At the January 2016 NEAR Annual meeting I reported that December 2016, this release, would be my last posting of “NEAR, website version 3.0” after volunteering to design, build and maintain the site for almost 3 years with over 71,000 views.

Many of you may know I was recruited by Al Fini, NEAR President at the time, with a lot of encouragement from Bill Henry and Jim Torok when the club's webmaster, Tom Ormsby, was hospitalized with a serious illness, and at this time, is still recovering from his Florida residence.

I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Bill Henry for the huge support he provided to me while designing and building this version of the website. Bill answered a ton of emails from me at all hours of the day which was instrumental in allowing me to design, build and publish the NEAR website in under 3 weeks so we would be ready for the 2014 race season. I also want to thank Al Fini for his responses to all my questions -- tapping into his historical knowledge of New England racing and to Tom Ormsby for answering my website questions and sharing his NEAR images/logos.

Volunteering as the webmaster was a great opportunity to get to know a lot of the impressive NEAR members, who had such incredible backgrounds that it prompted me to add "Member Profiles" section, allowing our members to get to know each other and their racing connections, i.e., driver, owner, fan, media, etc. If you haven't already, please consider sending in your NEAR member profile to be highlighted on the NEAR website. It was also an honor to me to be part of a bigger plan and ongoing commitment to preserving the history of automobile racing.

Our new website host of “www.near1.org, version 4.0” will be Mark Caise from Thirty Marketing; he will also be providing technical support to the NEAR website committee. The new website is expected to be published shortly after the new year.

With input from Scott Poirier and Rich Goucher, I designed and built the new website to have a similar look so it will be familiar to our viewers; and the functionality of the new website will allow the committee to easily post articles and pictures. This version 3.0, you are on now, will be available in its entirety on the new website under the "Archives: Pre-2017" tab.

So during the holidays if you would like to check out New England Vintage Racing "today", click here to view over 350 vintage racing videos I've posted since 2013; check out George Powers still flagging from the track at Claremont Speedway in NH. And if you are interested in Classic Cars, visit our website www.dreammachineclassics.org and click on "Photo Gallery" to view photos of car cruises and shows in New England, as well as a couple of our hot rod adventures, i.e., Hot Rod Power Tour in 2011 (CT to FL to Michigan to Canada to CT), NSRA in Kalamazoo, MI in 2013, etc. - you may also see a few of our NEAR members in their classic cars.

I would like to conclude with this message: We are privileged to live in this amazing country founded by courageous men and women; and as in the past, our military families have our heartfelt appreciation as they continue to sacrifice so much for our freedom.

May you all be blessed with the ability to embrace the happiness that comes your way, and be well in 2017.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!