Mike Bruno is co-owner of Devil’s Bowl Speedway in West Haven and he says he’s looking forward to the upcoming season, the 14th he’s overseen at the Rutland County race car track.
Bruno says the track survived the pandemic, and bounced back pretty strongly, having one of its best years last year with the weather cooperating and the track not being forced to cancel any races.
One thing he’s not looking forward to is the annual state inspection of his track, which is a requirement of running a licensed racetrack in the state of Vermont.
“The racing businesses, and the tracks and stuff, have kind of outgrown the rules,” Bruno said about the Vermont racetrack safety standards, some of which are more than 40 years old. “And I just think that the state is putting themselves in a position where they’re trying to police something that they really are having a hard time to police, to be honest with you.”
Vermont is one of only five states that sets standards for racetrack design, and it is the only state in the country that requires annual state inspections of every racetrack.
The other states that regulate the design of racetracks are Georgia, Maine, New Jersey and West Virginia.
Bruno says the insurance he is forced to carry does a much better job of setting standards and making sure that the drivers, and spectators, are safe.
“I feel like we get double-inspected,” he said. “We get inspected by the insurance companies, which are up to date on racing and regulations. And the state spends a lot of money sending people to inspect the tracks, but they don’t really have people who are qualified to inspect racetracks.”
Vermont Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert agrees. Hibbert helps oversee the Office of Professional Regulation, the state agency that inspects tracks.
“What we found was that our regulations are not providing the assurances of protection, but that instead, the insurance industry is doing that,” Hibbert said. “If we deregulate this profession, and the tracks maintain liability insurance, which all of them would do, then the public would be adequately and equally protected.”
Hibbert says the Office of Professional Regulation will ask lawmakers this year to either repeal the entire licensing requirement for racetracks, or at least remove the annual inspections from the regulations.
The Legislature in 2023 asked the the office to review the racetrack inspection rules and come back with recommendations.
The office did a 50-state review, and held meetings with all of the owners of Vermont’s major racetracks.
The state’s safety standards go back to 1951, and while Vermont has established its own standards for track design and safety standards, there are no nationwide industry guidelines.
As the rules stand today, anyone who holds a race for cars, go-karts, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, or snowmobiles must get a permit from OPR.
Race organizers must have liability insurance of at least $2 million per event, and they must pass inspection.
The state inspection requires a 3-foot fence separating spectators from the race, and proper police, fire and medical personnel on hand for the race.
“We found no publicly available data correlating spectator injury with fence height,” the report found. “This is not to say that debris fences are unimportant, but that the precise line-drawing that regulation requires is a matter of guesswork.”
The racing businesses, and the tracks and stuff, have kind of outgrown the rules. And I just think that the state is putting themselves in a position where they’re trying to police something that they really are having a hard time to police, to be honest with you.Mike Bruno, Devil's Bowl Speedway
Hibbert said the office has a total of two people who are responsible for inspecting barber shops, cosmetology, esthetics, and manicuring shops; tattooing and piercing shops; funeral homes; pharmacies; and racetracks.
The report found that the racetrack inspections are particularly resource-intensive because the track inspections must take place every year, or before a race for a one-time event.
In 2024, state inspectors traveled to 13 locations.
“This includes not only Vermont’s three permanent racetracks, but every demolition derby, go-kart race and motocross race, including those within various fairs and expos,” the report says. “The timing of these events often requires OPR inspectors to be available to inspect on evenings and weekends, which, in addition to disrupting the inspectors’ lives, adds overtime wages to the cost of regulation.”
The report found that the cost of Vermont’s racetrack inspection program is disproportionate to any benefits the regulations might ultimately provide to the public.
Over the years there have minimal complaints, the reports found, and private insurance riders are sufficient in protecting the safety of the public.
Devil’s Bowl Speedway owner Mike Bruno said there is widespread agreement among track owners that the state inspections and track standards need to go the way of the horse and buggy.
“The racetracks have had to keep up with safety rules because of the insurance companies,” Bruno said. “The state is trying to live by rules that are 40 years old so it creates some confusion. It’s things that were put together a long time ago, and everything in life changes."
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