| For
Immediate Release:
It’s Cassius
Clark Again in PASS North – This Time at Speedway 95
NAPLES, ME (May 8, 2006) –
Cassius Clark might have started deep in the field for
Sunday’s PASS 150 at Speedway 95 near Bangor, Maine,
but that didn’t matter much in the end result. The
24-year-old Farmington, Maine, driver rocketed to the
front of the pack in almost no time and dominated the
second Pro All Stars Series North event of the 2006
season.
Clark
also won the first race of the season, contested at
Oxford Plains Speedway last Saturday night, in pretty
much the same fashion. The young driver and his EJ
Prescott #8 team have definitely shown their strength so
far this year.
Winning at Speedway 95 should not have been easy for
Clark. He started back in the seventh row at a track
where it is challenging to pass to say the least. But
with other drivers fighting over the outside groove,
which is normally the fastest way around the track,
Clark just rocketed down on the bottom to pass his way
up to the front early on.
"We worked our way through," said Clark.
"The high groove is the preferred lane, but the
bottom is what is always open. They were all up there
nose to tail, so we took our time and worked our way
through underneath. We got up there by lap 50 or so and
took the lead."
Passing down low at Speedway 95 can be an unnerving
experience. A bad move can send a driver back many
spots, but Clark didn’t hesitate to get his job done
down there early on.
"You just have to bite your teeth and hang
on," said Clark. "You can’t give up. If you
aren’t successful, you’re going to fall back a long
way."
Before
Clark took over to top spot, Ben Rowe showed the way.
Speedway 95 has not been one of his best racetracks
through the years, but Rowe still managed to win his
heat race and start on the pole. He showed the way early
on before yielding the top spot to Clark after a lap-50
restart.
"Imagine that? I led at Bangor. That’s not
right," laughed Rowe after the race. "We
started out front and that makes it easy. It was a good
run. There’s not much that I can say. We just stayed
in the top three all day."
The
day’s best racing came after any one of eight restarts
during the event. Three-time PASS champion Ben Rowe and
barnstorming driver Scott Chubbuck, both of whom have
won multiple races at Speedway 95 in the past, kept
Clark honest and put up a good fight. Both drivers led
laps, but Clark’s car was just so good on long runs
that he would pull away to a sizable lead once things
got rolling again.
"It was a matter of who was
on the outside," said Rowe of the restarts.
And without a restart in the final
moments of the race, Clark rolled easily to the victory.
"A caution with two to go
would have been about the only way to catch him,"
said Chubbuck. "The outside worked well, but only
for a few laps. He was good. He was toying with
us."
Chubbuck finished second with
Rowe, Travis Benjamin and Richie Dearborn rounding out
the top five.
John Phippen was the highest
finishing Speedway 95 regular. He brought his #59 car
home in the 15th position.
The victory was Clark’s fifth
career point race victory in PASS North. It also adds to
a top-10 finish against the best Super Late Model
drivers in the country at USA International Speedway’s
Speedfest in January and a dominating run cut short by
mechanical problems during the PASS South Easter Bunny
150 at Hickory Motor Speedway last month.
"This just shows how awesome
the team really is," said Clark. "We worked
hard all winter long and had an awesome car last year.
We should have won more races last year, and in the past
three years, than what we did. We’re always fast and
always there. We always had something happen or did
something stupid. Now, we are just trying to keep our
heads on straight.
"The car was hooked up, just
like it was last week [at Oxford] and down at Hickory.
We found something down at Lakeland when the guys down
there spanked us. We licked our wounds and tried what
they were doing and it seems to be working out right
now."
The PASS Super Late Models return
to action on May 21st with their Southern
Tour at North Carolina’s Southern National Raceway
Park. The PASS North teams will next see the track at
Canaan Fair Speedway on May 27th.
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