Griffith prevails in PASS Fall Foliage 150 duel

The last time Derek Griffith raced at White Mountain Motorsports Park with the Pro All Stars Series, he took home the win. But while Griffith’s busy schedule has taken him from Berlin to Pensacola and all points in between, it had not stopped in the White Mountains since 2020.

Fortunately, Griffith has a good memory.

The Hudson, N.H. phenom dodged early carnage and prevailed in a late duel with Johnny Clark to win Saturday’s Fall Foliage 150, locking down his second PASS North feature win of 2024.

“We haven’t been here in years, and this place is so cool,” Griffith said. “I don’t know why we haven’t raced here.”

The “why,” of course, is a mundane mix of diversity and logistics. Since finishing second in PASS points in 2019, Griffith’s repertoire has grown to include championships at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida, top-ten runs in the Snowball Derby, appearances in some of the country’s biggest Super Late Model shows, and even a foray into big-league NASCAR and ARCA – all at the expense of more races in his native Northeast.

Griffith has had a bigger presence close to home in 2024, though, and that set the stage for a last-minute appearance at the North Woodstock, N.H. quarter-mile, where PASS raced in conjunction with the American-Canadian Tour’s 46th running of the Fall Foliage 200.

Starting mid-pack due to his season-opener win at Thompson Speedway, Griffith and points leader D.J. Shaw got shuffled to the rear early. Polesitter Austin Teras broke free of Dennis Spencer, Jr. on the start, but Jimmy Hebert powered past Spencer for second before an early yellow slowed the pace.

Back under green, Angelo Belsito fell prey to the outside line, too, dropping back after restarting fourth. Belsito’s problems quickly proved deeper than handling, as his car began smoking in the high line. After looping his ailing car on lap 17 to bring out the caution flag, Belsito retired his mount.

Teras had his hands full with Hebert on the restart, who made his move for the lead on lap 26. Trapped in the outside line, Teras slid to fourth as Clark and Trevor Sanborn followed Hebert’s path.

Drama exploded only a few laps later as Ryan Green tested the outside of Kyle Salemi deep in the pack. Rookie Cole Robie fired his car down to the inside, taking the trio three-wide through turns one and two, but Robie’s wide exit off turn two quickly eliminated Green’s lane. The veteran pounded the backstretch wall, his car standing on its nose and grinding down the wall before slamming back onto the pavement on all four wheels.

Officials wasted no time in throwing the red flag, descending upon Green’s bare chassis to ensure the driver was fine. Green quickly climbed from the car to applause, then sprinted to Robie’s car for a discussion before returning to an ambulance for observation. Robie was quietly waved to the pits, never to return.

The high line was trouble for Clark on the restart, as he dropped from second to fourth as Sanborn led Joey Doiron past the seven-time champion. Hebert remained strong out front, but his advantage was erased when outside polesitter Spencer grenaded an engine, sending Pat Corbett for a spin to bring out a yellow on lap 52. Teras pitted under the yellow, with Hebert and Sanborn leading the field back to green.

While contact deep in the pack kept the flagstand working, Hebert fought off advances from Sanborn as Griffith quietly cycled into third. Griffith stole second from Sanborn after a lap-77 restart, with Sanborn sliding back on the outside. Sanborn’s challenges escalated on lap 86, when he came to a stop in turn one with a flat tire. Shaw, who had climbed into the top ten, ducked down pit road for a mid-race adjustment under the caution.

Clark working over Hebert for a few laps on the restart before taking the lead on lap 94. Griffith and Doiron shuffled Hebert back to fourth, while Clark looked to be on track for his first checkered flag since winning the third race of the year at WMMP in May.

Clark’s rhythm was broken, though, when Brian Whalley ran out of room off turn four and slammed the frontstretch wall, bringing out the yellow flag for a tow on lap 114.

Griffith lined up alongside Clark, quickly falling into line and pressuring the hard-nosed veteran for the lead. Clark parried Griffith’s advances, playing defense from the front as the running order shuffled behind them. Griffith waited for an opening, prepared to make the shift from offense to defense if he broke through.

With ten laps to go, Clark slipped, leaving Griffith the opening he needed to charge through to the lead. Griffith took command, bracing himself for Clark’s return fire. But while Clark kept Griffith on his toes, even giving him a nudge or two in the corners, Griffith had the short-run speed to stay ahead.

Clark chose not to make it physical on the last lap, and Griffith edged out Clark for his second PASS North win of 2024 and his first since April.

