Must have been humidity

Bobby Clark, the brother and crew chief of PASS North Series driver Johnny Clark, sent the message loud and clear.

In front of the media assembled around Richie Dearborn, winner of the PASS 150 at Speedway 95 on Sunday, Bobby voiced his displeasure regarding some contact between Dearborn and his brother on the track. Bobby screamed while he pointed at Dearborn, letting him know that all that stood between Dearborn and retaliation was a flat tire on the Clarks' No. 54.

It was that kind of a day. Hours earlier I'd been telling Cassius Clark about how everybody in the PASS ranks genuinely seem to get along and, for the most part, to enjoy competing against one another.

And then Dearborn and Clark were tossing verbal jabs at one another.

"There's no need for him racing people like he did. That was ridiculous," Clark said of Dearborn, who took the race lead from him on a lap 118 restart after contact in turn 1. "He doesn't need to run people off the race track. He slammed into me going into turn one and ran me off the race track. It about wrecked the whole field."

"(Johnny's) hit me a ton of times, too," Dearborn said. "Johnny gets a little hot-headed -- we all do. ... I'm one of the cleanest drivers out here, and these guys don't like it now that I'm giving a little back to them."

Enter Bobby Clark, stage right.

"You're lucky we had a flat tire, Richie," Bobby yelled. "The 2nd time you drove the 29 straight
up the track, we'd have been right there to do the same thing right back to you. You're lucky we had a (expletive) flat tire, buddy."

"Sure," Dearborn deadpanned. "Perfect."

Then Jay Cushman and former driver Scott Chubbuck were sparring, too. Cushman's rookie driver Trevor Sanborn finished 2nd with Chubbuck 3rd.

"(Cushman) don't remember there's people listening (on the radio)," Chubbuck said. "He's telling (Sanborn) to run everybody wide and do this and do that, but nothing changes. He used to do the same thing when I was in the car."

Cushman said Chubbuck's driving forced him to warn Sanborn.

"He cut across 2 lanes in front of us, and there was enough space to drive a truck through," Cushman said.

The 2 drivers one most expected to be upset with each other -- Dearborn and Sanborn, who each made a pass on the other (with contact) for the lead on late-race restarts -- were the most cordial.

"With 10 laps to go or whatever, you've got to expect that," said Dearborn, who made contact with Sanborn on lap 144 while taking the lead en route to the win "Really, it could have been a lot worse. It's bad enough I lost the lead, but luckily we had that caution with six or seven (laps) to go to regain it."

Sanborn agreed the contact was well within the boundaries.

"It was a handful, that's for sure. That was good racing," said Sanborn, who tagged Dearborn 4 laps earlier while earning the lead. "I got run up a little bit, but I used my surface in the same area he did. That's racing. I ain't crying about what he did, and I hope he doesn't cry about what I did."

Just another day of PASS racing at the tight and tricky Speedway 95.