Letters: Writers sound off on Las Vegas NASCAR race

Friday, March 10, 2000 | 10:19 a.m.

Sun praised

Last Sunday morning I awoke very early and had the Winston Cup race at Las Vegas on my mind, so I signed onto the Internet for the first time and called up the Las Vegas Sun site for the racing news there. I was blown out of my chair with all the excellent race-week coverage on your site. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You evidently know how much it means to an old racing codger like myself (I have been attending NASCAR events since 1950 at the age of 15) ... to keep up with the round-and-round boys. Thanks again.

-- BILL RAMSEY

Seeing red

Regarding Ron Kantowski's column "Yellow flag should be red at the end" (March 7): This is the best idea yet. So how do we get your information to NASCAR? I think this (a race to the finish without yellow flags) needs to be pushed.

-- LISA SMITH

Exciting idea

No more yellow-flag finishes. I think Ron Kantowski is right on that point. No race should be finished under a yellow flag. The standing start idea is great, but how about a LeMans start, with all the drivers sitting on the pit walls and then running to their cars? Real excitement.

With the three races we have seen so far this season, we really need some new way to inject excitement into NASCAR. Last year it seemed that NASCAR was a spin-off of the WWF. So far this year, it's the Martha Stewart Show.

-- ROD EDLUND

Kiss my ...

I was right with Ron Kantowski in his "NASCAR Attracts Dummies" column (March 2) until he mentioned that (Dale) Earnhardt whine thing. Now he can kiss my (butt).

-- JONATHAN T. WILLIAMS

Wake up!

I have been a NASCAR fan since the beginning of televised races at Daytona, and I must say that Sunday's excuse for a race was the poorest example of Winston Cup racing that I have ever witnessed. Running the cars around under yellow for enough laps to get in half the race is not fair to the dedicated fans who wait all week to see good racing.

Wonder why the big tracks are looking to fill seats when places like Bristol have a waiting list? They know how to put on a good show! NASCAR fans are tired of seeing minimal passing, no fender-banging and no action big tracks.

Wake up NASCAR, before you totally screw up a good thing and you end up like the Indy Racing League.

-- JIM MATTHES

Fraudulent

Last Wednesday afternoon, I took my grandson to the All-American SportPark to get him an autograph from Jeff Gordon, of whom he is (or was) an ardent fan. The advertisement for this function stated that Gordon would be available from 3-5 p.m. He basically was there for that period of time but the entire thing turned out to be a disaster for my grandson and probably hundreds of other people. The ads failed to mention that Gordon would sign autographs only for the first 100 tickets sold.

The omission of the fact that only 100 people would get autographs is at best misleading, and at worst fraudulent.

-- CHARLES R. PAGE

Empty seats

Regarding Dean Juipe's March 8 column "Speedway has lost a few fans:"

I'm finally glad to see someone call a spade a spade. I love Las Vegas, I love NASCAR, every year I say I'll never go back and so far I've been there every year. But this year at least I skipped the Winston Cup race. I think that next year I'll finally keep in mind the hell and high prices I go through and skip the thing all together.

Thanks at least for calling them out. Maybe a few more empty seats will get their attention.

-- KEN PACHLA

Cancel tix

Regarding the NASCAR race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway: I will give them that the widened Las Vegas Boulevard was fine, and that was the best route in or out of the track. But the outrageous food prices, the outrageous ticket prices, the ticket hustle and switch (Section 4A turned into 7A) and not starting the race at least a half-hour earlier are the reasons why we won't come back.

-- ALAN HALE

Bus woes

Can't disagree with anything in Dean Juipe's column. My husband and I along with another couple made our first trip to LVMS and we're seriously considering not coming back. It was 2 1/2 hours to the speedway Friday on the CAT bus and about 1 3/4 hours back after the World of Outlaws race.

We stayed at the Orleans at a package cost of $690 -- not too bad. But when we checked out on Monday, they handed us a flier for next year's event. Now it's $899 and the only change is that they will have coaches for Friday. Hard to justify a $200 bus ride.

-- DAWN GULICK

Ticket snafu

Just read Dean Juipe's article and thought you may be interested in another reason why three more fans won't be returning to LVMS.

Here's my issue: Can you believe at $110 per ticket, the speedway managed to issue duplicate tickets?

I purchased my tickets directly from the speedway -- section 3T, row 28, seats 3, 4, 5. These tickets had my name on them. Turns out, the speedway allowed Pepsi to hand out complimentary tickets for the same seats -- in fact for my entire row. I -- and many others -- spent 55 minutes at the ticket office trying to resolve the matter. We missed the pageantry, Air Force fly-by, pace laps and the start of the race. I travel to four to five NASCAR events each year, and I have never witnessed a team of speedway employees treat paying customers so poorly.

-- STEVE MCVEIGH

Too costly

Some friends and I made the trek down to Las Vegas primarily to see the Winston Cup race.

Our complaint was that the seats were too expensive and we had to buy Busch seats for Saturday to get Cup seats for Sunday. Then we were put into a temporary grandstand where the speakers didn't work, we couldn't see any pre-race festivities and there were no TV screens.

We called for tickets in June. I can't believe that we couldn't get better seats that far ahead of the race date. It has to be blocks of tickets going to hotels that froze us out.

It's a beautiful track, but we aren't coming back to LVMS.

-- JACKIE CASEY

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