{"id":20,"date":"2006-11-29T15:57:53","date_gmt":"2006-11-29T15:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maineracer.com\/wp\/?p=20"},"modified":"2006-11-29T15:57:53","modified_gmt":"2006-11-29T15:57:53","slug":"cassius-clark-uses-mason-dixon-meltdown-as-his-ticket-to-the-snowball-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/2006\/11\/cassius-clark-uses-mason-dixon-meltdown-as-his-ticket-to-the-snowball-derby\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassius Clark Uses Mason-Dixon Meltdown as His Ticket to the Snowball Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\">\n<div align=\"center\"><strong>Cassius Clark Uses Mason-Dixon Meltdown as His Ticket to the Snowball Derby<\/strong><br \/><strong>Mainer Wins One Major Event, Enters Another<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>CONCORD, NC (November 29, 2006) &ndash; Cassius Clark was supposed to end his racing season with last weekend&rsquo;s Mason-Dixon Meltdown at South Boston Speedway (VA).&nbsp; In fact, if he had finished in any one of 31 other positions at the conclusion of the 250-lap race, he&rsquo;d be up in Maine getting ready for Ice Fishing or Snowmobiling season there instead.<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div align=\"left\">But car owner Ed Chapman told Clark and his #8 team that if they won the Meltdown, they would get to go to the Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;That was the deal and it happened,&rdquo; said Clark, who did his part and won the inaugural Super Late Model event.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> The team&rsquo;s decision was made easier when Five Flags Speedway and Snowball Derby officials announced that the Mason-Dixon Meltdown winner would be awarded a set of four Hoosier Tires and a free entry for the 2006 Snowball Derby.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> And since Clark had always wanted to race in the Derby, taking that offer was a no-brainer for him.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;I went down there the year that Ricky Turner won (in 2002), and after that I always wanted to go down there and race in it,&rdquo; said Clark.&nbsp; &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s a long ways away, and it takes a lot of money to run there.&nbsp; Now we&rsquo;ve got all of our ducks in a row, so we&rsquo;re going to do it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> The addition of an extra race made things a little bit challenging for Clark and his team.&nbsp; Instead of borrowing shop space along the road between Virginia and Florida, they towed 15 hours back to their own race shop in Maine on Sunday after the Meltdown.&nbsp; On Wednesday, they&rsquo;ll make another long trip.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;We&rsquo;re working on the car right now and plan to leave tomorrow [Wednesday] morning.&nbsp; We wanted to bring the car back to Maine and go through it up here.&nbsp; It means for a little bit of extra driving, but as long as they have a place for us to park when we get there, it will be alright.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> The team is used to juggling things with success.&nbsp; They used one car for the entire PASS South season and only have one engine ready to go.&nbsp; Exactly what they won with at the Mason-Dixon Meltdown is exactly what they are racing at the Snowball Derby.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard, but we&rsquo;ve been doing it all year long with races on back-to-back weekends.&nbsp; Normally we don&rsquo;t have to drive 26 hours to get to the track, though.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> Even with all of the work this week, Clark has found a few moments to enjoy his victory.&nbsp; But he won&rsquo;t spend too much time reveling in it either.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s ready for the Snowball Derby.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;It&rsquo;s starting to sink in now.&nbsp; It was nice to go to a track that we had never seen before, set fast time and win the race against some of the best drivers in the country.<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> &ldquo;But that race is history.&nbsp; This week, we&rsquo;re going to one of the biggest short track races in the country again, and we need to be prepared for that.&nbsp; The Meltdown win helps to boost our confidence.&nbsp; So does the whole year that we had [with five PASS North victories].&nbsp; We&rsquo;re hoping to do well again this weekend.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> The Snowball Derby features three days of practice and preliminary events that lead up to a 200-lap feature on Sunday, December 3rd.&nbsp; The race will go green at 2:00pm CT. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cassius Clark Uses Mason-Dixon Meltdown as His Ticket to the Snowball DerbyMainer Wins One Major Event, Enters Another CONCORD, NC (November 29, 2006) &ndash; Cassius Clark was supposed to end his racing season with last weekend&rsquo;s Mason-Dixon Meltdown at South Boston Speedway (VA).&nbsp; In fact, if he had finished in any one of 31 other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}