Devil’s Bowl’s Schedule Released For ’25; Dirt Track Racing Continues Growth In VT

Story By: DEVIL’S BOWL SPEEDWAY – WEST HAVEN, VT – Since 1967, West Haven, V.T.’s Devil’s Bowl Speedway has been the site of some of New England’s fastest racing, be it on dirt or pavement, flowing with the tides of regional motorsports that have dictated car counts and ticket sales through the years.

But since the speedway returned to a dirt racing surface in 2018, the health of the speedway and the sport have been on the rise.

Powered by McGee Family of dealerships Devil’s Bowl Speedway’s 2025 season marks the 59th year of racing in West Haven, and it will be a great one. Saturday night, May 3, the quest for the track championship will begin in all divisions. Another 32-lap feature for the sportsman modifieds will be held, paying $3,200 to the winner in memory of the late driver Matt Bilodeau, who passed away in 2021. The limited sportsman and novice sportsman are also on the card, with the 500cc mini sprints, mini stocks and the crown vic division also on hand.

Capping off the month of May will again be the Memorial Day Weekend Northeast Crate Nationals, a 100-lap, $5,000-to-win sportsman modified feature event that routinely draws teams from all over the northeast region, but that has favored Devil’s Bowl Speedway regulars since first being run at Devil’s Bowl in 2021 when Vince Quenneville, Jr. claimed a popular victory. Tim LaDuc won it the next year, and in 2024 Akwesasne, N.Y.’s Fire Swamp took the win over Demetrios Drellos while calling Devil’s Bowl his Saturday night home.

June brings the Short Track Super Series open modified tour to the bowl on Fathers’ Day for the 4th time in series history. Matt Sheppard, Stewart Friesen and Marc Johnson have all claimed the $10,000 payday in this race in years past with Johnson being the most recent winner. In 2024, he dominated the race in his No. 3 car, powered by the more cost-effective W-16 engine. This year, the race will be 67 laps in distance, 17 more than the 50-lap format used in the past.

July is a busy month in the green mountains, as the Sprint Cars of New England will come to town, along with mid-season championship night and legends night, which will feature the 38-lap Vince Quenneville Memorial and the Mohawk Valley Vintage Dirt Modifieds in their only appearance to Devil’s Bowl in 2025.

August also will be busy. Starting with a week off for racers and their families, the racing heats up with the weather with the “Prelude to the 200” sportsman race on August 10th, a double-feature night the following week, the annual Charlie LaDuc Memorial race and the Vermont 200 on an early Labor Day Weekend, where Vermont natives will try their luck against drivers from all over New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Canada for the biggest race of the season. In 2024, Josh Sunn tied Adam Pierson for the best finish by a Vermont native in the race with his runner-up effort. Tim LaDuc (2022) is the only other Vermonter to record a podium finish in the 200-lap affair.

September’s early sunsets and cooler temperatures will close out the 2025 season once again, with championship night scheduled for September 13th, when a new batch of champions will stand tall and etch their names in the history book of Vermont dirt-track racing. The final event of 2025 is scheduled for September 21, the return of the open competition “Run What Ya Brung” race.

Twenty-one nights at the races are scheduled, plus two open practices on April 26 and May 2. The Sprint Cars of New England will be back for three races in 2025, one in May, one in July and one in August. Another expanded class schedule for 2025 will be that of the DIRTcar 358 modifieds, which will have seven feature events on five nights in 2025. The 358 modified class had a high watermark of 18 drivers in September of 2024 and is expected to grow in ‘25 with more local drivers entering or returning to the ranks of the near-600 horsepower ground-pounders.

Dates are still being worked out for the full-fendered pro stocks and super stocks in 2025. Updates about those divisions will be out in the coming weeks, along with more details about the addition of side-by-side/UTV racing and other special events in the works.