With Two Top 10s To Start Season, Clark Heads To Star Speedway
photo by Norm Marx
SCARBOROUGH, Maine – Multi-time PASS North Series champion Johnny Clarkof Hallowell, Maine, finished sixth in the Southern Maine Chrysler Dodge Jeep 150 at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 3.
Coupled with a fourth-place effort in the season opener at week earlier at Oxford Plains Speedway, Clark now has two Top-6 finishes in the first two races of 2014.
“Two weeks in a row we’ve drawn dead last for our starting position in our heat race, and it makes for a long day,” Clark said. “Our luck’s bound to change here soon. Then again, if this is bad luck — a fourth and sixth to start the year — I’ll take it. We’re still in the hunt, and that’s what we’ve got to keep doing.
“I feel we still have a long way to go, but we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we last year at this point.”
Clark started the Southern Maine Chrysler Dodge Jeep 150 from the 17th spot on the starting grid. By Lap 50, the No. 54 Clark’s WESTSIDE/Butler MacMaster Performance Engines Chevrolet had cracked the Top 10 and ran as high as fifth with less than a third of the race remaining.
Two long green-flag stretches dictated the race’s strategy for most teams — there were only two cautions to slow the event, and none in the race’s first 100 laps — and after working so hard to gain track position, Clark’s tires had little life left for the stretch run.
“I thought we were a lot better than (sixth),” Clark said. “I thought we were going to be really good. I just burned it up coming up through the field.
“We still have more work to do with our setups. Honestly, I feel like we should have finished two spots higher than we did — but we’ve got a little more work to do.”
Next on the schedule is the tight, quarter-mile bullring at Star Speedway in Epping, N.H., on Saturday, May 10. Qualifying begins at 4:30 p.m.
Clark won a 150-lap event at Star when PASS last visited in 2012. He started dead last in the field after mechanical woes early in the day before rallying to Victory Lane.
“I absolutely love Star — last time we were there, we started last and we won. It’s a fun track to drive,” Clark said. “It reminds me a lot of Unity Raceway. You really have to get up on the wheel there. We’re taking our other car, and it’s the first race of the year for a car that’s had a lot of wins under its belt.
“I can’t wait to get there.”
Find out more about Johnny Clark by visiting JohnnyClarkMotorsports.com.