Johnny Clark knows the run can’t last forever.

Someday, the Farmingdale driver says, someone else will be king of the Pro All Stars Series North.

“It’s coming,” he said. “We can’t do it forever. But we’re going to ride it for as long as we can.”

PASS North opens its 12th season today with the SouthernMaineMotors.com 150 at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough.

Clark is gunning for an unprecedented fifth consecutive points championship and sixth overall. He won seven of the circuit’s 14 points races last season — one shy of matching a series single-season record. One of his victories last season came in the PASS 300 at Beech Ridge on Sept. 18.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Clark said of the opener today. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

As of Friday afternoon, 31 cars were registered for the race, including ones driven by Farmington native Cassius Clark and four-time series champ Ben Rowe, of Turner.

Cassius Clark said he and his Hight Racing team practiced Thursday at Beech Ridge.

“It was the first time we hit the track,” he said. “We’re excited. We’re looking forward to it. We’re kind of antsy.”

Rowe won on the PASS South and North circuits last season. He finished third in points in PASS North. Lonnie Somerville, who finished second to Clark last season, is also back.

Dresden native Scott Chubbuck, who left Hight Racing to form his own team, will also compete today.
Five-time PASS South feature winner Corey Williams, who is originally from Boothbay but resides in North Carolina, is also entered.

“We’re ready to go,” said Chubbuck, who will run about eight to 10 PASS North races this season. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Johnny Clark said the PASS North field seems more competitive than in previous seasons.

“It’s going to be tough, but we are looking forward to it,” he said. “As long as we have that added incentive to work harder we’ll be OK. You can’t get stale or you will fall hard. But winning this year is something we want to do. We just keep digging. We keep finding new incentives and new goals. We just want to go out and win races.”

Clark did that often last season. Aside from the seven victories, he also finished outside the top five just once last season.

“Somebody is going to have to put together a pretty good year to knock Johnny off,” Chubbuck said. 
The grandstands open at 11:30 a.m. The green flag is scheduled to drop at 3 p.m.

Notes: There will be no racing at Unity Raceway today. Officials said the track would still be too wet by its scheduled 2 p.m. start. Racing will resume May 12.

Bill Stewart — 621-5640
bstewart@centralmaine.com

Copy the Story Link