Lee, NH – The Northeastern Midget Association will run its 900th feature Friday night, Sept. 13th at Lee USA Speedway. The milestone comes in the club’s 57th season.
It will be the 13th feature of the season and the second at Lee.
NEMA, born in the late winter of 1953 in the Thompson Speedway clubhouse, will “properly acknowledge” the milestone. The first race was at Seekonk Speedway on May 30, 1953. Fred Meeker, in the Kernan #17, beat Al Pillion and Cliff Riggot.
“This is, of course, of great significance,” says NEMA President Mike Scrivani Jr. “The club has such a great history and what’s so great is many of the people who have made major contributions are still around.”
It has taken NEMA almost exactly eight years to go from feature No. 800 – Aug. 17, 2001 at Oxford Plains (Jim Miller was the winner) – to 900. The 500th feature was at Monadnock in 1982 and was won by Drew Fornoro in the Angelillo 45.
Point leader Randy Cabral (Bertrand 47) tops the list of 2008 winners with five. Bobby Santos III (Santos 98) has three, Greg Stoehr (Stoehr 29b) two and Joey Payne Jr. (Angelillo 45) and Chris Abold (Seymour 29) one each. All had strong runs at Lee on June 27, a win for Santos over Cabral and Payne.
Cabral’s teammate Jeremy Frankoski, Adam Cantor, (Cantor 7ny) Mike Keeler (Seamon 63) and Erica Santos (Breault 44) head up a list of those ready to grab a checkered.
It will be the 26th race at Lee dating back to 1966. Jeff Horn leads active drivers with three Lee wins.
Making victory even more lucrative is joining the list of other milestone winners: Jerry Russo (the 100th), Dave Humphrey (200th and 300th), Arnold Holly (400th), Bobby Seymour (600th) and Russ Stoehr (700th).
Dave Humphrey and Nokie Fornoro have each won the 13th race of the season five times. Cabral has won two of the last three including last year.