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Enduro Event Records

 1985-2000

Scenes from the very first Enduro event ever
held in the state of Connecticut on September 7, 1985 at the Waterford Speedbowl.  268 cars filled the pits as 60 competitors made the field through six qualifying heats.  Mike Calder (left with crew) won the 100 lap event and took home the $500 winner's purse for his only career Speedbowl triumph.  The last Enduro event held was on September 20, 2000.  Howie Hodge photos taken from track program archives

***2009 UPDATE***

Enduro events have been separated from Feature event Record Book

    New to the Record Book this season was the decision to separate the Enduro events and the Feature events - largely due to the difference in structure between the two events.  Enduro events typically have an initial start and a checkered flag at the end, with only a red-flag if a competitor was helpless in a dangerous situation. Even in those situations, the cars didn't not line up for a restart, they simply went back to green from where they were stopped and the event continued.  Feature events have caution flags with restarts and have some sort of handicapped qualifying procedure (heats, time-trials, points) to determine starting position.  A majority of the Enduro starting lineups were determined by random drawing.   Car count was another destinct difference in the two-events - features have up to 25 cars typically (with some events into the low-30's) while Enduros averaged around 40-50 over the track's history.  The inaugural Enduro event held at the Speedbowl in 1985 drew an incredible 268 cars to the shoreline oval.  Enduros were also anywhere from 50 to 200 laps in length.  A majority of the feature events among all the divisions over the track's history are 30 laps and under.

    The tricky area in this revision is the Pure Stock era of the early 1990's.  Many of the cars and drivers of the Pure Stocks (8-cylinder) were the same ones who ran Enduros before (1985-1991) and after (1995-2000).  The last season prior to the Pure Stocks in 1991, they 8-cyl and 4-cyl Enduro classes had a point system that rewarded the top 5 in the events and champions were declared:  Mark Lewis in the 8-cylinders and Bruce Thomas Sr in the 4-cylinders.  The following season, the divisions were renamed Pure Stocks and Mini Stocks and ran that way until 1995 when the Mini Stocks moved to Saturday nights under their current rules.  The Pure Stock and Mini Stock statistics from 1992-1994 remain in the Record Book as feature wins since those events had caution flags and restarts, a more elaborate point system than the 1991 Enduro system and had no races longer than 50 laps.

    After the 1994 season, the track's non-Saturday series went back to true Enduros, running as part of the Sunday Spectacular and Thursday Thunder series until 2000.  The following year, the Wild N' Wacky Wednesday series was born and the Enduro classes were revised to the Super X-car (8-cyl) and X-cars (4-cyl) where they once again went to a feature event structure, had points and declared champions.  Those events started as 75 lappers for each division, but are now only 20 laps in distance.  X-car era (2001-present) like the Pure Stock stats are NOT included in the Enduro records.

Enduro events are hard to find as a majority were held on non-racing events that the local press did not cover.  The complete list of Enduro events with winners and missing-data has been separated between the 8-cylinder and 4-cylinder classes and can be found in the tabs above. All statistics in Records tab remain unofficial until all results have been recorded.



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