Johnny Clark: PASS North Series – Beech Ridge Motor Speedway Race Preview

Points leader Johnny Clark of Farmingdale, Maine, joins the PASS North Series as it heads back to Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine, for the PASS 150 on Saturday, July 10. Clark saw his three-race winning streak come to an end last weekend at Canaan Fair Speedway, but he still holds an eight-point lead over Ben Rowe in his chase for a record fifth PASS North Series championship. He’s has three wins, four top-5s and has yet to finish any worse than sixth through the series’ first five races. Clark finished sixth at Beech Ridge back in May in the season opener and hopes to improve upon that this weekend. Clark is a former winner at the track, having claimed the PASS 300 in September of 2008.

WHO: Johnny Clark, Farmingdale, Maine
TEAM: No. 54 Clark’s Car Crushing/Port City Chevrolet
BEST CAREER BEECH RIDGE MOTOR SPEEDWAY FINISH: 1st (September 2008)
LAST RACE AT BEECH RIDGE MOTOR SPEEDWAY: 6th (May 2010)

WHAT: PASS North Series PASS 150
WHERE: Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Scarborough, Maine. (.333-mile oval)
WHEN: 6 p.m., Saturday, July 10

PASS North Series
LAST RACE: July 3, Canaan Fair Speedway, Canaan, N.H. (2nd-place)
NEXT RACE: July 13, Bastille 200, Lee USA Speedway, Lee, N.H.
POINTS POSITION: 1st

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JOHNNY, BEECH RIDGE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TRICKY TRACK FOR YOU GUYS. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS WEEKEND?

I guess we’re excited to go in there and prove that this place can be a great race track for us. We’re on a roll here at the start of the season, and we’re pumped about that and excited about the way things are going right now.

I don’t see why we should go and have a ‘typical’ Beech Ridge race for us and be OK with coming home seventh or eighth at the end of the night. We expect to go in there and compete, and we should go there and be fighting for the win.

DID YOU LOSE ANY MOMENTUM LAST WEEKEND BY FINISHING SECOND AT CANAAN?

Absolutely not. If you let yourself believe things like that, then I guess I can see how it could happen to teams that they’d start thinking they’d lost their edge. But we don’t let that happen, because we don’t look at it like that at all.

We’re right on schedule and right on track with where we want to be. Absolutely, you’re only as good as your last race, but this team looks ahead at how we can win the next race — week after week. We still have plenty of racing left and we always go to the next race to try and win.

WHY DOES BEECH RIDGE PRESENT SUCH PROBLEMS FOR TEAMS?

You’ve got to stay on top of the track, because it just changes so much there. You don’t always know what it’s going to do, but you have to do your best to stay on top of it.

From practice to qualifying to feature time, we’ve made a lot of changes to the car in the past and it’s worked out for us. If we’d have stayed the same, we’d in real trouble when the race started. It’s just important to keep working at it all day.

 

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