Posts
198
Joined
4/2/2009
Location
Norman, OK
US
Edited Date/Time
9/1/2022 1:37pm
I grew up racing NEMA for most of the 80's. A lot of really fast guys started there, like Doug Henry, Gene Neumec, Keith Johnson, Mike Treadwell, and Scott Sheik. I always see people here who raced together, but they are all from Ca., Fla, etc. Just wondering if there are any old New England mini riders on here
Remember the rehoboth track around 93? I lived right down the street from it.
Do you remember those heated North/South challenges between NEMA & MAMA?
Did you participate in any of those?
Being a kid, I remember taking those races pretty seriously and feeling obligated to put up my best effort for MAMA!
I recall that it started off alternating meeting locations between organizations and then we settled for Broome-Tioga a couple years later as a "neutral" site.
The ones I recall participating in were in '81 at Antietam, '82 Southwick, '83 Broome, ''84 Broome, and '85 Aquasco.
It was interesting to see how our fast guys pared up against NEMA's fast guys.
I remember Chris Fisher and David Antonucchi were a couple of the fast NEMA guys that I can still recall.
That trip up to race at Southwick introduced me to my favorite track of all time. I have since raced there nearly a dozen more times despite the 10 hour drive! I back was there to race as recently as this past August.
I may have some pix from a couple of those challenge races.
The Shop
Jatharp - If I recall correctly, your Dad was Cliff, right? Ironically, I was just thinking that no one ever posts stories of some of the fast New England guys from the 80's other than those about Doug Henry or Gene Neumac. Guys I remember as being the top 80/105/125 riders in NEMA were: Dave Antonucchi, Timmy Lemire, Jean Pierre Levesque, Badger Dzielak (sp?)
Fast guys my age were Tony Lorusso, Jason Fowler, Bobby Beach, Wally Silva, Scott Sheak. I think that Gene may be a few years younger than I am (37) but he was big enough to be on a 125 at 12. Chris Fisher had mad speed, but just didn't seem into the full-on competitiveness of racing.
I think I did 2 NEMA vs. MAMA races, one in '86 (in Berwick, PA) and one in '87, which I think was at Budd's. I do remember that I was in 2nd in the race at Budd's and I landed on top of a lapper right after getting the white flag - the track was run in the opposite direction that it is today, and where I crashed was at the top of Henry Hill.
Thanks for bringing back a lot of good memories. Moto was a lot different then - especially in NEMA. Once we moved to NESC, we found that the "family" atmosphere that your Dad helped create was hard to find
000
Dave Z
Chris Fisher and my brother were always neck and neck for 1st place!
I'm working on getting some of my old photo's scanned to my computer. I have stuff from 1980 to 1984 (100 novice, 100 amateur, 125 amateur) If anyone is interested let me know.
-Dave
Pit Row
Southwick was always my favorite track to race, probably due to the fact that it was a Nationals Track and had nice loamy dirt. Middleboro and Pepperell I couldnt stand as they both had a lot of hard pack and rocks.
By the way I just picked up my bike yesterday. I got a 2009 leftover RM-Z250...
Time to start riding!
jimmy ellis
charlie iott
mark robalard
mike gerra
cliff frazie
bennencourt's
80cc riders
spencer morrison
graham barber
and all those old tracks lisbon maine , waterboro , ossipee nh , lunenberg ma
Jimmy Ellis used to do races here and there. What I remember about him the most was one day my Dad was in need of a tool and Jimmy came over with the correct tool and actually helped fix by bike. Just shows you what kind of personable guy he was...
Post a reply to: Anybody here race NEMA in the 80's?