The Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod Association (NEOPMA) will resume its 2020 racing season on July 10-12 at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, the sanctioning body announced, after a temporary hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to the pandemic, the NEOPMA kicked off its 2020 drag racing season with an eighth-mile format event at Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Maryland, with 19 cars in the Pro Mod class and numerous entries running in the 3.6- to 3.8-second elapsed time range. Now, the NEOPMA is ready to resume racing at Maple Grove Raceway over the weekend of July 10-12 with a live feed of the action being broadcasted worldwide, and its racers are just as eager to get back to the track as 28 cars have already been pre-registered for the event.
“After so much time off, we’re really looking forward to this upcoming race. The Coronavirus, its financial impacts, and recent protests have hurt New York as well as the rest of the country, and not having spectators at the track impacts both the bottom line and overall morale,” said John Mazzorana, director of the NEOPMA. “However, even with these unprecedented circumstances, we have 28 pre-registered attendees for Maple Grove and expect to also have a good number of cars testing on both Thursday and Friday. We can’t wait to get back at it.”
The NEOPMA group recently switched to an eighth-mile racing format and has seen a surge in newly registered racers as a result, the organization says, and has garnered more interest than the former quarter-mile distance, with NEOPMA membership increasing from 34 to 46. Projections show an expectation to exceed 55-plus Pro Mod racers. In 2019, the organization’s racers broke eight Pro Modified world records.
The NEOPMA 2020 drag racing season will continue after its stop at Maple Grove with additional events at Cecil County Dragway (July 31-Aug. 1), Maryland International Raceway (Aug. 21-22), a to-be-determined facility depending on COVID-19 availability (Sept. 26-27), and again at Maryland International Raceway (Oct. 9-10) to finish out the year.
