George hopes to keep IRNL in LV

Friday, April 21, 2000 | 10:26 a.m.

Indy Racing Northern Light Series founder and president Tony George acknowledged promoting races in Las Vegas has been a challenge. But he said he was "hopeful" that the series would return to Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"It's a beautiful facility and we enjoy coming here and hopefully it works out so we can come back in the future," George said Thursday following a meeting with LVMS general manager Chris Powell.

"It's one of the finest facilities we go to. From the standpoint of coming to Las Vegas and coming to this race track, it's certainly a date that we hope we can keep on doing."

The future of Indy Racing in Las Vegas came into question earlier this week when an IRL official said the series was considering pulling out of the market because of poor attendance for its races here.

After drawing an estimated 67,000 to the inaugural race in 1996, the IRL has failed to attract more than 35,000 for any of the subsequent races at the 117,000-seat facility. Advance ticket sales for Saturday's Vegas Indy 300 are said to be less than 5,000, according to LVMS sources.

"I think what we would like to see is some continuity and some real growth from year to year -- we haven't had continuity and that's one of the struggles that we have had here," George said. "The track and the series have been challenged in that it is new and this will be our fifth crack at doing well here. We have had continual challenges in developing continuity, whether it has been management changes, ownership changes or date changes.

"Other than the fact that we've been here every year for the past five years, there's nothing that has been the same; there is nothing that says we have established a tradition here and we're looking to try to do that. We need the continuity and that will, in essence, help us create stability. We need stability for us to really grow the series and the fan base."

Powell called Thursday's meeting a positive one and said that "both the Speedway and the Indy Racing Northern Light Series are interested in continuing talks" to host the series next year.