elms and two time Bear Ridge champion Paul Parker) and Saturdays on the hardtop . In 1979 he gravitated back to his home at Bear Ridge, as Thunder Road was
closed and Catamount was falling on hard times. By the following year, he was once again champion.

When the Coupe class morphed into the 6-Cylinder Modifieds, he kept right on winning, taking additional championships in 1984 and 1987. From 1971 to 1989 Brother and CV would capture 17 of the 20 championships in the headline divisions in an unprecedented run. As the six-bangers got scarce at Bear Ridge, he moved across the Connecticut River to Canaan NH and won the Sportsman division championship in his second year there, in 1993, before retiring from driving by 1995. All in all he has 10 championships and over 100 feature wins between Bear Ridge, Canaan, Rumney, and Thunder Road.
Content to help his son Danny progress as he began his driving career, Brother hung up his helmet for a dozen years … until one night in July 2007 when Danny had a prior commitment away from the track. When the boy was away, Brother grabbed the keys to the hauler and headed for Canaan on a lark. He won the feature. And then he did it again at the end of the year in September.

In 2018, Eastman was inducted into the Bear Ridge Speedway Hall of Fame.