Speedway could land CART race

Monday, April 24, 2000 | 9:55 a.m.

A disappointing turnout for Saturday's Vegas Indy 300 may have Indy Racing Northern Light Series officials questioning whether Las Vegas can support an open-wheel race, but Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell isn't about to give up on Indy-style racing.

In fact, Powell confirmed he recently renewed talks with Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) chairman and CEO Andrew Craig about holding a FedEx Championship Series event at the 1.5-mile superspeedway -- possibly as early as next season.

"We would be interested in looking at anything that we think is good for the community and also good for the speedway," Powell said Saturday afternoon while surveying the crowd estimated at 18,000 that watched Al Unser Jr. win the fifth running of the Vegas Indy 300.

"I have not talked to Andrew in a few weeks but for the good of our facility and the good of our community, we owe it to ourselves to investigate all the possibilities ... but we're not limiting it to CART."

Powell said he would continue to hold talks with the Indy Racing League about bringing that series back to Las Vegas and that he would not be opposed to running both rival open-wheel racing series at LVMS.

Because CART races go head-to-head with the National Football League for the final two months of its racing season, Craig said he would like to see a schedule that started in late January or early February and ended by mid-September to avoid such conflicts. The current CART season will not be completed until the end of October.

Powell said he would like to hold an event at LVMS as early as January -- whether it is a CART race or an Indy Racing League event.

"I hear a lot from our friends (in the hotel and casino industry) on the Strip and downtown that if we can ever come up with an event on the weekend that is not a big weekend in town, they would be in favor of it," Powell said.

"I believe Andrew Craig has said 'We need a season-opening race early in the year in a warm-weather market.' I think January would be a great time to have a race out here. My experience in two Januarys here is that the weather is better in January than it is in March.

"If I was asked to consider it, I would give close scrutiny to it. I'm not talking about CART in lieu of the IRL -- I'm talking about if the IRL wanted to do it ... we very much will look at it."

Craig said last month that he considered both Las Vegas and Phoenix "valuable markets" in that the two cities would lend themselves to holding races in January or February.

"All I would say with regard to Las Vegas it is obviously a very important market which our sponsors like a lot, and also a market where we can run early in the year. So that you can see on any list of potential new venues, you couldn't have such a list and not have Las Vegas on it," Craig said.

Powell said he didn't believe Saturday's crowd for the Vegas Indy 300 was indicative of the area's interest in open-wheel racing. He pointed to the Speedway's busy schedule in March and April as one of the primary reasons people may not have come out for Saturday's race.

"If anything hurt this event more than any one issue, my guess would be (it was) the NHRA event two weeks ago because we had a significant number of people attending the event from inside this market," Powell said. "Dollars are hard to come by today and we had a lot going on in the past few weeks."

In the span of seven weeks, LVMS played host to its annual NASCAR Winston Cup race, a three-night Pennzoil World of Outlaws show, an inaugural National Hot Rod Association event and the Indy Racing weekend.

Indy Racing League founder and president Tony George said Saturday he was committed to continuing his series' relationship with LVMS, but said some changes would have to made.

"Sooner or later we've got to figure out a date that works and a partnership that works so that everybody can benefit from our coming back," George said.

"The fact of the matter is that we both have a lot of work to do if we're going to be successful in this market; it's nothing that we can fix on our own or (LVMS officials) can fix on their own. We'd like to come back here if it's possible; if we can all come up with a plan to do that."