The final event of the 2024 NEMRR season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was a well-attended race with a great forecast, and lots of championships to be decided. NEMRR has awarded double points for the final round of the season in recent years, and with only six events on the calendar nearly every championship was up for grabs.
There was extra tension in the air on Saturday morning as the forecast took a turn and there was a possibility of rain throughout the day. Skies stayed clear throughout the morning practice sessions, and as racing commenced with the SuperStreet class the weather held off.
Randy Morrissette and his Kawasaki ZX-10R streetbike (Super Street is for track day riders to sample racing) continued his incredible Super Street season with a narrow victory over Paul Berger in the Unlimited Class, while Richard Tischofer scored a victory in the Lightweight division over Dominic Petillo. Like many other Super Street riders before him, Morrissette is excited to embark on the start of his official racing career in 2025 as he will be moving on from the Super Street class and making a bid for the NEMRR Rookie of the year in 2025.
The NEMRR championship races started with the GT classes and featured some of the winningest riders in the series. In the GT500 class, Renee Franco capped off a superb season with a win in the GT500 class and secured her first of three championships for 2024.
The most decorated NEMRR rider of 2024, Brett Guyer, finished the GTL class undefeated and locked up the first of his six NEMRR championships – the most of any rider this season. Guyer, a veteran rider who has proven his abilities on machines across all displacements over the years, dominated the lightweight class ranks in 2024 on his Kramer GP790 machine.
In the GTU class, Sam Martin won his very first NEMRR championship in a hard-fought battle over Frenchman Geoffrey Bonnard. Martin won the final battle of the season and the two riders ended up tied in points, with Martin winning the tiebreaker by virtue of have won one more race than Bonnard over the course of the season!
In the GTO ranks, Chris Arrighi was a long shot to win the title after missing round three, but his bid to win the championship was thwarted when he ran out of gas partway through the race (whoops). Eventual race winner Semir Fazlic, also a first-time champion, would have secured the title anyway as he had worked into second place – exactly where he needed to be in order to secure his title had Arrighi finished the race with the win.
Once the GT races concluded the rain began to creep in, and riders over the next few races were left to choose wet or dry tires – with many contests having riders who made a variety of choices. Among those was Micheal Zoner, who rode his Kramer to his first of three 2024
championships in the Super Singles Class. Another multiple class champion, Ian Beam, rode to both the race victory and the season title in the Heavyweight Supersport class as the rain began to come down. Beam had a banner season in 2024, rocketing his pair of Triumphs to titles in both Middleweight and Heavyweight divisions, including the NEMRR premier Seacoast Sport Cycle Middleweight GP class.
When the skies cleared on Sunday, the times dropped and two other riders put exclamation points on their 2024 seasons. Veteran rider and Penguin Racing School owner Eric Wood secured four championship titles on his Ducati V2 in the Heavyweight and Unlimited divisions and capped off his weekend with the fastest laps of the weekend in the Heavyweight Superbike race on Sunday afternoon.
Another standout on Sunday was none other than series director John Grush. Ever the competitor, Grush accomplished his 2024 goal after having a frightening medical event at
an NEMRR event last season and undergoing a subsequent heart surgery, came back to record a perfect championship-winning season by winning all six rounds of the Formula 60 Lights class. Nathan Bettencourt also became the youngest-ever Expert-class champion at 14 years and 1 month as he secured the 2024 title in the Moto 3 class on his Honda NSF250.
The feature race of the weekend was held in fully wet conditions, but the action was red hot. The always fast-starting Geoffrey Bonnard, who enjoys riding in the wet, led Lap One but was soon overtaken by young gun Eli Block on Lap Two. Back in the pack was fellow star rider Ben Gloddy, who worked his way up to the second spot by the midway point of
the race. These two stars of NEMRR, both of whom are MotoAmerica race winners, ramped down the lap times all the way down into the torrid 1:19 range – times that were only seen once before at NHMS (at the 101st Loudon Classic). Gloddy made a valiant attempt to fully close the gap to Block, but in the end these two stars maintained the running order across the finish line, with veteran rider Justin Landry rounding out the podium in the final Dash for Cash of the 2024 season.
NEMRR is scheduled for six action-packed rounds in 2025, all at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The 102nd Loudon Classic is scheduled on June 13-15, and will have full details released with respect to classes and purse structure at a later date.
