Nov. 16th and 17th - Concord Motorsport Park

3rd in a Wild Finish

 

Johnny led three times for 76 laps and at times looked like the car to beat. However, trouble getting the #54 into high gear on the restarts cost Johnny the lead and some positions a couple of times. Johnny battled back in the closing laps and passed Preston Peltier on the wild, controversial last lap to take third place. PASS RACE STORY In what could only be described as unbelievable, Ben Rowe capped off an amazing 2007 season in Saturday night’s 2nd Annual Mason-Dixon Meltdown at Concord Motorsport Park (NC) by passing Corey Williams on the final turn of the final lap to take the victory. Rowe passed Corey Williams as the white and yellow flags were waving at the same time. PASS South rules dictate that once the leaders have taken the white flag, they race to the checkers unless the track is blocked and officials deem it a red-flag period. Williams came out of the final turn, ducked low to avoid a spun car and got out of the gas long enough to allow Rowe to jump to the outside and take the checkers in the final 50 feet of the race. “This is unbelievable,” said Rowe, who also won the 2007 PASS North Championship. “To come down here and win this race at this track is just amazing. It was pretty wild there at the end, but the rules are the rules. I’ve lost two or three races in my career by slowing down when the caution comes out on the white flag lap and that is what Corey did. I feel bad for him because he had a better car than us, no doubt. But my spotter told me to go high to avoid the spun car and that is just what we did. So to win this race is just awesome.” Williams held on to finish second. Johnny Clark was able to get by Preston Peltier on the last lap as well for third. Peltier was fourth and Trevor Sanborn rounded out the top five. Seven of the top-

Johnny and the #54 are headed south for the PASS South Mason-Dixon Meltdown on November 17th at Concord Motorsports Park in Concord, NC and to the Snowball Derby on December 2nd in Pensacola, FL. at Five Flags Speedway

A fourth behind Cassius Clark, Mike Rowe, and Trevor Sanborn was a typical
White Mountain race for Johnny. Starting from 12th, the #54 was up to 9th by lap 75, 7th by lap 97, 6th by lap 126, 5th on lap 134, and into 4th on 143.

Johnny has a pattern of barely being in the top 10 for the first half of a White Mountain event and then moving up to a top 5 finish in the closing stage of the race. In twelve PASS starts, the #54 has a record of one 2nd, one 3rd, four 4ths, two 5ths, one 6th, one 8th, one 9th, and a 20th.

In the PASS North 2007 points standings Johnny remained in 4th after  dropping a spot to Richie Dearborn due to the crash at Beech Ridge on 9/23.
1) Ben Rowe - 3128   2) Mike Rowe - 3121   3) Richie Dearborn - 3051
4) Johnny Clark - 3025   5) Trevor Sanborn - 3014  6) Travis Benjamin - 2930

Johnny's solid 2007 season featured three PASS wins (Speedway 95, Unity, and Wiscasset) plus the big open race win at New Bruswick's Peterbilt 250.

ALL-STAR RAINOUT
Showers came twice during the night on Oct. 6th at All-Star Speedway -- the second just one lap before the Super Late Models were to take the green after an hour and a half of track drying.  There was not enough time for another drying cycle before curfew time, so there was no chance for the feature to be run.  Attendance points (100 for licensed drivers) and heat points (4 for Johnny) were awarded for the event.

Wild ride at the PASS 300 leading to a finish of 27th
Three wide at start-finish turns into a slide through turn one
and no place for Johnny to go but over the top of Kelly Moore.

 The Biggest Race in New Brunswick
Sunday, September 2nd

JOHNNY CLARK THE WINNER!
2nd - Travis Benjamin
3rd - John Fleming
4th - Lonnie Sommerville
5th - Justin Labonte
Full Finish order at http://www.nbisonline.com/250/

Johnny wins the consi to transfer to the feature after getting caught up in another's spin in his heat.

Starting from 18th, the #54 charges forward into the top seven and then short pits to move into the top three.

