The surname Clark has enjoyed a resurgence in Pro All Stars Series victory lane celebrations in the last two seasons. Saturday night’s 150-lap contest at Oxford Plains Speedway continued the trend.
Except this time, it was a different Clark at the center of the celebration.
Cassius Clark topped a 34-car field to take his first PASS North victory since 2014 in Saturday’s Honey Badger Bar & Grill 150, the last tune-up before the 48th Annual Oxford 250.
The 2013 PASS North champion, a native of Farmington, Me., has only run part-time in PASS since 2015. However, Saturday night’s race was Clark’s first series start of 2021. Clark’s Canada-based team, King Racing, has not traveled as regularly across the national border, likely due to the myriad restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Clark and team were back in form this weekend, dialing in twin #13 entries for the regional crown jewel. And in his first PASS race since last year’s Oxford 250, Clark took command and lapped all but the top eleven cars en route to his eighteenth career PASS North win.
Joey Doiron, who won at Oxford in July, gave chase but was unable to catch Clark in the closing laps. Doiron’s second-place finish was his fourth podium finish of the year in a competitive limited schedule racing with three different teams.
Clark’s teammate, Austin MacDonald, wheeled King Racing’s second entry to a third-place run. MacDonald, the grandson of car owner Rollie MacDonald, finished fourth in his only other PASS start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2019.
Oxford weekly points leader Dave Farrington, Jr., also a PASS winner at Oxford this year, was fourth at the finish. Brandon Barker, who clinched an Oxford 250 provisional with a special feature win two weeks ago, finished fifth.
Maine’s Mike Hopkins was sixth, rebounding from a poor outing at the Motor Mountain Masters at Jennerstown (Penn.) Speedway Complex last week. Dennis Spencer was seventh, ahead of Eddie MacDonald. John Peters, racing to honor the memory of his father Greg, nearly matched the elder Peters’ car number with his ninth-place run. New Hampshire’s Dan Winter rounded out the top ten.
Six-time PASS champion and current points leader Johnny Clark, no relation to Cassius, was 13th at the finish, one lap in arrears. Johnny Clark, however, fared better than his closest combatants in the points chase. Kate Re finished two laps back in 19th, while Ben Rowe struggled another lap behind in 22nd.
But while the championship contenders faltered, Cassius Clark gathered meaningful momentum as he seeks his first Oxford 250 victory in two weeks.
The son of NASCAR Busch North Series competitor Billy Clark, Cassius built a career in PASS, collecting seventeen wins through 2014. In late 2011, Cassius connected with car owner Corey Hight, piloting Hight’s #77 entry to six wins and the 2013 PASS North championship. But his last win for the team was, in a sense, a Pyrrhic victory. Clark crossed the line first at Speedway 95, the Hight team’s home track. But contact from DJ Shaw sent Clark off course, destroying the car and ending the team’s bid for a second title.
After opening the 2015 season without a win, Clark and Hight parted ways prior to the Oxford 250. Clark, who had raced for car owner Rollie MacDonald in the Canadian Maritimes for years, drove King Racing’s white #13 to a sixth-place finish in the 250. A few weeks later at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Clark dominated the PASS 300, finishing fourth after a late pit stop for repairs.
Running a limited schedule focused on the biggest events, Clark and MacDonald amassed a number of wins in the Maritimes. Wins in the IWK 250 and Toromont Cat 250 in 2019 made Clark the first driver to win all three major 250-lap events in eastern Canada. The pairing even managed a fifth-place run in the Snowball Derby in 2017.
In PASS competition, though, Clark remained winless. With the Canadian border locked down through most of 2020, Clark raced for car owner Chad Dow, returning to the King Racing entry at the Oxford 250. Starting shotgun on the field after struggling through qualifying, Clark drove the car to a 14th-place finish.
While Clark’s outings have been every bit as limited this year, Saturday’s win makes the veteran one of the early favorites heading into the $25,000-to-win crown jewel.
And with his record in long-distance races, Cassius Clark will surely be poised to cash in.
Unofficial Results, PASS Honey Badger Bar & Grill 150 at Oxford Plains Speedway:
1. (13) Cassius Clark
2. (21) Joey Doiron
3. (13M) Austin MacDonald
4. (23) Dave Farrington, Jr.
5. (88) Brandon Barker
6. (15) Mike Hopkins
7. (12) Dennis Spencer
8. (17MA) Eddie MacDonald
9. (09) John Peters
10. (81) Dan Winter
11. (14) Scott McDaniel
12. (72) Scott Robbins
13. (54) Johnny Clark
14. (50) Jeff White
15. (03) Scott Moore
16. (97) Joey Polewarczyk
17. (18) Justin Larsen
18. (14ME) Anthony Constantino
19. (10) Kate Re
20. (24) Mike Rowe
21. (78) Ivan Kaffel
22. (4) Ben Rowe
23. (63) Kyle Salemi
24. (94) Garrett Hall
25. (7) Travis Benjamin
26. (61) TJ Brackett
27. (20) JR Robinson
28. (27MA) Derek Gluchacki
29. (60B) Tim Brackett
30. (47M) Ryan Moore
31. (53) Alan Wilson
32. (1VT) Evan Hallstrom
33. (29S) Trevor Sanborn
34. (60) DJ Shaw
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