“I knew I didn’t really have the best car right off the bat,” he said. “We were tight. We were contemplating pitting right off the bat, so I’m like, my only chance is if I just get lucky and kind of ride and don’t hurt it. And man, I saw my opportunity to kind of wiggle up through there, and it played in my favor.

“I think I was a little better than [Clark] up top, when he got underneath me there. We were racing pretty hard. But he slipped up one time, I slid by him, and then after that, it was ‘hold on.’”

In victory lane, Griffith and Clark quickly found each other for a congratulatory handshake, a show of mutual respect after a hard but clean battle to the finish.

“We just had low air pressures,” Clark said of the final run. “He got under me, and there was contact, right? Like, I’m trying to protect. And we’re rubbin’, rubbin’, rubbin’, and then my air pressures came up. So I said, well, I’ve gotta square up with him, knock him up the track a little bit and rub, and we did. I was gonna wreck us, so I kinda had to back out.”

“I could feel him, I think, breathing on me the whole time,” Griffith said. “I appreciate him…I had fun. Two weeks in a row…he finished third and I finished fourth last week, side by side, and we ran really good this week.”

“The car was so good before that last caution,” Clark lamented. “We just didn’t need it. It would have been nice to cruise to victory lane just like that with a big lead, and at the end of the race, I couldn’t get the tires back to where I needed them to be, and just had no rear grip, and had to settle for second tonight.”

Hebert, the 2020 ACT Tour champion, drove back to third after restarting fifth on lap 114. The Vermonter earned his best PASS finish since testing the Super Late Model waters in 2022.

Shaw, running the ACT Fall Foliage 200 later in the evening, had a quiet first half of his program, coming home fourth. Doiron rebounded to fifth at the finish.

Teras, Davis, Wayne Helliwell, Jr., rookie Sylas Ripley and Star Speedway winner Rusty Poland rounded out the top ten.

Moving and shaking and shuffling in the pack was the order of the day, with many drivers losing positions if they dared venture into the upper groove. Griffith pointed to a possible track treatment making the outside line particularly treacherous.

“Someone was saying that they might have put stuff down on the bottom,” he said, “like some sort of PJ1, or whatever, that goop compound. I mean, I could feel it on the tires, and you can actually see it on the track. It was leaving these insane black rubber marks from halfway through the corner off, and I think it was from that goop. It wore in good towards the end. I thought we were pretty good up top, because it’s hard to make up ground up there.”

In the end, though, Griffith had to defend the bottom against Clark. Without a mirror, he had to rely on the voice of longtime spotter Dolly Mechalides to keep aware.

“I knew he was close when she just stopped talking,” he said. “She just wanted to let me work. But yeah, it was pretty wild. I knew he was right there the whole time, I just couldn’t get away from him. I knew we were good, I was super good on the short run, and long run, I think we were okay, just he was better. But to hold off a guy that’s won like five out of the last six races here is pretty good.”

And while Clark’s streak, four wins in the prior seven races going back to 2022, is formidable, it falls short of Griffith’s own numbers. In his last seven PASS starts at WMMP, dating back to 2017, Griffith has five wins, plus a Granite State Pro Stock Series victory in 2015. 

With three events on the calendar, Shaw retains a commanding lead over Clark for this year’s PASS North crown, leaving the title to be decided by a pair of drivers who share twelve championships.

But with finishes like Saturday’s Fall Foliage 150, who wins the season-long battle could pale in comparison to the races themselves.

Unofficial Results
PASS North | Fall Foliage 150
White Mountain Motorsports Park, North Woodstock, N.H.
1. (12G) Derek Griffith
2. (54) Johnny Clark
3. (58VT) Jimmy Hebert
4. (60) D.J. Shaw
5. (73D) Joey Doiron
6. (29T) Austin Teras
7. (09) Jeremy Davis
8. (27NH) Wayne Helliwell, Jr.
9. (09R) Sylas Ripley
10. (19) Rusty Poland
11. (66VT) Brian Hoar
12. (32Q) Alex Quarterley
13. (44) Trevor Sanborn
14. (25) Shawn Knight
15. (18) Michael Scorzelli
16. (02) Brian Whalley
17. (5VT) Pat Corbett
18. (12S) Dennis Spencer, Jr.
19. (63) Kyle Salemi
20. (93) Ryan Green
21. (8) Angelo Belsito
DQ (29R) Cole Robie

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