Johnny Clark: PASS North Series
Spud Speedway Race Report
Johnny Clark of Farmingdale, Maine, won the inaugural PASS North Series PASS 150 at Spud Speedway in Caribou, Maine, on Saturday, Aug. 21. It was Clark’s fourth win of the season and helped him extend his series points lead to 13 over his closest challenger as Clark hits the home stretch of his bid for an unprecedented fifth PASS North championship. Clark rebounded from a flat tire in his heat race, starting 12th in the main event and securing the lead by Lap 25 as he drove off to the victory.
WHO: Johnny Clark, Farmingdale, Maine
TEAM: No. 54 Clark’s Car Crushing/Port City Chevrolet
WHAT: PASS North Series PASS 150
WHERE: Spud Speedway, Caribou, Maine (.250-mile oval)
STARTED: 12th
FINISHED: 1st
LED: 1 time for 125 laps
NEXT RACE: Sunday, Sept. 13, PASS 300, Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Scarborough, Maine (.333-mile oval)
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JOHNNY, IT MUST FEEL GOOD TO BE BACK IN VICTORY LANE.
Absolutely it does. I heard the guys as we were celebrating in Victory Lane and they were saying, “We’re back.” That’s exactly what it feels like, too. We’ve had some decent runs lately, but we never really put it all together in terms of our finishes. (Saturday) night I felt it, though.
We won three races in a row (from May-June) and hopefully we can do it again to close out the season and win that fifth championship.
WHAT WAS THE KEY TO WINNING AT SPUD SPEEDWAY?
Everyone kept talking about “Turn 5” there. It’s not a dogleg in the middle of the straightaway, but you go through Turns 3 and 4, and then there is another turn after that. It’s hard to describe it unless you’re in the race car. But it’s a really cool, really unique place — and we were really good through that Turn 5 all night.
I think we passed everybody by going under them there. I could really put the car wherever I needed to, and I could just wait for guys to push up a little in the corner and then drive up off under them. We just had a lot of drive from the center of the corner off.
We were one of three teams that chose to stay for practice on Friday night (after regularly scheduled racing). It was at 9:30 at night, but I think it paid off for us. Our last practice was as at 6:30, and I didn’t want to stick around for three hours, either — but I felt like, “You know what? We’re here to win this race, and if this helps we’re going to take advantage of it.” I absolutely think it did help. It got colder, the track changed a little and we were ready for it on race day.