Columnist Rusty Wallace: Addition of Las Vegas to Cup schedule ‘one of coolest deals ever’

Rusty Wallace

Monday, Feb. 28, 2000 | 11:03 a.m.

Rusty Wallace, driver of the Miller Lite Team Penske Ford Taurus, is writing a daily column exclusively for the Las Vegas Sun in conjunction with Sunday's CarsDirect.com 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Although this week's visit to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway is only our third time racing there, this race has quickly become one of my favorites of the whole season.

Adding Las Vegas to the schedule back in 1998 was one of the coolest deals ever for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Sure, the 400 -- the race itself and the stuff going on at the track -- is the biggest priority, but that doesn't mean you can't have a good time in the process. As a matter of fact, there's so much going on in Las Vegas that it'd be hard to go and not have a good time regardless of how you do at the track.

The Las Vegas trip is one of those few races which have grown to be looked at as working vacations. A lot of the drivers bring their wives and families out and enjoy all there is to do. Some guys come in a day or two early or stay over a day or so after the race. The thing is that you don't have to gamble to have a great time, but if you do like to wager a little here and there, there's no better place in the world to do so.

As strange as it may sound, we always have had so much going on with promotions and all that we really have not been out on our own. We read about all the big-name acts and keep on planning to come back when there's more time and take in some of the shows. There's always stuff going on at places like the House of Blues and the Hard Rock and we'd love to get to go there.

I knew we were going to really like racing in Las Vegas from the very start. We had been out for a promotional tour downtown when they first announced that we'd be racing here. We served as the winner's circle driver the first year, doing all the pre-race PR for the track.

I'll never forget the whirlwind media tour we did that first day. The guy from the track had everything set up and we had a really super state trooper take us everywhere. We did all the radio stations, the TV stations and really got a pretty good feel for the layout of the area that day. And, hey, the nice guys at the Las Vegas Sun started letting me do this column and I'm still here doing it today.

We had the special Elvis car at Vegas the first year and we finished third. I thought that was really cool when Mark Martin won and there was Wayne Newton and all the showgirls waiting for him in Victory Lane.

We're really looking forward to this trip to Las Vegas. We'll be flying in on Thursday from Miller Brewing's national sales convention in Dallas. We'll be at the Winston No Bull 5 deal at Caesars Palace on Thursday afternoon and at the opening of the NASCAR Cafe on Thursday night.

We have another couple of sponsor functions to attend on Friday night, but nothing that stretches out too late. Hopefully, we'll get the opportunity to visit some of the other places this time out.

With all the good restaurants in the area and great places to stay like the Bellagio, it's a lot of fun. Like I said, it's pretty hard to visit Las Vegas and not have a good time.

It would be the icing on the cake for a great Las Vegas trip for our team to be doing the celebrating with Wayne Newton and the showgirls come Sunday -- now that would be the ultimate cool deal. And, when you consider that the win would mean million-dollar bonuses for us and a fan, that would be a double throw-down, super-ultimate cool deal. Rusty Wallace, driver of the Miller Lite Team Penske Ford Taurus, is writing a daily column exclusively for the Las Vegas Sun in conjunction with Sunday's CarsDirect.com 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.