WEST HAVEN, Vt. – Devil’s Bowl Speedway is shaking things up on Sunday, August 6. The new-format “Prelude to the 200” event adds another marquee race for Sportsman Modifieds and further elevates the status of the Northeast’s most popular division of racecar. The 67-lap “Prelude” will pay the winner $5,000 and a guaranteed starting position in the Vermont 200 on Labor Day weekend.
Promoter Mike Bruno also announced that the Big Block/Small Block Modified “Battle at the Bowl” portion of the event has been cancelled for 2023, due in part to the travel schedule that many of those teams are facing in the second half of the summer, as well as a long string of rainouts and rescheduled dates at Devil’s Bowl and elsewhere.
The new design of the “Prelude to the 200” adds another high-profile race to the already impressive Devil’s Bowl schedule. The race serves as the lead-up to the sixth annual $10,000-to-win Fabian Earth Moving Vermont 200 on Sunday, September 3. Devil’s Bowl Speedway now has the distinction as the host of the three richest Sportsman Modified races in North America; the $5,000-to-win Northeast Crate Nationals 100 ran on Memorial Day weekend and was won by Canadian invader Cody McPherson.
Often viewed as a support-level division, Sportsman cars share the same construction and technology as the Big Blocks, but with a more cost-effective General Motors “602 crate” engine that has been extremely popular in the last two decades. Sportsman Modifieds have been the headline division at Devil’s Bowl for a dozen years and have been the top level at several tracks in New England and northern New York since the mid-2000s. Devil’s Bowl also offers Limited Sportsman and Novice Sportsman divisions, using the same rulebooks and equipment while dividing the groups by driver experience; in all, the Vermont track averages more than 70 Sportsman cars every week.
“Devil’s Bowl is known as a great Sportsman track, and we’re proud of that,” promoter Mike Bruno said. “There are more Sportsman cars in this region than any other type of racecar, so we want to reward those teams with another big event. I love Big Blocks and 358s, but their schedules are very busy these days. We’ve had a tough year with weather, and it just makes more sense right now for us to give back to the racers who support us weekly.”
The August 5-6 weekend doubleheader remains in place as scheduled, with weekly divisions on Saturday night and a special first-time appearance by the DIRTcar Xtreme Dirt Midget Association. The Prelude to the 200 for Sportsman Modifieds will be a single-day event, run in its entirety on Sunday, August 6, with all qualifying and the 67-lap feature on Sunday only. More schedule details will be announced soon.
Devil’s Bowl Speedway is located on Route 22A in West Haven, Vt., four miles north of U.S. Route 4, Exit 2, and just 20 minutes from Rutland, Vt. For more information, visit www.DevilsBowlSpeedwayVT.com or call (802) 265-3112. Devil’s Bowl Speedway is on Facebook at facebook.com/DevilsBowlSpeedway, and on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat at @DevilsBowlSpeed; follow the action using the #DevilsBowl hashtag.