It almost never happened

A chance meeting on Maine's coast got Clark and his family back to the track

As strange as it sounds, if his father hadn't walked away from racing, Cassius Clark never would have found his way into it.

During the several-year span that Billy Clark and his family spent their summers in Boothbay, Cassius befriended Matthew Chapman. Matthew's father was Ed Chapman, and because their sons were friends, so, too, did they become friends.

And then Ed needed help with a Legends car he was trying to run, and he called on Billy.

So Billy went back to the track -- and Cassius went with him. But after watching other people race cars, Cassius spoke up.

"I didn't want to sound like a spoiled brat or anything, but I told him that if we were going to keep going to the track, then I wanted one of those cars to race, too," Cassius said.

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal.