New England Motor Sports Museum
The Team

The Team

We are the Racing History Preservation Group. Incorporated in New Hampshire, we are a 501 (c) 3 non-profit. Some of the most significant personalities in Northeast Motorsports are members of our Board of Directors.

No member of the Executive Committee or the Board receives any compensation in exchange for their services.

The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors

President — Bob Bianchi
A retired Nashua, NH fire Lieutenant, Bob's skills and volunteerism seem limitless. As a volunteer before joining the Board on August 10, 2017, he did a considerable amount of work installing and/or repairing several of the museum's components including its internet capability and television displays. He built the plaque stand in the museum's lobby and has spent many hours on the floor of the museum sharing stories of the exhibits with guests. He has a long history of volunteerism and charity work including maintaining the Nashua Masonic building, for 13 years serving as chairman of the NH Shrine Circus, and serving on the board (including as its chairman) of the Children's Dyslexia Center of Nashua. He is one of our most devoted volunteers.

President Emeritus, Founder — Dick Berggren
Holder of an MS and a PhD from Tufts University, Berggren owned, drove and won in race cars in the Northeast. He founded two auto racing magazines and edited a third which he drove to become the largest circulated motorsports publication in history. For more than 30 years, Berggren has covered big league stock car racing from the pit roads of some of the sport's biggest events for ESPN, CBS, TBS, SPEED, TNN and FOX TV.

Vice President - Tom Crompton
Tom attended his first auto race at age six and has been involved with the sport ever since in various capacities. Tom started racing motocross in 1971 which led to motorcycle road racing across the Midwest and east coast. His professional career was in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries where he applied his business skills and executive leadership with multiple companies. Today, Tom continues to race his vintage sprint cars with ACOT, vintage motorcycles with the USCRA and competes at the land speed events held annually by the Loring Timing Association. He also serves as a trustee for the ACOT board of directors. Tom regularly attends museum events and is often found displaying one of his sprint cars at our car shows. He is a lifetime member of the museum and has resided with his wife in NH for 30 years. Tom joined the museum’s board in the fall of 2022.

Vice President - Andy Cusack
A second generation track operator, Cusack runs the very popular Beech Ridge Speedway in Maine. He has been identified as one of the nation's top promoters by the Promoters Workshops. He has accumulated photography and artifacts of his track's past to preserve its history.In addition to his title of Secretary, Cusack became a member of the Board’s Executive Committee in March, 2018.

Treasurer — Rick Humphrey
Before becoming the museum's treasurer in November, 2017, Humphrey became a paid member before ground for the building was broken. He's a regular at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway race weekends as well as at other tracks. With a Babson BA majoring in accounting and over 38 years as a financial auditor, tax and general business advisor, Rick earned his CPA accreditation in 1982. In addition to being the museum's treasurer, he's also treasurer for the Boston Yacht Club in Marblehead where he's an avid sailor.

Executive Director - Tom Netishen
Tom Netishen became the executive director of the North East Motor Sports Museum on January 1, 2019. He has a lifelong passion for motorsports and its rich history. He grew up attending short track races in New Hampshire and since 2007 has helped crew on his family’s supermodified race team. With degrees in marketing and business studies from SNHU, his professional background includes working in digital marketing departments for multiple companies. His responsibilities at the museum include providing strategic direction, fundraising as well as event planning and coordinating. He is currently the only paid staff member at the museum. Tom resides in NH with his wife Shannon. He can be reached to discuss all museum matters by calling 603-783-0183.

Board of Directors

Bob Bartis
Attorney and radio station owner Bob Bartis is a lifelong resident of Hollis, NH. He has had a career path including seven years as a Deputy Sheriff in the Nashua Court House, seven years as an adjunct professor at NH Technical Institute and has been a courtroom litigator for over two decades with Bartis Law Offices. Bob started radio broadcasting with ESPN-NH in 2015 providing their weekly NASCAR report and podcasts. He purchased their sister station WSMN in Nashua in March 2017 and formed a broadcast team with Bob Bianchi. Together, they host their live 2hr weekly 'Bobs' Racing Report' covering NASCAR and traveling annually to multiple tracks for media coverage. Bob has voluntarily offered his legal services to the museum for many years and was elected to its board in the fall of 2021.

Ray Boissoneau
As a child, Boissoneau ran the soapbox derby, bicycle races and at age 12 he attached a Briggs and Stratton engine to a wood car he had built. He began collecting racing memorabilia as a child and now owns the largest private collection of vintage race cars in New England. His collection includes historically significant midgets, sprint cars, and Indy cars that ran in the 1940s and ‘50s. Boissoneau is active in vintage car racing. He driven the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12-Hours of Sebring and 6-Hours of Watkins Glen. His commitment to preserving racing history is extremely strong.

