(Words and photos by Tom McCarthy) –  If there was an award given annually in New England for the drag racer of the year, that award would have been bestowed upon Joe Lombardo, the track General Manager at New England Dragway, in Epping, NH. He really got it together in 2013, much to the delight of approximately 50,000 people he made pretty happy on the weekend of June 21-23, 2013. That was the weekend of the first ever NHRA New England Nationals and he’s not looked back since.

During that weekend close to 50,000 people from all across the USA and parts of Canada came to New England Dragway to see John Force get a beat’n from his daughter in the final round of Funny Car racing. They also came to see the first real National Hot Rod Association “National Event” held at the race track. That’s something racers and fans have been dreaming about since September of 1966 when the track first opened it’s gates. Forty seven years they waited for this event and Mr. Lombardo was undeniably the catalyst and the architect who brought it all together.

It all started for Joe back in the 1960’s when he started working on cars with his dad at age fourteen “It was something we liked to do together.” Growing up in Quincy on the South Shore of Boston, his peers were into drag racing, not circle track racing which was all the rage down south. Here in the north, New England Dragway was the place to be, Joe made his first trip there in 1969.

“In my youth, growing up on the South Shore of Boston, none of my friends cared about circle track racing, everyone was into drag racing, that’s how the sport came my attention” commented Joe in a post race interview during 2013. He remembers his racing roots like this; “In Quincy, Massachusetts, there was a section of the city known as Squantum. There, in the late 1960’s, was a large seldom used but paved area of abandoned air-strip from the one time naval air base that long ago was busy during WW-II. On Sundays, local kids would bring their cars there and beat on them till the cops came. Then everyone would skedaddle. I never raced there, but I used to go watch.” For Joe, it became a vision of things to come.

In 1970, as street racing and drag racing came into vogue along the Boston south shore, less than one hour north of Boston, in Epping, NH, the race facility known as New England Dragway sprang to life. Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Shirley Muldowney, TV Tommy Ivo, all the biggest names in drag racing came and raced at New England Dragway throughout the 1970’s.

Joe recalls, “Some of my friends had an interest in baseball, or this and that, but for the most part the big news was whatever was happening at New England Dragway. It was kind of the Holly Grail for us. It was the only real race track we knew of in the region. My friends and I, we were all into cars, so New England Dragway was the place to be until I entered the military from 1974 to 1994, in the US Coast Guard.”

Joe’s employment connection to N.E.D. followed his military service to his country. “In 1987, while in the Coast Guard, I was stationed in Portsmouth, NH, and I was working in the recruiting office. I thought to myself, New England Dragway would be a good place to recruit, so we started advertising with N.E.D. and that brought me back to the track again. So after advertising and working with the race track for a few years, I just started working there part time as the track announcer around 1992. When it came time for me to retire after my twenty years in the Navy in 1994, the track offered me a position as the track reporter writing the track paper. So I’ve been working off and on at New England Dragway ever since.”

Joe departed for a time in 1997 to help with a bold new internet venture, Goracing.com that sprang up in another South Shore town of Stoughton, Massachusetts. But after a year away, he returned to New England Dragway and has been there full time ever since.

I asked Joe point blank what it took to bring the NHRA’s biggest show to New England Dragway’s racers and fans. The 2013 event was a dream come true for thousands of people.

Joe replied “Close to ten years ago, the IHRA, which is a good organization, started evolving it’s racing format away from traditional drag racing. I’m a fan and proponent of the 16 car qualified field, Top Fuel cars, Funny cars, etcetera, and that’s not where IHRA was going with it’s show at that point in time.

At the same time, the National Hot Rod Association had a foot hold in most every major market in the USA except New England. So a dialog began with NHRA based on what it would take to bring New England Dragway to a point where it could host a major national event.

We could see it would be close to eight million dollars worth of upgrades to bring everything up to where we wanted and needed it to be and we didn’t want to enter into a loan and carry that kind of debt, so we started building things up gradually over the last, decade now. The announcing system, the lighting, the stands, it’s all still evolving. We set this plan up with the NHRA, and this is the plan that worked. Now that we’ve reached our goal, to host major Mellow Yellow series sponsored NHRA events, we’ll take the proceeds from each years event, and upgrade the facility a bit more every year.”

It’s interesting to note that prior to 2013, there was never a previous true “NHRA National Event” at New England Dragway. Since the track’s first year of operation in 1966, the facility has operated under a variety of sanctioning bodies such as the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA), the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) and of course the NHRA.

It was during the new millennium, that the track realigned it’s sanction with the National Hot Rod Association. When New England Dragway hosted it first serious NHRA big show beginning with the NHRA Divisional race in 2011, came the turning point that indicated the track and it’s fans were ready for the big time. Joe commented “From that show, we knew we had a home run. We had the biggest spectator count of any Division 1 track for an inaugural regional NHRA Divisional event. Then in 2012, our attendance was up 15%. This indicator really impressed the NHRA, we all knew then that a true NHRA “National” would be a big hit here at our track.”

