WATERFORD – With just over a week remaining until the gates of the New London-Waterford Speedbowl swing open for the track’s first event of the year, crews are working feverishly to finish numerous upgrades for at the shoreline oval.
From simple things to new paint and to big jobs like replaced corner walls and new catch fencing, there’s plenty going on around the historic oval.
The Speedbowl opens for the 2016 on May 7 and hosts the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour for the New England Cycle Center 161 on May 14.
Take a look around the track.
New London-Waterford Speedbowl owner Bruce Bemer at the track Wednesday
Grading in turn 1-2 pits to the new wall
Grading in turn 1-2 pits to the new wall
Newly painted concession area
New catch fencing surrounds the track
New catch fencing surrounds the track
Crews are working in every area of the track on different upgrades
A view on track of the new turn two entry to the track
A view of the new turn two entry onto the track
A view down the backstretch
New catch fencing on the frontstretch
Looks great!
I hope to God they don’t pave the place. We don’t need another one grove track in the state.
Very nice, I wonder who will be the first to test the concrete wall?
To Mr. Bemer and crew: The place looks GREAT!! I can’t wait to see it in person!!
Hopefully the new turn 2 entrance is not left the way it looks in the pictures or it will be a real disaster waiting to happen.
So happy to see the improvements to Waterford. I love that track. Hopefully in 4 more years my son will be racing there. Now all we need is a Dirt Go kart track there. LOL.. Thank you for saving it Mr. Bemer…
that hole in turn 2 scares the poop out of me
Hope you’re putting safer walls entering turns 1& 3
Good job
What about the food
Looks great can’t wait to start racing. 🏁🏁👍👍
Awesome work, nice to see you putting so much love into this track!
There is a new swing gate there
I’m sure if you paid the $30,000 (the price of the small section that Stafford has in turn 1) they might consider it… And that’s just materials… Not including the engineering or installation…
i’v been racing at the speedbowl for over 40 years and it looks great GOOD JOB VMR will be bigger and better than ever lets all have a great 2016 racing season
VERY NICE! It looks like the old Bowl with second opening in the back stretch, just like the “Good old days”
Gates at all openings and the widow maker is better now, also.
Looks great nice to see an owner putting $$$$ back into the track and not sucking the place dry thank you Mr Bemer
Hitting that concrete will still be better than the Armco. That Armco grabbed you and you came to an immediate stop….it was so flattened, there was no “cushion”. How come everybody brings this up as a way to talk down about all the improvements, but you don’t hear people complaining about the Thompson concrete walls, where the speed is much higher?
looks great
Great Job to all that contributed and look forward to racing..
maybe i’m missing but what time do the races start on the 7th?
Harry,
Hopefully you can find the information here: New London-Waterford Speedbowl website
will the track be ready for practice on the 30th of april?
Thanks to Bruce and so many others who put forth the effort to do such a big expansion and safety concerns to his new track. Go Big or Go Home . There’s new lights and poles ,New Fence , fixed a lot of the bad wiring left by the old hack jobs of TE. From the pit gate back its a big change. New walls and Skippy’s new entrance gates. In the stand lots of cleaning and tighten up. Trees trimmed from entrance to pit gate and thrunning out pit area. The fence is black in color so no reflection from sun to block views. And it’s a real fence not juse old chicken wire. There also a cable in top catch fence only see that in Nascar type tracks. Over all a big under taken and even more impressive is anyour afternoon you will see Bruce on a machine or shoveling just doing something to geter done. We should all take a lesson from this guy. Can’t wait till next fall and see what’s next. God Bless you and have a great season .
Rick,
Yes.
Waterford track looks great. Would love to see all of the tracks install some type of soft wall or safer barrier system to better protect our drivers and cars .
Looks Great! Extremely excited for the new season. I do sort of wonder if the new thicker gauge fence with smaller openings will be disruptive to watching the racing. Maybe at first. Definitely gonna feel safer. That old catch fence looked like it could barely withstand a heavy wind.
Haven’t seen the new scoreboard. Is that installed yet?
are the fences going up in turn one for us standing area.
Brian , there putting a wood fence with a top like the 1 in between the main stands and small stands so you all have a ppace to set your BEERS on . lol
Looks great and good to know they didn’t forget about the fans that stand in turn one every Saturday night.
I commend Mr. Bemer and Shawn for following through with all of these recent upgrades.
Another change that (I think) is still coming is the addition of a 6 cyl x car type of division named Grand Americans (also a neat idea).
Although I’ve been wondering if somewhere down the line it might also be a healthy change to ‘thin out’ a class or two (late models & minis?) that seem to have evolved way past their original purpose and help fill up the ranks of the divisions.
Idk…just some food for thought as Opening Day nears…
Again, great job to everyone at the track for all of these positive changes.