Johnny Clark celebrates in Victory Lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H., after winning a PASS race on April 21, 2021. Contributed photo/PASS
HALLOWELL — It only felt like it had been forever since Johnny Clark won a Super Late Model race.
“It’s only been five races,” Clark said this week after snapping a nearly seven-month “drought” with a Pro All Stars Series win at Seekonk Speedway in Seekonk, Massachusetts last Saturday night.
Weather has wreaked havoc on the PASS campaign in 2022, with four of the series’ nine scheduled races this season either postponed or canceled to date. Where July typically marks the midway point for the Super Late Model touring series, now Independence Day weekend instead signals the beginning of things really heating up.
Clark, 42, a seven-time PASS champion, believes slowing down is exactly what’s sped his familiar No. 54 up.
“We went through some of years trying to figure out what made us good in the past, looking for a magic wand,” said Clark, who won 24 PASS races from 2007-2012 before winning just three more races over the next seven seasons combined.
“The truth is, if you just listen to your race car, it will tell you want it wants. We’re more methodical about it. We’re not changing stuff just to get back out in practice. Now, it’s five or six laps, good or bad, and then we hang it and work on it.”
The formula has worked to near perfection. Clark picked up his record seventh championship in 2021 on the strength of three wins in 17 races, including the season finale at Seekonk.
After a pair of top-10 runs to begin this season, Clark has now finished second, second and first in the last three events.
Johnny Clark of Hallowell (54) leads Brandon Barker and Mike Hopkins in the PASS Northeast Classic 50 on April 21, 2021 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H. Contributed photo/PASS
“This is so much fun again, to be competitive during these times,” Clark said. “With the competition where it’s at now, everybody has so many of same pieces. We left Oxford (Plains Speedway) mad at having run second (on June 12). My father-in-law says, ‘Well, we must be doing something right if we’re leaving Oxford mad after finishing second.’”
Since winning the 2020 Oxford 250, Clark has an average finishing position of 6.6 in the 10 PASS races at the track, including eight top fives. He finished 26th with an equipment failure during one race there last summer.
The run of consistency at Oxford reminds Clark of when he ran so well at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway during his stretch of five series titles in a six-year span more than a decade ago.
“I haven’t had those days at Oxford again, but we’re far more consistent overall in a run now at that track,” Clark said. “At the end of the day, you don’t know what it will take to win any race — sometimes it’s flat-out speed, and sometimes you need a long run car. We’ve been right there.”
With consecutive second-place finishes at Oxford this year, with a different car for each race, Clark is already looking forward to this year’s Oxford 250 on Aug. 28.
He’s also got two more races at Seekonk Speedway prior to that, including the $10,000-to-win Bay State Summer Classic on July 27. Clark has won three of the last four races contested at the .333-mile track known as “The Cement Palace.”
“When your last three races are a second, second and first, everything’s cool,” Clark said. “You just keep plugging along. I really like where we’re at as a team, where we’re at with Port City Race Cars and where everybody’s at across that whole Port City deal. We’re really clicking and trying things. It doesn’t always work, but it leads you in a different direction when it doesn’t.”
• • •
The Unity Raceway rebuild is just about complete.
While a dirt surface isn’t exactly “new” for the central Maine track — racing began there as a dirt track in 1948 — it is new for the modern era.
Unity Raceway manager Joey Doyon walks along the covered grandstand at the track on March 23 in Unity. Doyon is trying to revive the historic track, which hosted its last race in 2017 before going dormant. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel
Dormant for several seasons now, Winterport’s Joey Doyon has undertaken an overhaul of the facility that will hold competitive dirt racing on Sunday, July 10 at 1 p.m.
Classes and rules are expected to be announced this week.
• • •
Liberty’s Josh St. Clair has picked up where he left off in 2021.
After setting Wiscasset Speedway’s new standard by becoming the first driver to win three championships in a single season, the third-generation driver is well on his way again.
St. Clair has won six features in 14 starts across three divisions — Pro Stock, Late Model and Strictly Street. He is leading the standings in both the Late Models and Strictly Streets and sits second in the Pro Stock ranks.
Wiscasset is hosting a fan appreciation night on Saturday. An on-track autograph session begins at 4 p.m. with racing slated for a 5:15 p.m. start.
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