Kingston’s Randy Cabral will get his fifth NEMA driving championship trophy and awards this Sat.night, Nov. 22 at the Crown Royal Hotel in Marlborough. (Credit:: NEMA photo)

By Lou Modestino

The Northeastern Midget Association gathers for their 62nd annual awards banquet on Saturday night at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough, MA. NEMA will crown their 2014 champions and distribute other prestigious awards for both the NEMA Midgets and the NEMA Lites.

The team of driver Randy Cabral and owner Tim Bertrand will collect their fifth champion awards
in the last seven seasons. A fete unseen by a consistent driver/owner combination in NEMA.
Though the championship wasn’t decided until the final race at Thompson, the Cabral/Bertrand team
dominated victory lane with six wins in thirteen events. In their first championship season of
2008 they won eight of seventeen races.

They started the season with two DNF’s, but had the most consistent record the rest of the way.
They only finished out of the top five once, had one fifth place and the rest were first or
second place finishes.

Throughout most of the season, Cabral and Bertrand battled the father/son team of Russ and Avery
Stoehr for the point lead.

Avery was in his first full season of NEMA Midgets after a successful run in the Lites. He
picked up six podium finishes, two of which were wins and never finished out of the top ten in
his Kibbe-wrenched entry until the final race at Thompson.

A championship would have continued the family tradition, as father Russ has six of them. His
most recent came in 2010 winning the last championship for the Angelillo/Dumo’s Desire team,
bringing that car ownership total to a record fourteen.

Ryan Krachun won the Lites driver’s championship in his first full season with NEMA. The New
Jersey driver was able to notch his laurels with consistent finishes. Krachun finished out of
the top ten only once, had seven top fives and started the season with two runner-up finishes.
His only win came late in the season at Star, his first in a winged midget.

The Lites owner’s championship trophy will go to Scott Bigelow. Though he won three features
during the season in his own car, the extra owner points came compliments of his brother Ryan,
who subbed for him and won at a Lites stand-alone race at Star in May.

Bigelow was able to squeak by Krachun’s RKR Enterprises to claim first place in the owners points.

There was no shortage of Bigelow’s in victory lane this season. Besides the aforementioned Scott
Bigelow wins, brother Paul had a Lite win and brother Ryan had both a Lite and NEMA Midget win.

Beyond the champion awards, trophies are handed out to the top fifteen in both divisions,
perfect attendance, mechanic of the year, rookie of the year and several prestigious memorial
awards.

The big night begins with a social hour at 6, followed by dinner, awards and dancing.

This is the first year that the banquet is being held at the Royal Plaza in Marlborough, site of
the annual wintertime Racer’s Expo. Back in the 60’s, the NEMA banquet was held just up the road
at the famed White Cliffs Restaurant in Northborough.