Johnny makes the passes for the lead and then holds off a hard charging Travis Benjamin for the win.

With lap money for 94 laps led, Johnny takes home
$19,700 from a terrific race. Thanks NBIS!

.

PASS 150
Speedway 95 - Hermon, ME - Sunday, August 26th
13th Place

The PASS North Atlantic CAT 250
at Scotia Speedworld on Saturday, August 11th
in Halifax, Nova Scotia
3rd Place

Halifax, NS - With fastest time in four of the practice sessions and a going away win in Heat 1, Johnny had high hopes for a back to back win in the Atlantic CAT 250. Starting from tenth as a 2007 race winner, Johnny made his way to the front and took the lead from Richie Dearborn #33 on lap 82. Mike Rowe went into first on lap 109 was Johnny was fighting a loose car. The #54 ran in second till stops for tires and then adjustments scrambled the running order. In the top five for most of the race, Johnny fell to 9th on a final stop for adjustments 50 laps from the end. Still wheeling a loose racer, Johnny moved ahead, taking third from the #89 of Don Chisholm just 11 laps from the checkers.

Saturday, August 4th - FIRST
Clark's Car Crushing Pro Stock 50

Johnny scores the win as Sam Sessions and Scott Chubbuck
finish second and third in the Clark's Car Crushing Pro Stock Division debut at "The Center of Speed" now under the
new ownership of Doug White

Riverside Speedway - Groveton, NH
Saturday July 28th - 4th Place

Before Saturday night, two-time PASS North champion Johnny Clark had run three events at Riverside.  He won twice and finished second once.   So finishing a career-worst fourth this time around might seem like a letdown, but considering that Clark started deep in the field because of PASS North rules that forbid a current season winner from starting a race in the top 10, that race wasn’t a bad effort at all.   “We started 11th and I’ve never started that far back here,” said Clark.  “Every time that I won here, I started in the front five or six.  We started 11th and that made a big difference having to come from the back.  All of the good cars were in front of us and it was a tough race.  Track position was everything.   “We came home in fourth and in one piece.  We haven’t been able to say that in a long time.  We had a good race.  I was fighting with Richie pretty hard and we were rubbing doors in the last 15 laps or so.  I lost the front end and everyone was fighting for forward bite.  I didn’t have any and I couldn’t stay in front of him."

The IWK 250 - July 22nd - 13th Place
Riverside Int'l Speedway - Antigonish, NS

Fast practice times, a run to second in a heat, taking the lead after coming back from a first flat tire - all looked good until a second flat right front put the #54 into the wall and out of the race with a 13th place finish. Plenty of wrecking left a lot of debris on the track and led to more than a dozen flats.

The Full-Fendered Frenzy 75 - 16th Place

The All-Stars 200 - 15th Place

The All-Stars 200 actually started out well for Johnny and the #54. With a win in Heat Two, Johnny pulled even with Ben Rowe in the standings. But a flat in the 200 - plus the decision to stop on track and take a two lap penalty instead of falling five or more laps down with a trip to the pits during the green - produced a 15th place finish. Johnny falls 26 points behind Ben and only a single point ahead of Mike Rowe. In the 200, from a 10th place start the Johnny went down as low as 16th after avoided crashes and then moved up the field as high as 6th. But the #54 did have have winning speed that night, and, even after receiving one Lucky Dog lap back lap, would up in 15th.

