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Pete Newsham is racing with class and classics
By Ann Ringwood
Pete Newsham, of Clinton, with his 1937 Chevy Coupe Modified at the Stafford Springs Speedway in Connecticut.
GateHouse News Service
Wed Aug 01, 2007, 05:14 PM EDT
Clinton -
Pete Newsham is a man with a mission. As President of New England Antique Racers, (NEAR) Newsham is deeply committed to ensuring that the rich history of auto racing in New England is preserved and celebrated.
With nearly 400 members and 80 antique race cars, NEAR provides modern day auto racing fans with a living, breathing connection to racing’s yesteryear, a traveling history museum that carries the spirit of auto racings past into every racetrack and speedway that they roll into.
Maintaining the bridge to auto racing’s past is an important endeavor for Newsham and the members of NEAR, since racing has transitioned from a time when the everyman racer could build and race a car from stock parts using only creativity and ingenuity, to the highly-engineered variety of modern day auto racing. Newsham explains that every car NEAR displays was built prior to 1979.
Watch the slideshow“Until 1979 virtually every race car was created from stock parts that could be found at the local junk yard,” he said.
Since the early 80s the notion of building your own car from stock parts has all but faded away. Today’s race cars are designed and manufactured specifically for racing.
Newsham fondly recalls the profound experience of being a 5-year-old boy and watching his uncle race. His voice is a mix of reverence and nostalgia as he remembers the joy of watching those early races and his desire to keep that same spirit alive for other race fans, who like himself, grew up around racing.
“Back then it seemed that there were race tracks everywhere and the drivers were just ordinary people who loved to race,” said Newsham.
According to Newsham, NEAR’s busy season stretches from April through October.
“We do about 13 shows a year,” he said.
NEAR members will meet at racetracks and speedways throughout New England during the racing season to display their cars and sometimes run exhibitions, which Newsham explains are essentially “simulated races featuring the club’s antique race cars, driven by NEAR members.”
Newsham is quick to point out that the demonstrations are orchestrated with pre-selected winners in the interest of safety. Each exhibition provides modern day racing fans with a glimpse of the past.
Older fans get a trip down memory lane, and the younger fans literally get to see history in motion.
Beyond the shows and exhibitions is the New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame, which was founded by NEAR members 10 years ago in 1997, with the first class inducted in 1998. To Newsham, the Hall of Fame is the “crown jewel” of NEAR. Every January the organization holds a banquet to induct 11 new members, eight of whom who are chosen by a selection committee of judges made up of sports writers, track owners and promoters in addition to current Hall of Fame members.
Newsham explains that “the selection process takes several months as names are submitted and then slowly and methodically whittled down to sixteen finalists.” Once the 16 finalists are selected, biographies are prepared for each one and then sent out to the full selection committee to cast their votes. The top eight vote getters are inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In addition there is a separate veterans committee that selects the final three inductees from a pool of candidates who were racing prior to World War II.
For Newsham the Hall of Fame is an opportunity to say “thank you to the guys that put smiles on the faces of kids like me when we were young. These people never expected to be in a Hall of Fame, they had jobs just like us and raced for the pure joy of it.”
Newsham’s love for racing laid the foundation for his own experience as a race car driver in the early 1980s at Monadnock speedway and Westborough speedway. Newsham explained that he raced until he wrecked his car at Monadnock. Even though he didn’t have the financial resources to continue competing, he stayed connected and involved by helping other racers and working on different pit crews.
In 1997 while attending an auto show in West Springfield Newsham discovered NEAR almost by accident.
“I saw a 1937 Chevy that I wanted to buy and ended up joining NEAR as way to get in the market to purchase an antique,” he said. “I filled out an application and paid the membership fee. When my membership card never arrived in the mail, I called one of the NEAR contacts numbers I had, and as it turned out the gentleman I spoke with was the owner of the ’37 Chevy I saw at the exhibition. Needless to say, I purchased the car, which I still own, and the rest is history.”
Newsham was elected vice president of NEAR in 2004 and then became president in 2005 when his predecessor resigned mid-term.
At its core, NEAR is a place where antique racing fans can come together and share a camaraderie born of common interest. Newsham is quick to dispel the notion that you need to own an antique race car in order to be a member of the club.
“A lot of people think you need a car, but that isn’t the case,” explained Newsham “all you need is an enthusiasm for the history of auto racing.”
For more information on NEAR, visit www.near1.com. Jim Redmond is a contributor to MotherTown.
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