NASCAR Goes for Full House
Has NASCAR taken over Las Vegas, or has Las Vegas taken over NASCAR?
There will be 150,000 screaming fans shoehorned into Las Vegas Motor Speedway today for the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 Nextel Cup race, but for the last several days it seemed there were that many logo-covered NASCAR addicts in every casino along the Strip, lined up in the evenings around gambling tables and restaurants the way they lined up during the day along speedway fences to catch a glimpse of their favorite drivers.
Las Vegas and NASCAR, both gross in their extravagant excesses, seem made for one another.
Nowhere else on the stock car racing circuit can you find drivers’ names in towering neon lights once reserved for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Seigfried and Roy or Wayne Newton. Or so many show cars dressed up like Jeff Gordon’s No. 24, the 8 of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the 97 and 5 of the hometown Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle, sitting in a place of honor right alongside the slot machines and craps tables in casino lobbies.
Where else could an auction raise more than $150,000 for an opportunity to ride around the speedway’s 1 1/2 -mile track alongside a driver in the back of a pickup truck moments before the start of today’s race? That’s what the Speedway Children’s Charities collected Thursday night at Sam’s Town. Someone paid $4,500 for a few moments with Dale Jr., but the high bid was $6,000 for Mark Martin, winner of the inaugural Las Vegas race in 1998.
To preserve the presence of Nextel and NASCAR year-round in Sin City, a 15,000-square-foot station stop at the end of the city’s monorail system was dedicated Saturday night. As the transfer point for the Las Vegas Convention Center, it will showcase the NASCAR Nextel Cup series to an estimated 40 million people a year who visit the city.
When the first race was held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a demographic study showed that about 80% of attendees were from outside southern Nevada. Chris Powell, speedway general manager, said the number is closer to 65% for today’s race.
The economic impact on the area is expected to be more than $85 million.
“We’ve added more grandstands this year and it was great for the locals, it gave more of them a chance to come to the race,” Powell said. “We only have one race a year so there is no overexposure. Every seat, all the suites and the row of motor homes on the back straight have been sold out for weeks. There’ll be 150,000 or more here on Sunday.”
Gamblers among them have made Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet a 5-1 favorite to win the 400-mile race, with Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch a 6-1 second choice in a Jack Roush-prepared Ford. Jeff Gordon, the Daytona 500 winner who owns Johnson’s No. 48 and drives Rick Hendrick’s No. 24, is at 8-1 with Matt Kenseth, winner of the last two races and one of Roush’s five drivers.
“I think you’ll see a race [here] like you’ve seen the last few years,” said Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion. “I hope we see it like we’ve seen it the last two years, but I think that a good handling car is still going to get to the front. I don’t think you’re going to see a ton of side-by-side racing. I think the preferred groove is going to be on the bottom, pretty much like you saw last year.”
Kenseth led 123 of 267 laps last year in a follow-the-leader race.
Roush Fords have won five of the seven races here -- Martin in 1998, Jeff Burton in 1999 and 2000 and Kenseth in 2003 and 2004 -- but Kenseth doesn’t think it will mean much once today’s race is flagged off just after noon.
“It changes every year,” he said. “Even the last two years we were fortunate enough to win, but we didn’t necessarily run the same set-up both years. Things change and you have to change with the times and change with the rules and technology and that type of thing.
“Yeah, [Roush] has a lot of success here, but I think some of it is circumstantial and having good cars, but having good fortune at the same time. It’s definitely a track we have confidence going to because we’ve had a lot of success in the past. Hopefully, we can do it again.”
Roush and Ford dominance is more than Las Vegas. After two races this year, the combination has four of the top five spots in the Nextel Cup standings. Busch leads Johnson by five points, followed by teammates Martin, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle.
Ryan Newman, in a Dodge Charger, will start on the pole after lapping the track in 31.080 seconds, an average of 173.745 mph. Alongside him will be Elliott Sadler, winner of the Pop Secret 500 in September at California Speedway.
“We’ve lost more races on luck and won more races on talent,” said Newman. “Hopefully talent will take over. We’ve had great race cars the first two races this year and we look forward to having another opportunity to get to victory lane.
“It’s definitely easier to qualify than to race because there are less variables. You don’t have pit stops, you don’t have traffic. You don’t have a lot of things. For me it’s a lot of fun to go out and compete against the racetrack.”
With all of those variables, against other cars under race conditions, Newman has finished 19th at Daytona and 12th at Fontana.
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Mark Martin moved into the lead in a Ford when Carl Edwards was sidelined by a flat tire, extending his record for Busch Series victories to 47 on Saturday at Las Vegas.
Martin picked up his second Busch victory this season. He won Feb. 26 at Fontana.
Edwards, in only his sixth Busch start, dominated for 125 of the 200 laps in the Sam’s Town 300 until the right rear tire went down on Lap 186, sending him spinning into the infield.
Kevin Harvick finished second in a Chevrolet and David Stremme was third in a Dodge. Edwards was seventh.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
NASCAR in Las Vegas
* What: Nextel Cup race UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400.
* When: Today, noon (Channel 11).
* Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway (tri-oval, 1.5 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns).
* Race distance: 400 miles, 267 laps.
* 2004 winner: Matt Kenseth.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.