Don Breslauer
Don Breslauer joined the RHPG Board on September 25, 2015 when he was unanimously voted in by his peers. His background in road racing is extensive and successful. Included was his participation in the Group 44 effort which earned five national championships. With Mac Tilton, he was with the team that won six Trans Am races and a championship. Don has worked for cooling systems company Mecca Development in Sharon, CT, Cumberford Research where he was a designer and fabricator on a team that built a specialty car and Mueller Fabricators where he was the National sales rep. These days, he runs his own company that manufactures race cars and related components. Don's job is to help assure that road racing is properly represented in the museum.

Robert Coy
Robert Coy has raced motorcycles all of his adult life, competing at many tracks from New England's old Bryar Motorsports Park and Thompson to Canada, Cuba, South American, Italy and then finally in Japan in 2009. He was instrumental in organizing the first vintage motorcycle road races in North America in the mid-70's at Bridgehampton and still organizes vintage road racing today at NHMS through the United States Classic Racing Association. Robert founded the USCRA in the early 80s and still heads that organization. He founded and organized the vintage road racing events through the streets of Laconia and revived the original "Laconia" track in Guilford, NH for several years. He is presently (since 1996) the AMA Off Road Rep for District 1. He has ridden a motorcycle across the Himalayas to the border of Tibet and then gone West through Kashmir. Coy is deeply involved in all aspects of vintage motorcycle activity and is positioned to ensure that the history of motorcycle racing in the Northeast is well represented in the new North East Motor Sports Museum at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Ricky Craven
After an extraordinarily successful career as a New England race car driver and team owner, Craven went on to NASCAR's big league where he won four Nationwide and two NASCAR Sprint Cup events. He currently serves as an on-camera auto racing ESPN announcer.

Jack Doyle
Jack Doyle is a New England motorsports treasure. He successfully ran early dragsters and was one of the most significant founders of New England Dragway. He is a former member of the New England Dragway’s board of directors and still owns the stock he bought when money was being raised to construct the strip. He was honored by the NHRA with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, induction into the NHRA Hall of Fame, and by the Hot Rod Reunion in 2003. He was inducted into the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2019. Jack and his wife Mabel are frequent volunteers at the museum.

Mabel Doyle
On December 2, 2023, Mabel Doyle was unanimously voted into the Racing History Preservation Group Board as a Director. She is the wife of New England Dragway supporter and RHPG Director Jack Doyle making them the first husband-wife couple to serve simultaneously on the Board. Mable has a deep and long history with drag racing. She's a clear thinker who came to the Board filled with ideas for programs that will benefit the museum.

Ron Egalka
Ron Egalka is the former president, CEO and chief investment officer of Rampart Investment Management, a company he founded. Following Rampart's sale to Virtus Investment Partners, Egalka served as President until October 2015. In that capacity he oversaw the conception, development and implementation of Rampart's investment strategies and tactics. He was a founding director of the Boston Computer Society and was founder of the Boston Options Society. A graduate of the Harvard Business School and BU's School of Management, he worked in the investment industry from 1971 until his recent retirement. He brings museum experience as a Life Trustee and former Chair of the Curatorial Committee of the USS Constitution Museum in Charlestown, MA. He has also served on the Board of Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, Harley Davidson Owners Group and the New England Digital Emergency Communications Network.

Joe Freeman
A graduate of Yale (Classics & Ancient History) Freeman has degrees from Harvard in Education and Government. He is owner of Racemaker Press in Boston, MA, publisher of high-end motorsports books. He is a past president of the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline, MA where he remains a Board member. A collector of significant racing cars, Freeman actively participates in vintage events as an owner and driver. He is a member of AACA and is a judge at Pebble Beach car exhibitions.

Frank Grimaldi
Frank Grimaldi has been successfully road racing the same 1968 Camaro since 1971, first in SCCA road racing and since 1990 in dozens of vintage races all over the eastern US and Canada. He was a Sanford Maine drag racer with his father's XK120 Jaguar when he met life long friend, John "Shag" Sharrigan of the famed NoMads Hot Rod club. An ice racer and NASCAR Late Model driver he knows all about winning (eg: 1973 SCCA Northeast Divisional National Championship, 1993 Lime Rock Historic Trans Am) and losing (crashed and burned the XK120 Jaguar at Thompson, earning the nickname "Flames" from Sharrigan). He is a veteran racer with a 50-year background in engineering and engineering management at several highly respected New England firms. Voted onto the board unanimously in September, 2015, Grimaldi is aggressively at work sharing the museum's story with the road racing community and helping to ensure that the history of that sport is properly handled in the museum.

Lloyd "LD" Hutchins
A Vermonter with a strong interest in and knowledge of the state's racing history, Hutchins goes far enough back to have helped Ken Squire build Thunder Road Speedway. He is a seventh generation Vermonter and a twelfth generation New Englander. His interest in racing is deep, beginning in 1947 when as a ten-year-old he attended his first race at the Dog River Fairgrounds. He has served in many different roles: scorekeeper, handicapper, chairman of the rules committee, tech inspector, builder-owner of race cars and driver. Hutchins has assembled a collection of flathead V-8 coupes and a mobile photo museum. He is a member of NEAR's Hall of Fame selection committee.

