Cassius Clark stands on the front stretch after driver introductions and hears the national anthem playing over the track’s warbled public address system.
He’s the only driver from the United States in the field, and he realizes the anthem is playing to recognize his participation in the Parts For Trucks Maritime Pro Stock Tour at Petty International Raceway in New Brunswick, Canada.
“It makes you feel good. It tells you what kind of people they are up there,” said Clark, of Farmington. “It makes you feel wanted.”
With a laugh, Clark realizes that he might not be wanted all that much longer north of the border — not if he keeps on running circles around his Canadian counterparts.
Clark has won two of the first four Tour races this season, in addition to another open show at the beginning of the year.
Through four of 12 races on the schedule, Clark leads the point standings. After winning the season opener in May, his part-time plans turned into a full-time chase of the series championship.
Additionally, the team will run other select races, including the Oxford 250, the IWK 250 at Riverside Speedway in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, the Atlantic CAT 250 at Scotia Speedworld and the Auto Value 250 at Speedway 660.
“We didn’t even really plan on doing anything, then we found ourselves kind of racing for a championship now,” Clark said. “That’s what (car owner Rollie MacDonald) wanted, so I want to be able to get that for him. He’s a hard-nosed competitor, a Hall of Fame driver up there. He’s a racer just as much as we are, and he’s put all this effort into running for the championship up there. It wasn’t on my mind, but I want to do it for him.”
Clark, the 2008 Pro All Stars Series national champion and 2013 PASS North Series champion with 17 career wins in that series, seems as settled as he’s ever been in his career. He’s found himself in good equipment and surrounded by a team that both wants to win every week and has the resources to do it. He raves about the competition level in the Maritime provinces, even if many of the drivers and teams are unknown to New England race fans.
“People don’t realize how much hard work it takes just to be competitive in these things,” Clark said. “And then even if you get to the caliber where you can compete for wins every week, the amount of work it then takes to stay there or to get out of a slump.”
There haven’t been any slumps for Clark in the No. 13, not since he hooked up with the team on a part-time basis in 2012. He’s won four 250-lap events and, Florida’s annual Snowball Derby in December aside, has never finished worse than sixth for King Motorsports.
In all, he has seven career wins in parts of four seasons with the team.
Last season, he was sixth in the Oxford 250 and fourth in the PASS 300 at Beech Ridge in a race he might have won were it not for a broken fuel vent hose late in the race.
“It’s a lot of travel, so it’s a lot of work there. Driving 500 miles a week, and I’ve really got to thank my dad for that,” Clark said. “It’s a lot of traveling, but it’s great equipment and a great group of people. It’s a lot of fun.”
• • •
It’s been the talk of the stock car racing world, an incident that didn’t even involve any cars.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series battled at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois, last Saturday night, in a race that looked a bit like a lot of Truck races tend to — contact, spins, hot tempers.
But the hottest tempers erupted after the trucks of Spencer Gallagher and John Wes Townley came to a rest following their second incident late in the 200-mile event.
It was then that the conversation devolved into equal parts comedy sketch, amateur wrestling match and fistfight.
If you could call it that.
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘fight,'” Clark said. He saw the video clips of it while driving home late Saturday night from Petty.
“It’s kind of what the sport’s gone to, really, unfortunately. Most of the kids now don’t deserve to be there. They’re just riding off their parents’ money. Most of them can’t drive and most can’t fight their way out of wet paper bag, either, apparently.”
To be certain, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison — of 1979 Daytona 500 fame for their brawl in the Daytona infield — aren’t worried about losing their trophy for “Best NASCAR Fight.”
Gallagher and Townley “fought” for nearly a full minute, eventually giving up before any officials even attempted to intervene.
LEFT TURNS: Dustin Hubbard of Unity won the 50-lap Pro Stock event at Unity Raceway on Sunday, the first race of the track’s Triple Crown series. … Gary Smith of Bangor won the 50-lap Super Late Model feature at Oxford Plains Speedway, making it nine different winners in nine races this season at the track. … Points leader Zach Audet of Skowhegan won the 25-lap Outlaw Mini Stock feature at Wiscasset Speedway on Saturday. … Oxford Plains has a 100-lap Super Late Model event for non-PASS winners over the last five seasons. The winner Sunday earns an Oxford 250 provisional starting spot.
Travis Barrett — 621-5621
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TBarrettGWC
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.