Scotia Speedworld, Halifax, NS - 6/23
The Forbes Chev-Olds 200 - 4th Place

PASS North Champion Johnny Clark Heads to His Favorite Track for Unity’s DNK 150 and WINS!
Photos by Norm Marx
Johnny Clark Gives the Gift of Victory on Father’s Day at Unity Raceway on 6/17 Latest Unity Raceway Memory for Clark Family is a Win in the DNK Select 150 Some sons give neckties or tools for Father’s Day gifts, but Johnny Clark gave his Dad something a little more unique this year – a victory in the PASS North Super Late Model race at Unity Raceway (ME). John Clark III had raced many times at Unity throughout his own career, but lately he’s been watching his son Johnny win big races at tracks throughout the Northeast. On Sunday, Johnny’s victory came in the DNK Select 150. “To come here and run like we did on Father’s Day is awesome,” said Johnny Clark. “Dad drove the bus up here last night and he said, ‘You know what I want for Father’s Day?’ and he reminded me of that when I crossed the finish line. That was pretty cool.” Winning at Unity, a track within an hour of the Clark’s home base of Farmingdale, Maine, was just like winning at home. “Here and Wiscasset are where I grew up watching racing,” said Johnny Clark. “I just haven’t really raced here much. Nobody believes it, but I’ve only raced here about 16 or 17 times. I never raced here weekly.” Interestingly enough, though, most of Johnny’s memories of when his Dad raced did not involve actually seeing him wheel a car around the Unity track. “I don’t remember him racing here so much,” said Johnny Clark. “That was in his Street Stock days when he raced here, and I was just a little runt at the time. I do know that I would cry when I couldn’t come here. That was back when he would load the racecar on the back of his wrecker and I would watch it leave. Later on, I recall watching Kenny Wright, Ralph Nason and Scott Chubbuck race here. I watched a lot of laps around here and that is how I learned to race this track.” Those lessons paid off for Clark on Sunday because the task of getting to the front was not supposed to be an easy one. Clark won his heat race, but started 11th due to PASS rules that do not allow any winner from the current season of racing to start a feature within the top 10. Since Clark won at Speedway 95 earlier in 2007, he had to line up 11th. He didn’t stay there for long. Clark was in the top five by the 25-lap mark. A few laps later, he worked his way up to third. Travis Benjamin and Cassius Clark both took turns leading early in the race, but by lap 54, it was time for Johnny Clark to take over the top spot. He would not give that up for the rest of the day either. On a long green-flag run late in the race, Cassius Clark appears to be cutting into Johnny Clark’s sizable lead, and a caution for Stephen Barry’s hard wreck into the turn one sandpile with six laps to go had the possibility of creating a new race for the lead. Could that late-race caution have made any difference as to the winner of the race? That depends on who you ask. “After the last restart, I had to race side-by-side with Richie (Dearborn) for about 30 laps, so once I got by him, I was hoping to gain on him [Johnny Clark],” said Cassius Clark. “He was coming back to me. I don’t know if I would have caught him, but I would have had a better chance of it.” “Come on, we had a straightaway lead,” laughed his pal Johnny Clark in response. “We knew the caution would come out at some point. I figured we would have a green-white-checkered finish. I was [getting bigger in his windshield], but I was also running a lot slower those last 15 laps because I had such a lead. I just wanted to conserve the car. He was definitely good, but I wasn’t pushing it either.” The caution did create a great battle for second on back, though. While Johnny Clark pulled away again on the restart, a great three-way battle for second place on back took place among Cassius Clark, Richie Dearborn and Mike Rowe. Dearborn won that battle by finishing second, with Cassius Clark, Mike Rowe and PASS North point leader Ben Rowe rounding out the top-five finishers. “We got shuffled back and then we couldn’t get by Richie,” said Cassius Clark. “We had one hell of a race there. He ran me clean and we kept going for it on the front stretch, the backstretch and everywhere else. So we held on for third.” “Those last five or six there were fun,” said Dearborn. “I knew that my only chance to get Cassius there would be on the restart. I could stay beside him for a few laps, but then he would go right by us. It was short enough to hold him off this time.” The PASS North Super Late Models will return to action Saturday, June 23rd, at Scotia Speedworld (NS) for the Forbes Chevrolet-Olds 200.
	Site of Clark’s Biggest Victory is Also a Place for Some Great Super Late Model Action

PASS PR RELEASE - NAPLES, ME (June 6, 2007) – Before he was a two-time PASS North champion…actually, before he was even a single-time champ, Johnny Clark won a big race at a small track in Maine. The year was 2004, and Clark came out on top of the heavily-promoted DNK 250 at Unity Raceway.

