Tuesday, April 30, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
IT'S IRONIC that today's Formula One cars do not come equipped with turbochargers, because rumors linking Las Vegas with an F-1 race soon may require one.
The current issue of On Track magazine is the latest to hint the exotic men and machines of F-1 could find a new American home in our city streets. The auto racing news magazine reported a group of Las Vegas dignitaries made a fact-finding mission to the recent Argentine Grand Prix at Buenos Aires.
In reality, it was a group of officials representing Mirage Resorts Inc., that attended the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne in March. No matter. The fact On Track got its facts a little skewed only confirms that the prospect of F-1 returning to American soil is enticing to racing worlds on both sides of the pond.
The world's highest tech race cars haven't competed stateside since 1991, when the race in downtown Phoenix capitulated. But the idea of reinventing the U.S. Grand Prix began gathering momentum at this time last year, when a splashy ad in the Indianapolis 500 program boldly proclaimed F-1's second coming to the Strip.
Much of that momentum was dissipated when the MGM Grand, so prominently featured in the program ad, underwent its infamous restructuring upheaval last summer.
But Grand Prix rumors received a second jump start recently when Mirage Resorts chairman Steve Wynn publicly mentioned the possibility of the F-1 race coinciding with the Bellagio opening in the first quarter of 1998.
Wynn is correct in thinking the glamorous world of Formula One would make the ideal backdrop for the glamorous world the Bellagio is sure to be.
To American fans of European road racing, his interest should sound sweeter than the whine of a Williams-Renault. For what Steve Wynn wants, he usually gets.
"It's an extremely intriguing proposition to have these cars racing in the streets of Las Vegas," bubbled Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman, usually not one to bubble. "It's a visually delicious image that's hard to ignore.
"The question is, can we do it?"
Do it, that is, as a cooperative effort of the various Strip properties that would be impacted by the temporary circuit. Whereas street races in locales such as Monte Carlo and Long Beach, Calif., are wildly successful, they generate business at a time when many are closed.
Las Vegas is unique, in that it never closes. The concern among Strip resorts is that the race course could wind up being a weeklong chicane, impeding casino traffic.
Race organizer Tommy Baker, so obsessed with the idea of F-1 in Las Vegas that he has moved here to help see it through, suggested he'll personally build pedestrian bridges to get tourists to and from the casinos, if that's what it takes to bring Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill to town.
Prediction: If Wynn's behind the idea, Baker can put his hammer away.
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