Cassius Clark Cruises to PASS Super Late Model win at Riverside
Groveton, NH — Cassius Clark wrestled the race lead from Donnie Whitten on lap ten of Saturday’s Pro All Stars Series (PASS) super late model Summerfest 150 at Groveton New Hampshire’s Riverside Speedway and never looked back to record his first PASS feature win of 2009. Clark’s victory ended a PASS North winless streak dating back to October of 2007 for the 2008 PASS National Championship series titlist. Kelly Moore brought his NAPA Chevrolet home second and pole sitter Donnie Whitten earned his best result of 2009 by finishing third. Ben Rowe and DJ Shaw rounded out the top five.
Only a pair of minor caution periods slowed the 150 lap event that took just forty three minutes to complete. Point Leader and defending race winner Johnny Clark had a subpar night finishing ninth, the last car to complete all 150 laps. Derek Ramstrom was involved in one of the few on track skirmishes, resulting in a 13th place run. Ben Rowe worked his way up to fourth from his eleventh place spot on the starting grid to gain a little ground in the title chase, and Adam Bates recorded a sixth place finish to keep pace with the title contenders.
The victory was redemption for Clark after falling out of the 2008 version of the Summerfest 150 with power steering problems after dominating over two thirds of that event. This year the team discovered their problems in afternoon practice, changing a bad clutch before race time. If the failure had occurred during the race, the results would have been very different.
Adam Bates, Chris Staples, Rookie Steve Legendre, Johnny Clark and Richie Dearborn finished in positions six through ten. Nine cars completed all 150 laps. Whitten and Shaw each scored a heat race win.
PASS North will return to Unity (ME) Raceway on Sunday August 2 for the rescheduled NAPA 150. Two for one coupons are still available at your northern New England NAPA stores as well as this week’s edition of the Racin’ Paper. PASS Mods and Sportsman complete the schedule, set for a 3:00 PM start.
For more information visit www.racewithpass.com.
Unofficial Results – PASS North super late model Summerfest 150 – Riverside Speedway – Groveton NH 7/25/2009 – With finishing position, (starting position), car number, driver, home town, (laps completed)
1 (3) 8 Cassius Clark, Farmington ME (150) 2 (4) 47 Kelly Moore, Scarborough ME (150) 3 (1) 7 Donnie Whitten, Biddeford ME (150) 4 (11) 4 Ben Rowe, Turner ME (150) 5 (2) 60 DJ Shaw, Center Conway NH 6 (12) 98 Adam Bates, Warner NH (150) 7 (13) 5 Chris Staples, Brunswick ME (150) 8 (8) 20 Steve Legendre, St. Johnsbury VT (150) 9 (15) 54 Johnny Clark, Hallowell ME (150) 10 (6) 33 Richie Dearborn, Hollis ME (149) 11 (5) 17 Travis Benjamin, Morrill ME (149) 12 (16) 14M Matt Frahm, N Salem NH (149) 13 (14) 35 Derek Ramstrom, Worcester MA (149) 14 (17) 85 Nick Ribbe Kingston MA (148) 15 (10) 17A Scott Alexander, Orrington ME (148) 16 (7) 12 John Dabrowski, West Bridgewater MA (140) 17 (9) 53 Alan Wilson, Norway ME (48).