Clark Family Racing

Heat race win!! 🏁

August 15th recap:
After a few weeks off, and having a slow car at the last race, we went to work on it trying to find the issue. We found what we believed to be the problems (yes, plural) and hoped for the best. Ryan started out practice slowly, scuffing in a new tire. Then he let er rip! Posting a personal best and super fast lap of a 15.193 topping the charts!! He came in, and said "the car is amazing!!". Second practice, the track slowed down, and everyone lost a couple tenths. He started pole in the heat race and after a big slide in the first turn, he never lifted and never looked back, taking the checkers and putting up a respectable 15.303 lap. This put him on pole for the feature. Unfortunately, he was off his line going in to turn one, the car bottomed out on a bump right as he had to put a little more wheel in to it, causing a huge slide. He got tagged slightly and spun him the rest of the way around in front of the whole field. A bunch of cars took damage and Ryan got clipped, hurting his leg and scaring him quite a bit. The pit crew thrashed and got the car driveable, and he was happy to get back in. Sadly, he could not rejoin the race as a caution was needed for that, and it never came. Ryan is ok, and the car will be good as new in a few days with only minor damage.
Thanks to Mark Patrick, and everyone else for the help getting him back out!

https://www.grandbendspeedway.ca/2026/08/13/fan-appreciation-saturday-featuring-free-go-kart-race-for-new-spectators/?fbclid=IwdGRjcATteTdjbGNrBO15NXBkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEe-rGTBur4umXqQ3v6MLBp4oH8Yc5TGUa7c0e78IEcX3MdgibhxSdqTpcQB-0_aem_gHSvOBbbCMwakniT_B585A

Night 6 recap - We tried something a little different looking for more speed. First practice, the car was good. Second quickest. Second practice it was about the same, but some other cars picked up. The car was slow in the heat race. It wouldn't take off, and was sluggish. He finished 3rd. We went over a bunch of things, and thought we had the issue sorted out. We found a few small problems and fixed them. However, the car was just very sluggish for the feature, dropping back to a 7th place finish. Ryan says "it just won't go!!" Looks like lots of work ahead this week for me in the shop!

Night 5 was an interesting one. Ryan was just "ok" in first practice. We made a change for second practice and made the car uncomfortable. We were battling a lot of wind, which really affects these little machines. We undid the changes, and he had a great heat race with a solid p2 finish behind Blake Watson. He had an amazing feature, nailing his restarts that he's been working so hard to improve. He stayed in the hunt in the top 3, eventually taking the lead on a restart. He led a handful of laps when a caution came out with 3 to go. The final restart had some cars in the wrong order (which the track is reviewing) and he ended up 4th. So proud of the boy. Thanks Hello Beautiful Distribution & Sales Inc. for your support! We'll try again next time for that first feature win

Ryan had a fantastic night for night 4! Practice was ok running 15.7-15.8. Definitely off a little, but nearly everyone was. Ryan made a wicked 3 wide pass on the outside on the first lap of the heat race, took the lead, and never looked back. 🏁🏁 For the heat race! The feature was overall a very eventful one with a neverending lap 10. They finally settled in to finish, and he pulled out another 3rd place feature with a best lap of 15.55. Thanks to Hello Beautiful Distribution & Sales Inc. and Gulf fuels Canada for their ongoing support!