Ben Rowe: PASS North Series Unity Raceway Race Preview

4-time PASS North Series champion Ben Rowe of Turner, Maine, returns to one of the toughest tracks on the circuit this weekend when the series visits Unity Raceway in Unity, Maine, for the PASS 150 on Sunday, June 20. Rowe finished 5th last weekend at Speedway 660 near Fredericton, New Brunswick, and is the only driver to post a top-5 finish in each of the first three PASS races of the season. Rowe has won twice at Unity in his career and is looking to put his new Mulkern Racing No. 48 in victory lane for the first time this season.

WHO: Ben Rowe, Turner, Maine
TEAM: Community Pharmacies No. 48 Chevrolet
BEST CAREER UNITY RACEWAY FINISH: 1st (2 times; most recently: October 2006)
LAST RACE AT UNITY RACEWAY: 3rd (August 2009)

WHAT: PASS North Series PASS 150
WHERE: Unity Raceway, Unity, Maine (.333-mile oval)
WHEN: 3 p.m., Sunday, June 20

PASS NORTH SERIES
LAST RACE: June 12, Speedway 660, Fredericton, New Brunswick (25th-place finish)
NEXT RACE: Saturday, July 3, Canaan Speedway, Canaan, N.H.
POINTS POSITION: 2nd

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BEN, IT WAS ANOTHER SOLID RUN FOR YOU LAST WEEKEND NORTH OF THE BORDER.

Another top-5, so I can’t complain. It’s what we need to do. When I first started with (owner Tom) Estes — and it was the same when I started with (Richard Moody Racing) — it took us a while to hit on things and we never won a race until end of the year. And where we are now is way ahead of all that. We just need to get a little bit better, and then things will be really good.

I was really happy with the car in practice. The first segment (of the 200-lap race), the car bottomed out really bad. It was dragging, and we tried to make up for it in second segment but we just kind of overdid it. We were closer than we have been this year, though, and I’m happy about that.

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING TO UNITY RACEWAY THIS WEEKEND?

It’s fun place to race during the actual race, if you can get around the right people. It’s really fun racing guys like Johnny (Clark) there or Randy Turner. Those guys are a lot of fun to race with.

I used to go there and totally hate it, and I’d run terrible. Now, I just try to keep it on the race track. My whole thing is just stay on the asphalt for 125 laps and then race at the end. We’ve had some really good races there doing that. The track puts on some good racing, and hopefully we’ll be right there with 25 to go.