5/10/2025
Sprint Cars of New England
McGee SCoNE Tour Cancels Devil’s Bowl Speedway Event
Wet weather ruins weekend for SCoNE
WEST HAVEN, Vermont (May 9, 2025) – The McGee Automotive Family Sprint Cars of New England Tour (SCoNE) has suffered its first defeat of the 2025 racing season. A week’s worth of heavy rain, combined with the Mother’s Day holiday has forced SCoNE to withdraw its participation at Vermont’s Devil’s Bowl Speedway.
With the grounds already drenched and more rain expected on the event’s original date of Saturday, May 10, Devil’s Bowl promoter Mike Bruno was obligated to postpone the track’s scheduled season opener – which was to include SCoNE – to Mother’s Day Sunday. Knowing that the weather forecast called for rain, Bruno and SCoNE president Justin St. Louis began talks early in the week about the potential of racing on Sunday.
St. Louis reached out to more than 20 of the core group of SCoNE-affiliated race teams and found that a healthy field of entries was expected to race at Devil’s Bowl on Saturday, but that a significant portion of those teams were not able to commit to the Sunday rain date. With that information, St. Louis made the difficult decision to cancel the series’ appearance at the track after a mutual agreement with Bruno.
“We were ready with a solid car count for Saturday, but we simply would not be able to bring enough cars on Sunday for a respectable event,” St. Louis said. “Racing on Sunday with potentially less than 10 cars would not be good for anyone, and the only practical option was to drop the race. Mike was very understanding of the situation and agreed that this was the only correct conclusion. This weekend is obviously a disappointment, but we’ll be back at Devil’s Bowl on July 12 and August 10, and we’re excited for those events.”
Several of the teams that indicated that they would not be available to compete on Sunday have plans to chase the full SCoNE schedule and compete for the championship. Racing on Sunday without those teams – just two races into the 15-race season – would likely jeopardize car counts for the balance of the year.
“I do not want to hold a race knowing ahead of time that many of our regulars would not be present,” St. Louis explained. “That would automatically knock them out of the point battle, leaving them with no real reason to keep racing with us consistently. Racing on Sunday without them would make no sense. As much as I don’t want to cancel a race, it's more important that we keep everyone's best interest at the forefront.”
Despite the cancellation of the SCoNE portion of the event, Devil’s Bowl Speedway will be racing with its five weekly divisions on Sunday, May 11 at 5:00 p.m.
The McGee SCoNE Tour’s next event is at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford, VT on Saturday, May 31. To learn more about the Sprint Cars of New England, visit www.nesprintcars.com or find the “SCoNE – Sprint Cars of New England” page on Facebook.
(Bill McGaffin photo)
Submitted By: Justin St. Louis