SCARBOROUGH — When Johnny Clark of Farmingdale last brought a race car to Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, he was so bad he purposely pulled off the track after 114 laps of a 150-lap race in July.

“We had to park the car. I’ve never had to park a car. It was so bad,” Clark said. “I wasn’t going to stay in racing if I kept doing that.”

Johnny Clark celebrates with daughters Alivia, left, and Miranda after winning the annual 300-lap Pro All Stars Series on Sunday at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Instead of quitting, Clark, the six-time Pro All Stars Series North Super Late Model champ, took a step back.

He raced the Oxford Plains Speedway weekly series. Then he was back in fighting form with a solid fourth-place finish at the Oxford 250.

Sunday, Clark and his team climbed all the way back. He led the final 122 laps to win the PASS North Southern Maine Chrysler Dodge Jeep 300.

It was the fourth time Clark has won the PASS tour’s longest race, held annually at Beech Ridge. The previous wins came in 2008, 2010, and 2011, years when Clark was the series champ.

But he hadn’t won a PASS event since 2013.

“The turning point for us was when we stepped back and ran Oxford weekly,” Clark said. “We had to do something. We were just falling into a hole. and getting deeper and deeper into it. We hit our low for sure. We needed to take a step back.”

Mike Rowe unofficially wrapped up his first PASS North championship at age 64 by finishing second. Rowe entered Sunday’s race with a 119-point lead on Travis Benjamin, who finished 27th.

Joey Doiron of Berwick finished third and will now be second in the PASS points. Cassius Clark of Farmington was fourth with Kelly Moore of Scarborough finishing fifth.

“This should wrap up our title,” said Rowe, in his first season racing for Petit Motorsports. “I got hooked up with these people here and it just worked.”

Rowe had to pit on lap 186 due to a flat left tire.

Over the final 50 laps he stormed past several drivers, passing the then third-place Moore with nine laps remaining before picking off Doiron.

“It’s not over until that checkered flag flies,” Rowe said. “I don’t give up. I think if I had another 10 laps I would have had something for him.”

Rowe’s charge came after misfortune hit Cassius Clark, who had blistered the competition from the start and led for 162 laps until he chose to pit on lap 178.

After that pit, Johnny Clark got the jump on the restart but Cassius Clark stayed on his bumper as both drivers held a little back for the late stages.

But during a caution on lap 248, Cassius Clark was told to pull his car into the pit to repair a thick hose dangling under the rear of his car.

“I mean, what are you going to do?” Cassius Clark said. “The car was dominant, obviously. It was the fuel vent line. When it was under green (flag) it wasn’t touching but on the yellow it was hitting the ground. Then there were only 50 laps to go. It’s kind of hard to come from dead last. We were obviously coming, we just ran out of laps.”

Cassius Clark’s misfortune made Johnny Clark’s path back to victory lane that much easier.

“He was better in some areas of the race track and we were better in other areas,” Johnny Clark said. “As long as I kept doing what I was doing, I thought we were going to be fine. I would have liked to have raced him to the end. It would have been a (great) show. I wasn’t unhappy to see that he had to pit though because I knew he was our toughest competition.”

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