Thanks to airport plan, race may bite the dust

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000 | 11:27 a.m.

Plan made public

The Bureau of Land Management's draft strategy for off-highway vehicles will be published today at: www.blm.gov

The public will have a 30-day period to comment on the guidelines.

The final National Off-Highway Vehicle strategy will be available on the Internet on Jan. 19.

If a new airport is built south of Las Vegas on public land, Southern Nevada's largest annual off-road race will have to find another route, a federal official said.

Bureau of Land Management officials reached that conclusion as they reviewed the national strategy for off-road vehicle use on the 264 million acres the agency manages in mostly Western states. Some 48 million acres of that public land is in Nevada.

A draft BLM strategy, released today, does not specifically address how an airport approved for the Ivanpah Valley near Jean will affect the Las Vegas-to-Primm off-road event, promoted by SCORE International in September.

But local BLM officials realized in reviewing the draft that the race route crosses the dry lake 30 miles south of Las Vegas, where an airport is being planned, David Wolf of the BLM Las Vegas District Office, said.

"That will effectively end the race," Wolf said.

The federal agency's new strategy involves putting more control over public lands into the hands of local BLM managers, Wolf said.

If the site passes environmental studies for a second airport to relieve McCarran International Airport, the annual Las Vegas-to-Primm off-road event will have to find another place to race.

"If they can prove the airport won't sink or anything, then that would end the race," Wolf said.

President Clinton signed a bill in October that allows the BLM to sell Clark County about 6,500 acres in Ivanpah Valley. The money would come from Clark County Aviation revenues.

Off-roaders have been pressured in recent years by increasing attention from environmental groups, said Sal Fish of Los Angeles, who oversees the SCORE race every year.

The first blow was when the federal government declared the Mojave Desert tortoise an endangered species in the 1990s, Fish said. That sent many racers to more remote locations in Nevada, California and Mexico, he said.

For the moment, a spirit of cooperation is protecting the racers. Off-road enthusiasts cooperated with the BLM and other government agencies, Fish said, allowing races in Southern Nevada's desert to continue.

With an average of 250 entrants per race, each bringing 12 people with them, the impact on the local economy at a time of year when tourism tends to slow down is important, Fish said.

The desert race also draws international attention through a worldwide television audience, he noted. The 24-hour racing channel Speed Vision and RPM2Night, locally on Cox Cable channel 31, attract more viewers every year.

If the Ivanpah Airport becomes a reality, Fish said, he doubts it will end races in Nevada. Aware that the Federal Aviation Administration would take a dim view of the dust rising from racing cars into jet engines, he is ready to cooperate.

"I am sure that SCORE International and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority working cooperatively with the BLM can find room," Fish said. "There's a lot of room in the Nevada desert."

As for the environmentalists, the Sierra Club in Las Vegas is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the BLM's guidelines and future actions, Executive Director Jessica Hodge said.

"We're waiting to see if this is a step in the right direction," Hodge said. "We don't know if we are going to be pissed or happy."