Joey Doiron: PASS North Series
White Mountain Motorsports Park Race Preview
THE STORY
Joey Doiron of Berwick, Maine, will try and keep the momentum rolling in the White Mountains when the PASS North Series heads to the PASS 150 at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H., on Saturday, May 26. The 20-year-old Doiron leads the series point standings through two events with a win and a pair of Top-5 finishes on his resume in 2012. Though he doesn’t consider White Mountain Motorsports Park among his favorite annual stops on the circuit, the No. 73 JBJ Machine/Scarborough Downs Chevrolet has only finished outside the Top-10 on the high-banked quarter-mile once in four career PASS starts there.
WHO: Joey Doiron, Berwick, Maine
TEAM: No. 73 JBJ Machine/Scarborough Downs Chevrolet
CREW CHIEF: John Doiron, Berwick, Maine
BEST CAREER WMMP FINISH: 8th (September 2011)
LAST RACE AT WMMP: 9th (September 2011)
WHAT: PASS North Series PASS 150
WHERE: White Mountain Motorsports Park, North Woodstock, N.H. (.25-mile banked oval)
WHEN: Practice, 12 noon, Saturday, May 26; Qualifying, 4 p.m., Saturday, May 26; Race, 7 p.m., Saturday, May 26
PASS North Series
LAST RACE: May 12, Star 150, Star Speedway, Epping, N.H. (4th)
NEXT RACE: June 3, PASS 150, Riverside Speedway, Groveton, N.H. (.25-mile oval)
CURRENT POINTS POSITION: 1st
DID YOU KNOW?
Joey Doiron had never led the PASS North Series point standings before winning on opening day at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine, on May 5.
Joey Doiron leads a parade of PASS Rookie of the Year winners at the top of the series standings. Doiron (2010 ROY) leads Lonnie Sommerville, Kyle DeSouza (co-2011 ROYs) and DJ Shaw (2008 ROY) after two races.
With two Top-5 finishes in the first two races of the season, Joey Doiron has already matched his Top-5 season totals from both 2010 and 2011.
Joey Doiron finished eighth and ninth, respectively, in two PASS North Series events held at White Mountain Motorsports Park in a 13-day span last September.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
JOEY DOIRON, Driver of the No. 73 JBJ Machine/Scarborough Downs Chevrolet, On being the PASS North Series point leader after two races in 2012: “It’s pretty cool. It’s been a long time since (six-time series champion Johnny Clark) hasn’t been leading the points after two weeks. Being that guy, it’s a pretty cool feeling. In the big picture, everyone still needs to pay attention to him. He showed at Star that he’s still the guy you’re going to have to beat. Still, to have him win that race and only lose a few points is a good feeling.
“We’re pretty close to where we want to be. After this week, we’ll be able to tell better because we’ll have been to every type of track PASS goes to – a flat track, a rough track and a banked track. I think if we get out of this week with a good finish, we’ll prove as a team that we’re a legitimate contender and people will be paying more attention to us.”
On racing at White Mountain Motorsports Park this weekend: “I’ve heard people say that at White Mountain you have to be on the white line (on the low groove) all the way around to be fast, especially at the end of a race. I feel like if we can stay on the bottom all day, we’ll be pretty good. We have the crate motor again so it won’t help us at the start, but if we can be patient and run the bottom, we’ll pick them off one by one like we have the last couple of weeks.
“It’s not my kind of racetrack, really. I’m more of a flat track guy – but statistically we’ve been OK there in the past with only one finish out of the Top-10. I always feel like we leave disappointed, but it’s a track where we have a good baseline (setup). (Car builder Dale Shaw) and (former track champion DJ Shaw) always have good cars there, so we get good feedback from them. They definitely know what they need to be fast there.”
On his goals for the race at White Mountain: “I’d love to come out of there and feel like we got a finish we deserved. If we finish eighth with an eighth-place car, we’ll be happy if that’s what we had. If I feel like I’ve got a fifth-place car, I don’t want to leave finishing eighth or ninth because of circumstances at the end of the race.
“Who knows? We’ve doubled our best finishes at the two tracks we’ve been to so far this year. If we do that again this week, I think people are going to have to pay more attention to us and our team. Other than Johnny, not many guys have had the start of a season we’ve had.”
UP NEXT
The PASS North Series heads to its third consecutive race on a quarter-mile track with the PASS 150 at Riverside Speedway in Groveton, N.H., on Sunday, June 3… Joey Doiron finished 14th as a rookie the last time PASS visited Riverside Speedway in July of 2010.
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