Track Responds to NOPI Announcement
07/16/2008 by NED News
NOPI may be off the schedule, but New England Dragway will put together an import/sport compact event on Saturday, August 2 despite the disappointing news. “Several sponsors contacted us in the wake of NOPI’s announcement and offered to help make this event a success,” stated Track/General Manager Joe Lombardo, adding, “We know there is tremendous interest in the import program. Based on the tremendous number of phone calls we’ve received over the past 12 hours, along with a flood of e-mail messages, it’s important we put something together for all those racers and fans who planned on coming to the track.”
While details are still being ironed out there are a number of ideas being considered. There will be eliminator style race classes for cars and motorcycles along with run only lanes. “Our intent is to make this different from our regular import wars events so we’ll probably stay away from the same format we use during our import wars events,” said Lombardo. Track officials are considering a flag start, no scoreboard, first to the finish line race. That will be accompanied by other categories with a decision on specific classes to come later this week.

“People from Team ECR have agreed to host a car show, which is good news since their program is well received among the New England Dragway community,” Lombardo said. Track officials are also planning on a burn out contest and ugliest car contest.

Lombardo said the key over the next few days is to try and give everyone something they’ll enjoy. Specific details about the weekend will come later this week. "I think people understand the situation we're in and realize it will take us a few days to come up with a good program for everyone to enjoy," he concluded.