Jim Lowry Jr
Jim Lowrey Jr was involved in the museum long before he joined as a Director at the 2023 Annual Meeting. The proprietor of Lowrey's Auto Restoration in Tilton, NH Jim has built and restored cars with heritage and class. Those cars include customs, ground-up hot rods and race cars. The most unusual car he built was a 1930s Packard which successfully competed in the Peking China to Paris France Rally. He has served as a judge in the museum’s car shows and is in attendance at the organization’s events. He is a prior "Best of Show" winner in the museum’s annual Hot Rods, Muscle and More event. As a race car driver, Jim has won in every open wheel division that runs in New England. Jim’s business experience and his deep understanding of racing and car culture bring significant benefits to the museum’s Board.

Ric Mariscal
A former driver, builder, car owner and currently a devoted racing historian, Mariscal and RA Silvia have been collecting race cars, memorabilia, photography, artifacts and publications for over 35 years. The majority of their collection is resident at the Pronyne museum in Pawtucket, RI. Theirs was the first motorsports museum in the northeast that was available to the public. Viewing Mariscal’s significant collection is currently by appointment only.

Skip Matczak
NEAR Hall of Fame member Matczak currently heads the USAC Dirt Midget Series which competes at Vermont's Bear Ridge Speedway. He and his late wife Lois fielded sprint cars and supermodifieds for more than 90 drivers. Matczak's cars have won the Oswego Classic as well as that track's championship three years in a row. Matczak is the owner of SealsIt which manufactures unique products for race cars as well as other vehicles.

Josh Morin
Josh joined the Board of Directors at the September 2023 meeting by unanimous vote. Before that vote he had already been heavily involved in upper-level activity on behalf of the museum including fund raising, defining goals, and executing to achieve them. He earned a BS in Business with a focus in Marketing at Southern New Hampshire University in 2007 and an Associates Degree in Electronic Engineering Technology in 2001 at ITT Technical Institute. Since 2007 he has worked for the industry leader in innovative sequencing driving groundbreaking advancement in life science cancer research, genomics and molecular diagnostics managing a cross functional, national team. For ten years he owned and operated PM Performance Automotive which carried out all aspects of high-performance modifications to LS and Jeep engines. The company also executed performance service to SBC, BBC and driveline upgrades as well as engine swaps. He is a racing enthusiast dating back to his childhood with a high tech background and a track record of getting things done well.

Dave Patten
Dave's job as well as his passion is auto racing. After a successful career as a construction estimator Dave formed his own company, FutoFab which focuses on Datsun racing and restoration parts. He is the sole importer of reproduction sheet metal for Datsun 510 and 240Z. He is a veteran hill climb driver who participates in every Mount Washington Climb to the Clouds event. Dave has been involved in SCCA road racing for more than 25 years and is a past president and lifetime member of the Sports Car Club of New Hampshire. He holds degrees in architectural engineering and business management.

Ed Shea
The bright red trucks owned by Ed Shea carry unique concrete products throughout New England each day. With manufacturing operations in Amesbury, Wilmington and Rochester in Massachusetts and Nottingham, NH, Shea Concrete is one of New England's most robust construction supply companies, a family owned and operated business since 1949. He is a long-time sponsor of many race teams and currently supports Vic Miller's supermodified operation.

R.A. Silvia
Bob Silvia has spent most of his adult life around auto racing. He is a regular in New England racing's grandstands. Silvia has acquired a significant collection of racing memorabilia, much of it focused on the history of racing in Rhode Island. Along with Ric Mariscal, R.A. owns and operates the ProNyne Museum in Pawtucket, RI which displays historic race cars among a priceless collection of motorsports artifacts.

John Spence
For more than 40 years, John Spence has been the voice of New England oval track racing as he has called events for fans. He has been the weekly announcer at Hudson, Lee, Star and has been the principal announcer for the MRS, Tri-Track, ISMA and NESMRA tours. Having seen so many races for such a long time, Spence knows a lot about motorsports in New England. He has a strong passion for our sport and greatly cares about its history. He resides in Milford, NH and is the father of six children.

Dave Swenson
A fund-raising member of the Speedway Children's Charities Board of Directors, Loudon, NH resident and businessman Dave Swenson joined the RHPG Board on August 10, 2017. His interest in motorsports goes back more than 40 years during which time he has hill climbed cars and raced SCCA. Dave is dedicated to the museum and vows to share his marketing and sales skills to help ensure the project's financial success.

Pete vonSneidern
New Hampshire resident vonSneidern has been a life-long auto racing fan. He has restored the big car driven by Art Rousseau in the 1940s to running condition. vonSneidern also built a replica of the #621 cut-down raced by Rousseau in the ‘50s and is currently in the process of restoring several period race cars with significant histories behind them.