Officials hint at local CART race

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 12:01 p.m.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) chairman Andrew Craig were in the same room Wednesday, but they weren't brokering a deal to bring a CART race to Las Vegas.

Powell and Craig were attending a press conference to kick off the CART Driving 101 open-wheel driving experience at LVMS, and only spoke to each other for a few brief seconds.

But that's not to say there wasn't more than a hint of posturing on both sides.

As Powell was welcoming CART Driving 101 to LVMS and singing the Speedway's praises, he directed this comment to Craig:

"(The Speedway) certainly lends itself to CART cars going around the track, Andrew," Powell said as he winked at Craig.

Later, Craig reiterated his desire to bring the premier open-wheel racing series to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but said no deal has been struck.

"It hasn't really moved forward, for no other reason than we have so many issues on our plate right now," Craig said of negotiations with Powell. "We just haven't made any definitive decisions on anything.

"You heard it both ways: We like each other, we like the track, we like the city. This is a part of the world that is extremely conducive to racing and I know that our sponsors would love to be in this city -- it's very, very appealing to them."

Powell, on the other hand, was a little more candid in his assessment of the negotiations between LVMS and CART.

CART reportedly is requesting a $2.5 million sanctioning fee to stage a race at the 1.5-mile superspeedway -- a figure at which Powell and track owner Bruton Smith are believed to be balking.

"We are still interested in talking to CART and the Indy Racing League about continuing to have open-wheel racing here as long as it is suitable to (parent company) Speedway Motorsports," Powell said.

"(CART has) got to come up with a contract for us that we are comfortable with and, right now, that has not happened. There is no agreement between us and CART but we are still very much interested in talking to them about coming here to Las Vegas Motor Speedway."

Powell confirmed that CART's sanctioning fee was a "sticking point" in the negotiations.

"Any time you're talking with a sanctioning body about holding a race, the sanctioning purse is the first issue that comes up and I'd say that is the big sticking point right now," Powell said.

"I can't speak for CART, but I feel as though they think fondly of the idea of racing in Las Vegas (and) I think they'll come back to us -- whether it's in the next week or whether it's in the next year -- with a new proposal for staging an event here."

Craig would not say whether CART's sanctioning fee -- which ranges from $1.4 million to $2.2 million at tracks currently being used by the series -- was negotiable.

"The negotiations are progressing, but we're not going to hold them in the press," Craig said.

Even if the two parties were to agree on a contract, Craig said Wednesday that the earliest CART could schedule a race at LVMS would be in 2001.

In the meantime, local open-wheel racing fans will have to be content with the annual Indy Racing League event at LVMS in September -- or, for the diehard racing fan, the new CART Driving 101 experience.

Patterned after the hugely successful Richard Petty Driving Experience, CART Driving 101 offers motor sports enthusiasts a chance to drive a full-scale Champ car at speeds up to 170 mph on the 1.5-mile paved oval.

Craig said he sees the program -- which also offers a ride-along program in a specially built two-seat Champ car -- as a way to bolster interest in open-wheel racing.

"Everybody wants to have the experience of driving a race car," Craig said, "and up until today, very few people got that opportunity. What it's going to do for us is it's going to change the relationship between the people who do that and the sport.

"It's giving people experiences they've never had before and we think that's going to be extremely helpful in building the sport and building interest as we go forward."

Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the only facility hosting CART Driving 101, but the program will add California Speedway in Fontana in September. Craig said he envisions expanding the program to other tracks across the country and overseas.