Three years and many racing accomplishments later, Clark still describes the victory as the biggest one so far in his career. Now, with PASS North returning to the track for the June 17th DNK 150 there, Clark can’t wait for the next race on his schedule.

“Now we’re going back to the DNK 150. We’re going back to Maine’s finest racetrack for it and I am so excited.”

Unity is a throwback to the good old days of racing. It is a challenging place to get around for some drivers, and it is not always a track that is well-loved by competitors. But Clark is dead serious when he brags about the place.

“I mean that. It’s my favorite place to race,” said Clark. “You can say what you want about the track – it is what it is, but there is some great racing there. You can really get up on the wheel and drive that place. That is what’s so much fun. If the car breaks a little bit sideways in the middle of the turn, you just turn right and give it some gas. It’s almost like racing 12 or 15 years ago, but instead of driving an old street stock, we’re driving $40,000 or $50,000 racecars. It is a really good time to race at Unity.”

And it’s not just a good time behind the wheel. Fans are treated to some great action each time the PASS Super Late Models come to town. In the last four PASS North races at Unity, there have been four different winners – Clark, Mike Rowe, Ben Rowe and Patrick Laperle.

In those races, there have also been some epic battles. Last year, Johnny Clark, Cassius Clark and Ben Rowe took part in a three-way dogfight for the victory. Mike Rowe and Ralph Nason exchanged doughnuts on the side of their racecars to decide the victory in 2005’s Budweiser 250. Johnny Clark and Mike Rowe have traded plenty of paint there too. Those battles are typical of any SLM race at the track.

“You never, ever, ever see anyone run away with a race there,” said Clark. “You always see good racing. You see guys race side by side. There are two good grooves there. There is an outside groove. It’s a fun track to go to and I think that the PASS cars put on an excellent show there.”

As for Clark’s big victory at Unity, he still can recall the race fondly.

“It was my first 250 win,” said Clark. “A month or two later, we went and won the Atlantic CAT 250 up in Halifax. It was a good year. The DNK 250 was the first time that I ever made 25 grand in one race. That was good.”

Clark believes that his success at the track can be attributed to spending his youth there watching a few of the guys that he now races against, get around there quickly. Clark was paying attention and is now one of his generation’s best racers at Unity.

“I’ve seen Ralph Nason, Stan Meserve and Mike Rowe race at Unity and all those guys put on good races there. I grew up watching those guys race there and I think that is part of why we run so well at Unity. When you are running by yourself, there is one really quick way around that place and a few of us, myself, Scott Chubbuck and some other guys, have figured that out. It’s just such a fun place. I love running there.”

The DNK 150 at Unity Raceway is scheduled for Sunday, June 17th. The event will feature the PASS North Super Late Models, PASS Outlaw Late Models, PASS Modifieds and PASS Pullen Heavy Industries Sportsmen. Saturday, June 16th will be an optional practice day for all teams.

Wiscasset Raceway on Sunday, May 27th

Johnny raced Coastal 200 in a Late Model owned
by Dave St. Clair to a 17th place finish.

Youth out-dueled experience Sunday afternoon at Wiscasset Raceway as 17 year old D.J. Shaw of Center Conway, New Hampshire beat Maine racing legend Mike Rowe of Turner to win the 2007 Coastal 200 and pocket the $10,000 winner’s check.

From the start of the second half of the race, another pre-race favorite started to make his move toward the front. Johnny Clark had been mired back in the high teens most of the race, but an adjustment to the right front and more aggressive driving moved Clark up to 8th by lap 115. But, just 15 laps later he would be forced to the pits for good with further mechanical problems.

In a historical coincidence, it was 10 years ago that a (then) 17 year old Johnny Clark beat the legendary Stan Messerve to win the 1997 Coastal 150, giving him his first Pro Stock win and launching the road to stardom for the 2-time defending PASS champ.

