BUFFALO TWP — What's in a name?

Ask Callery resident Brandon Wearing that question and you'll get a vanilla answer.

"It all depends on how you look at it," the 28-year-old Late Model driver said.

Wearing is the son of Bob Wearing Sr., Lernerville Speedway's all-time feature victory leader with 179. He is the brother of Bob Wearing Jr., who owns 40 feature wins at the Sarver oval.

Brandon Wearing has never found his way to victory lane at Lernerville, though his appearances there have been limited. The only two feature wins of his 11-year racing career occurred at Gamblers Raceway Park in Clearfield.

"I used to let my last name affect me a lot in this sport," Wearing admitted. "I put a lot of undue pressure on myself.

"In recent years, I've learned to relax, enjoy the race nights and carve out my own career one way or the other."

Wearing has teamed with car owner Ryan Saydi since 2002. The two were next-door neighbors when Bob Wearing Sr. competed on a regular basis.

"I used to come over and watch them all work on the car, then joined in after a while," Saydi said. "I went to the races with the Wearing family."

Brandon Wearing and Saydi still are neighbors in Callery, "only now he lives a few houses down from us," Brandon said.

Wearing is driving the same car he raced last year, a 2005 Rocket, and is optimistic about this year's prospects.

"We figured it out toward the end of last year at Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania Motor Speedway)," Wearing said. "We were a consistent top-10 car down the stretch and got into the top five a few times."

Wearing's best finish at PPMS last season was third. He wound up 15th in Super Late Model points with 135.

This season, Saydi and Wearing will be racing for points at both Lernerville and PPMS.

"It's close to home and the hard tire rule here helps us out," Wearing said. "We're a low-budget team, so we have to watch the expenses.

"Racing here every week, I think we can finish in the top 10 in points. That's the goal, anyway."

In his season debut at Lernerville last week, Wearing started 22nd in the feature and finished 16th.

"We switched motors in 2007 and the car seemed to come to life," Saydi said. "Since then, we've been tweaking here and there, trying to set the car up to go with Brandon's racing style.

"We have to keep it tight. Brandon likes to drive really smoothly around the track. He doesn't hit the turns real hard and the car has to handle that.

"We're happy with the car and we're happy with the progress we're making right now," he added.

They'll be even happier if they wind up in victory lane at Lernerville.

"I would love that — absolutely love it," Wearing said.

Just don't count on his father being there.

"He's available if I need him or have a question, but he's pretty much separated himself from the racing game," Wearing said. "He's enjoying life on his Harley now."