Official Finishes

PASS Mods Top Three: L to R - Troy Morse #6, 2nd;
Winner Gary, Norris #03: and Jeremy McCormick #99, 3rd.

NAPLES, ME (May 6, 2007) – Every athlete dreams of a perfect day – one when any of his competitors can’t even challenge him for supremacy on the court, field or racetrack.  Very rarely do those dreams come true, though.

For Cassius Clark, Sunday was one of those days.  The 25-year-old Farmington, Maine, driver started fifth in the Pro All Stars Series North Super Late Model race at Speedway 95 (located near Bangor, Maine), but he didn’t waste much time taking the lead from 2006 PASS North Champion Johnny Clark.

Once Cassius Clark took the lead, he ran away with it on the way to his unofficial victory.  At one point he lapped all but the second-place car and was getting ready to lap that entry, too, when the caution flag came out for a frontstretch incident between Bill Penfold and Trevor Sanborn.

“We had such a long green-flag run there, and my car was really good,” said Cassius Clark.  “You have those days where the car is perfect and this was one of those.  This thing was just hooked up.”

A late race stream of caution periods brought out by various bumps, spins and encounters with the Speedway 95 tire wall brought several other cars back on the lead lap, thanks to the “lucky dog” rule of letting the highest running lapped car gain a lap on every caution.

There was even a green-white-checkered finish that almost allowed Johnny Clark to make a bid for the lead, but in the end nothing was going to ruin Cassius Clark’s day.

“We were going to change the right-front tire on that last caution, but we didn’t have time,” said Johnny Clark.  “They were crossing over [for the restart].  I finished right behind Cassius by a few car lengths and if I had a right-front tire that would stick, I think that I could have gotten to his rear bumper.  But we had to bite the bullet and finish second instead.”

Finishing behind the Clarks were three-time PASS North champion Ben Rowe, Travis Benjamin and Richie Dearborn.

There were fireworks a little further back in the pack, though.  Bill Penfold made contact with the rear of Mike Rowe’s #2 car in a battle for third place.  Rowe spun out of the top 10 and Penfold was penalized two laps by PASS officials for rough driving.  Rowe and Penfold were credited with the 11^th and 12^th positions.

Clark also had a little something to prove in Sunday’s race.  In the PASS North season opener at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway the day before, he battled with Joey Porciello for the lead throughout the middle stages of the race, but faded to a ninth-place finish there after running into some mechanical problems.

“We ran the whole race at Beech Ridge on seven cylinders [due to a problem with a spark plug wire],” said Clark.  “Then we lost the power steering at the end.  It just irks me when you have a car that good and you can’t win with it.  It’s nice when you have a dominant car to get the job done.  That’s what you are supposed to do.”

Although not winning at Beech Ridge fired Clark up, it also wasn’t something that he had much time to dwell on between the two events.

“Not really,” said Clark.  “We got home at midnight and then got up at four in the morning to get it put back together.  We were an hour-and-a-half late going through the pit gate here and missed the first practice.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time to think about it, but we did come here for revenge.  Right off the trailer, the car was on rails, so we knew that we had a good day coming.”

Clark’s dominating performance might have also inspired at least one young driver on Sunday.  Rookie racer Derek Ramstrom finished a career-best sixth at Speedway 95.  The 2006 PASS Outlaw champion is now looking forward to the day where his team might enjoy the kind of dominant race that Clark’s #8 team did.

“He was awesome,” said Ramstrom.  “Pretty soon, I hope that we can do something like that.”

The victory at Bangor is Clark’s third one in the last four PASS North events held there.

“I love this place,” said Clark.  “I raced Legends cars here and had success here.  We won a lot of races with those.  I took a liking to it the first time that I came here.  When we started running Pro Stocks (Super Late Models), this was one of our best tracks.  I had a top-five run going in my first race here, but had rear end troubles.  So we didn’t get the finishes that we wanted here at first.  It’s been a great place for us.”

Don’t call Speedway 95 “The House That Cassius Built” quite yet, though.  Clark knows that in racing success can be fleeting and he is not resting on his past accomplishments – even if they are only a few moments old.

“Houses always come down, so we have to work hard to keep this up,” said Clark.  “We’re looking to the next race now.  We’ve got a week off.  They are pulling our motor [for an comprehensive tech inspection], so when we get that back, we’ll just start working to get ready for the next race.” 

In other action at Speedway 95, Gary Norris held off Troy Morse and Jeremy McCormick for the victory in the 40-lap PASS Modified race.

The PASS North Super Late Models return to action on Saturday, May 12^th, at New Brunswick International Speedway near Fredericton, New Brunswick.  It will be the first of four Canadian appearances for the Super Late Model tour in 2007.