Chris Clark is a rider in the AMA Pro SuperBike road racing series, which means he spends a lot of time going around turns at 100-plus miles an hour with his motorcycle almost perpendicular to the ground and one padded knee dragging the pavement for balance, and his older brother Patrick thinks he’s crazy.
Chris Clark is a rider in the AMA Pro SuperBike road racing series, which means he spends a lot of time going around turns at 100-plus miles an hour with his motorcycle almost perpendicular to the ground and one padded knee dragging the pavement for balance, and his older brother Patrick thinks he’s crazy.
“But I’ve had him come to our race track and do some stuff and he thinks I’m crazy,” Patrick adds with a laugh as he sits inside the trailer that transports his Pro 2 truck to the various venues in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series presented by GEICO.
“Jumping these trucks the way we do, going through some of the stuff we do, is just unreal at times.”
Clark, a 24-year-old who lives in Las Vegas, is six races into his third full season in the Pro 2 class. He eased into the class by running the final three races in 2011, when a broken axle in the final race cost him a possible championship in the SuperLite division, and has been concentrating on Pro 2 ever since.
It’s Clark’s latest and biggest step on what he hopes is a road from fledgling Bandolero oval track driver to a long career as a professional off road racer, but it’s as much the result of circumstances and opportunities as of planning.
Clark said that after he started racing about 14 years ago he moved from Bandoleros to go karts to motorcycles and developed a passion for off road that he first got a chance to embrace when he and father Pat discovered the SuperLite class in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series.
Clark did the final five races in 2010 and said he “just fell in love and knew this was where I wanted to be,” and his feelings were reinforced the next season, when he finished 23 points behind title winner Chad George and was the class rookie of the year.
“It was good,” Clark said. “We figured there was no better way to start than in a spec class. You didn’t have to spend a ton of money and you learned all the fundamentals. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot and figured we wanted to step it up. So we moved up into a Pro 2 program and the last couple of years have definitely been a learning curve.
“We thought about doing the Pro Lite and learning a little bit more and then stepping up into the Pro 2, but the opportunity kind of presented itself to buy a Pro 2 and to have a lot of support and help with it, so we just kind of went with that avenue.”
The progress has been steady. In 2012, when he was class rookie of the year, Clark had two podium finishes, a handful of top fives and was ninth in the point standings despite missing one race. Last season he was on the podium once but had 13 top 10s and was fifth in the standings. This year he is struggling to find consistency in a new truck and is 11th in the standings after six races.
In retrospect, he said, the move into Pro 2 might have been too much, too soon.
“It was definitely a big, huge step,” Clark said. We did the SuperLite and we had that pretty good and learned a lot. But the driving style is completely different. Definitely my first Pro 2 (weekend) was a real culture shock with everything going on.
“As soon as that green flag waved, I’ve never had so much mud hit me in the face, and just the force of it. That’s probably my first thought, when I think about it, just the force that everything happens. Everything is happening so much faster, the trucks are bigger, they’re leaning on you more, everyone’s more aggressive, and really it opened my eyes to wow, we’ve got our hands full.
“We just kept progressing. The learning curve happens. You learn to put on more tear offs than you think you’ll need; getting up onto the truck a little more so you don’t get the roost as badly; leaning on them just as much as they’re leaning on you. Then everything starts slowing down a little more. You feel more confident in the truck.
“At certain times in the beginning you think maybe I should have taken an in-between step to it. But when you look back on some of the things that we’ve done and everything I wouldn’t really trade it any other way.”
Clark, whose full name is Charles Raleigh Patrick Clark III, has applied that same positive outlook to the team’s struggles with its new truck this season.
“It’s definitely very frustrating, to say the least, because you want nothing but the best for yourself and your crew and your sponsors,” he said. “It’s what’s going to determine the characteristics of someone. When they have tough days and everything it really shows the character of the person. So I want to look back at this and know that I handled it the best way that I could, and if we ever get in this situation again we can take a lot from it and know that we can hold our heads high and prevail. That’s kind of the attitude that we’re taking.”
PATRICK CLARK AT A GLANCE
Age: 24 (25 March 1990)
Lives in: Las Vegas, Nevada
Marital status: Married; wife’s name is Let
Occupation: Racer
Car number: 25 Pro 2
Type of chassis: Keith Stamper Chevrolet
Engine: Kroyer Chevrolet
Crew Chief:
Sponsors: LoanMart, Maxxis Tires, Active Screenprinting, Pac Springs, Dynamic Motorsports
Years in racing: 13
Divisions raced: Go-Karts, Stock Cars, Drag Racing, Motorcycle road racing, SuperLite, Pro 2
Championships and awards: Pro 2 rookie of the year, 2012; SuperLite rookie of the year, 2011; WERA West champion
Series points standings: 13 SuperLite (2010); 22 Pro 2, 2 SuperLite (2011); 9 Pro 2 (2012); 5 Pro 2 (2013)
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