Cumens Among NEMA Favorites at Oswego
Brockton, MA – With three top fives on the half-miles this season, Ian Cumens rates among the contenders Saturday night when the Northeastern Midget Association visits Oswego Speedway. NEMA and the NEMA Lites will both be making the trip to the ultra-quick five-eighths oval.
Oswego remains one of the ultimate challenges for all Midget racing.
Coming off a win last weekend at Star Speedway, his second of the season, Cumens will be looking to repeat last year’s Lites victory at Oswego. Driving for the Seymour family, Cumens has shown a strong record on the bigger tracks including a Lites win earlier this year at Airborne Speedway. In the full Midgets, he has a second at Stafford and a fourth at Airborne.
John Zych Jr., the NEMA point leader, takes on the challenge of Oswego with four victories including Stafford and Airborne.
Last year, Oswego was one of the tracks that counted in the special Hoosier Challenge title that Cumens won. This year, for the first time in seven years, NEMA will crown an “all the races count” champion. Carl Medeiros Jr., a three-time winner this year, is the point leader with Danny Cugini still very much in contention. Cugini has a couple of “big track” top fives this year as does Kenny Johnson.
Avery Stoehr, a winner at Stafford this year and third a year ago at Oswego, is another Lites threat as is P.J. Stergios, a three time winner as well.
The Zych-Randy Cabral battle atop the NEMA championship race has been red hot, just 33 points separating them heading into Saturday night. Neither has ever won at Oswego, it being one of the few places Cabral and his car owner Tim Bertrand have not carried away a checker.
Running third through fifth, Todd Bertrand, Cumens and Russ Stoehr, the latter an eight-time Oswego winner, are carrying on their own battle.
Sources: Pete Zanardi/NEMA PR