NEMA Notes: 2013 Budweiser Blastoff
Some notes on NEMA upcoming campaign:
The Northeastern Midget Association opens its 61st season at this weekend’s Blast Off at Waterford Speedbowl. NEMA and the NEMA Lites are both on the two-day show. The Lites feature will be on Saturday night and the full midgets on Sunday. Both will qualify on Saturday.
The Midget win list at Waterford starts with Johnny Thomson, still regarded as New England’s premier open-cockpit driver. Thomson, a Lowell, MA product, won a fog- shortened 15-lapper in June of 1951 and a month later captured a 35-lapper. Late that year before Art Cross, another Midget legend, won an AAA-sanctioned 100 lapper George Tichenor grabbed the pole with a 17.920 run. Anthony Marvuglio had last year’s fastest feature lap time (12.910). Carl Medeiros’ 13.871 was the Lites best.
Since 1999, the Waterford Speedbowl has hosted the NEMA season-opener nine times. On four occasions there was a first-time winner including last year when John Zych Jr. prevailed. Others to do it were Rudy Boetticher (2000), Ben Seitz (2004) and Chris Leonard (2010).
NEMA’s win list includes fathers and sons and brothers but there has yet to be a father-daughter combination. Russ Stoehr’s daughter Bethany, very impressive at Waterford last summer, is a prime candidate to end that draught. She could also start a niece-uncle list with Russ Stoehr. Erica Santos, part of the only sister-brother combo with Bobby III, remains NEMA’s only female winner, doing it at Stafford in 2007.
The list of modified drivers who have tried on a NEMA Midget is reasonably lengthy but the list of winners is short. It includes Ted Christopher, who prevailed at Waterford in 1998 and the late Gene Bergin. One of Bergin’s two wins came at Thompson. Each was driving for an established car owner (TC for Gene Angelillo, Bergin for Mike Scrivani, Sr.) and each was very familiar with the track. Multi-time Waterford champion Keith Rocco, a Lites winner last summer, had the same advantages. Doug Coby, who will drive for Tim Bertrand this weekend, has those things going for him as well.
Betrand Racing comes with three cars, each with a different power plant. Defending champion Randy Cabral has an Esslinger, Todd Bertrand a Honda and Coby an Autocraft. Counting Coby’s five Modified checkereds, the team has 16 Waterford wins, eight for Cabral, two for Todd and one for owner, and former driver, Tim. Four different motors wound up in Waterford’s Victory Lane last year – Esslinger (2), Gaerte, Honda and Mazda.
The first appearance of Lites came at Waterford’s 2008 opener with an exhibition run. The first “official” race was June 11 of that year, Jesse State beating brothers Jake and P.J Stergios and Anthony Marvuglio.
Sources: Pete Zanardi/NEMA PR