Sat. May 26th
White Mnt'n Motorsports Park

5th at WMMP

CLARK SHOWS CHAMPIONSHIP FORM AGAIN
There are a few things that are consistent about Johnny Clark when he races at White Mountain. Chances are, he won’t run as well as would like to. He’s a two-time PASS champion and winning is his goal each time out. So top five finishes don’t satisfy him. But somehow, every time he goes to the track, he’ll struggle and still finish well.

Saturday night was no exception. Clark finished fifth after struggling through the 150-lap feature.

“That is how you win championships – to take horrible nights like that and still come home to finish fifth. I was pretty disappointed how the car was going, but when you figure in how bad everyone else was going, we were a fifth-place car. With a couple of more restarts, could I have beat the #15 [Barry] or the #29 [Dion]? Possibly.

“Early in the run when I was trying to come back up through, they told me that I was running the same speeds as the leader. Track position meant a lot I think. We just didn’t get the car good enough to run to the end, so we pitted 20 laps in.”

No matter how hard he and his #54 team tries, Clark just can’t get a good set-up for the quarter-mile oval.

“Man, White Mountain just has no forward traction. The thing is, you think that you’ve got it when you practice in the day and you just never get it in the feature. I don’t know what it is, but it tricks you.”
 

	Split wheel from the #17

Johnny and the #54 take the Win
at Speedway 95 on 5/6 after Cassius Clark DQ'd.
 

Cassius Clark Gets DQ'd After Dominating at Speedway 95 Competitor Responds to His Penalties, While Johnny Clark Officially Wins Race

12th at Beech Ridge on 5/5
2nd in Points behind Ben Rowe
 

A long weekend with 300 feature laps in two races that saw a cold #54 and then a hot #54. At Beech Ridge the team could never get the #54 to go as well as expected even after continual tuning during Friday's open practice and Saturday's SLM sessions. Times were in the top seven but the car did not fell that good. From sixth in the heat, Johnny moved up to a third place finish which earned a seventh place starting spot in the feature. At the start Johnny fell from seventh to ninth and then took advantage of a yellow flag period starting at lap 50 to hop into the pits for some adjustments. Restarting in 20th, Johnny moved up to 14th and ran there and in 13th till a final move up to a 12th place finish. But in the closing laps of the race, Johnny figured out what had to be done for Sunday and was a very happy camper. And on Sunday at Speedway 95, the #54 after the appropriate changes was indeed a hot car, posting a 14.475 in the third practice session. That's near lap record timing. Johnny won the second heat to start outside on the front row. Johnny went into the lead at the green flag. Cassius pulled into first on lap 42 and the #8 and #54 ran 1-2 for the remainder of the race. But it was a lot more complicated that it sounds. Cassius proceeded to lap the entire field except for Johnny who held off Travis Benjamin #17 and John Fleming #97. A series of yellows at the end of the race allowed about five cars to received Lucky Dog laps back. Johnny took advantage of one yellow to stop in the pits for inspection of his right side tires since both the front and then rear had given up. The front looked bad, but the crew sent Johnny out without a change to make it to the checkers. The spins, Lucky Dogs, and pit stops had scrambled the field so that Lucky Dog cars were behind lap down cars. And then a last lap tangle in turn three scrambled the finishing order again. Cassius and Johnny were clearly one-two with Ben Rowe emerging from the tangle to take third. The #8 motor was pulled for teardown and the announcement of irregularities on Tuesday afternoon moved Johnny into the win. See the Speed51 story linked in the box above for more.

Super Late Models at Speedway 95: L to R - Ben Rowe #4, 2nd;
Cassius Clark #8  DQ'd; and Johnny Clark #54, 1st.
 

Speedway 95 - May 6th
Beech Ridge - May 5th

4/6 & 7 - SPEED51 PASS SOUTH "TRACKSIDE NOW" REPORTS FROM HICKORY HERE

4th place finish for Johnny after a bleeder valve sticks on the left front and #54 runs the race with 6 psi.

Race Story HERE

The 54 on display at the Augusta Motorsports Expo

Race Reports and Pix HERE