Jeff Horn Leads NEMA Back To Lee USA
Brockton, MA — Jeff Horn, who will turn 65 on July 6, can’t get away from the age question. While he admits “the state of readiness is a little harder to maintain,” his desire remains strong.
Horn, a winner at Lee USA Speedway last September, returns to the Granite State third mile Friday night (June 25) “full of hope, prepared to do the best I can.” The last race at Lee “means nothing.”
The NEMA Lites are on schedule as well in NEMA’s only visit to Lee this year. Bethany Viets will be looking to make it two straight Lites wins.
With the addition of Bobby Santos III (in the Breault 44), Jeff Abold (in an Abold/Seymour effort) and Mike Ordway Jr. (in a Bertrand car) , an especially strong field is expected. “Lee is not an especially hard or an especially easy track,” says Horn, “but is a very fast one.”
It follows that it is a very competitive one as well. Two times defending champ Randy Cabral, the winner of the last outing at Twin State, takes the point lead to Lee. Russ and Greg Stoehr along with Adam Cantor are determined not to let the Cabral/Bertrand team get too far out in front.
Abold’s 13.521 was the fastest feature lap at Lee last year. A victim of mechanical problems, the second generation racer no doubt returns with some vengeance in mind.
A racer since the mid 1960s in Vermont, Horn was in the first race on the current Lee layout back in 1983. “There was no wall on the back chute,” he recalls. “It was that new.”
Among active drivers, Horn is the Lee NEMA win leader with four going back to 1987. “That doesn’t mean much either,” he insists Cabral, Russ Stoehr and Santos, who will spell sister Erica in the Breault 44, have also won at Lee.
The Lites have yet to have a double winner in five races. Viets joined Todd Bertrand, Eddie LeClerc Jr., Anthony Nocella and Paul Luggelle on the 2010 win list.
NEMA NUGGETS: Cabral’s victory at Twin State gives him at least one win in 11 straight seasons. Only Dave Humphrey, with 16, is better…Russ Stoehr had a second and a third at Lee in 2009…Stoehr leads a quartet that includes Cabral, Jeff Horn and Bobby Santos III that has 100 NEMA wins among them.
Sources: Pete Zanardi/NEMA PR