Thus began the negotiating, mostly by phone, with Peter Clifford and Tom Compton at NHRA on what it would take to bring a true “NHRA National Event” to New England Dragway. Joe recalled “About four years ago, Graham Light, the NHRA Senior Vice President in charge of Racing Operations, Bob Lang the Division 1 Director, and Bob Tasca the III came to New England Dragway and we took a real hard look at our facility and we laid out a concrete plan of exactly what we needed to do to prepare our track for a Mellow Yellow Series race. We actually made a check list of things that needed to be checked off before our facility would be ready to handle the national event.”

Joe then brought the requirements before the Board of Directors for New England Dragway. There are nine members to the Board of Directors at New England Dragway, and yes, they all wanted the NHRA national events to come to the facility. The share holders for the most part were also behind the decision to upgrade for a national event. Some of the share holders were a bit skeptical at making this kind of capitol investment, but the vote was to go forward.

Whatever their fears were in advance of the June 20-23 New England Nationals, they were all by the wayside after the event.   In four days of racing, over 50,000 motorsports fans attended the first ever NHRA New England Nationals.

Of the current members of the Board of Directors at New England Dragway, five of the Board are founding fathers of the track who were present in September of 1966 when the track hosted it’s first ever drag race. It’s been a dream come to life for these men to see a real NHRA national event come to this track, a dream that took forty-seven years to become a reality.

There was a meeting of the Board of Directors on the Tuesday after the race. When Joe Lombardo entered the room, the whole board stood and gave him a standing ovation. It was very humbling for Mr. Lombardo.

“I wanted their observations, their input right after the race. We took a one day break on Monday after the race and Tuesday we all sat down, while it was still fresh in everyone’s minds. They’ve been around so long and they’ve seen so much, I really wanted their input as to what they experienced over the four days of racing. I was floored by their response.”

Joe was so busy before, during and after the race it took a while for him to realize the enormity of what he and his staff had accomplished. “I was running around on my scooter all weekend, attending whatever needed my attention as the track General Manager, so I personally didn’t get to see much of the event. I wanted to hear what the board saw and felt needed to be addressed. I’ll never forget walking into that Board meeting.” It was one of several unforgettable moments Joe had from that race.

Prior to the event, the sleepless nights for Joe were many. In fact there was more than one night when Joe got up in the middle of the night to write something down so it could be addressed the next day. Thinking about how to handle the parking situation was a big one for example. Traffic to and from the parking lots, the police details, the minutia alone is enough to boggle anyone’s mind. There wasn’t a hotel room to be had from Exeter, NH to the sea coast or north to York, Maine. Joe stated “As it turned out, what we did to address traffic on Thursday, needed to be handled differently on Friday and again with a different variation for the Saturday traffic flow. So as the crowed size and tempo of attendance changes, we have to change with it to accommodate a smoother flow of traffic. NH Department of Transportation is now involved in our planning and they have some great ideas with a whole new plan taking shape for the 2014 event that should be a better experience for all.”

What the team of New England Dragway accomplished, as lead by Joe Lombardo, didn’t really hit home with Joe until Sunday morning of the big race.

During the initial race introductions in the starting line area, hosted by the NHRA’s Alan Rinehart, Joe was called out to be introduced to the crowd. Just before Joe was to come out onto the NHRA stage to be introduced to the crowd, people started chanting his name, hundreds of people, began chanting in unison “Joe, Joe, Joe.” As the sound of the crowd grew chanting his name – that’s when it first hit him, the enormity of it all. Joe remembers with a grin “I’m not afraid to address a few hundred or a few thousand people, I’ve done it many times, but this caught me off guard. I stepped out onto the stage with Alan and I looked out at what seemed to be just a sea of faces. I looked at Alan and I said, “I must be a bit red right about now” and Alan replied “Yep, you sure are.” Joe recalls, “So many people, our people, the fans and racers of New England Dragway were just so happy and so thankful for the event, it was very humbling for me.”

Perhaps the truly defining moment when Joe Lombardo came to grips with what he and his staff accomplished together that weekend happened just after racing concluded, fittingly enough out on the 1320 of racing surface in the right lane. Another moment Joe Lombardo will never forget as long as he lives.

Joe was on his scooter, driving down the race track surface after the race, out checking on things and there sitting on the wall at about the 1000’ mark was John Force. The race was over, John had just been defeated by his daughter who was in the victory celebration with her team, and John was sitting on the track wall, still in his fire suit just sting there taking it all in, thinking about everything, reflecting on the race day.

Joe pulled over on his scooter asked John, “Is everything ok?”

John Force said to Joe, “You guys did a great job.” Joe replied “No my crew did a great job, I just facilitated things.” John replied to Joe, “Forget all that, you did a great job with this race.”

For Joe Lombardo this was his defining moment of the race, that moment when he knew he had it right. “When a professional race car driver says something to you on a race, and keep in mind he doesn’t have to say anything, but when they do and they tell you – you did a great job – that’s when you know you’ve got it right.” For Joe Lombardo, 2013 was certainly his year and the continued success of the track can be attributed to the momentum NED gathered coming into that season with Joe at the helm.