By Lou Modestino
NEMA was in strong form this past weekend at The Racer’s Expo in Marlborough, MA. A wide variety of racers and vendors were brought together by the legendary Seymour Enterprises and Bobby Seymour, making this year’s show the biggest yet.
The NEMA Board met early in the day to discuss the upcoming season. Topics included ensuring that the race format goes off as fast as possible and a number of ideas on that topic, picking the three “open” races for 2015, which will be announced prior to the start of the season, additional possible dates on the 2015 schedule, publicity updates, and continuing to work on the NEMA business plan for the future.
The club then hosted its final pre-season General meeting, where new president Russ Stoehr ran a very informative general meeting, where he mentioned some revisions to the current schedule – such as a possible race at Chemung, NY on Friday May 22nd and possible additional races at Waterford Speedbowl under new owner Bruce Bemer. Tim Bertrand then informed the membership of plans for a combination rookie orientation / safety inspection / test & tune day at a track TBD for some time in April. VIP Fan and Track Publicity co-chairs, Bill Van Slyke and Mariah Michalski ran down a list of PR / VIP plans for 2015. Mariah has taken the VIP program to a new level this year which will include armed forces involvement, involvement with local children’s hospitals, and local community involvement.
NEMA also welcomed back Craig Merriman with great fanfare as its starter for 2015, as well as Bob Blanchette, Mike Scrivani as race director, and long time supporter Linda Cleveland on the banquet committee.
Elsewhere, NEMA was also busy on the weekend with Ed Breault’s #44 Crown Collision machine on display at the Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (TSMP) booth in Providence. NEMA will also be supporting TSMP’s Open House at the Speedway in the Garage area on March 14th, with Champion Randy Cabral on hand along with a car from Bertrand Motorsports. NEMA will also have a display at Frank Marotta’s Race a Rama on the weekend of February 28th.
Source: NEMA PR Tim Bertrand