Outlaws give OK after speedway test

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.

Ted Johnson, founder and president of the Pennzoil World of Outlaws, gave the half-mile dirt track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the thumbs up following a three-car test Wednesday night.

LVMS officials were forced to completely rebuild the racing surface after WoO was forced to cancel one night of racing last fall because the track had taken on too much water and was unsafe on which to race.

Johnson said he expects no such problems next weekend when the winged sprint cars return to Las Vegas for a three-night show beginning Thursday.

"We're looking good," Johnson said after Danny Lasoski, Donny Schatz and Daryn Pittman tested the new racing surface for about three hours.

"We'll give the people that are coming out next week an excellent race ... they'll see one exciting show."

Lasoski, who finished fourth in the final WoO standings last season, said LVMS officials had addressed the driver's concerns with the new surface -- primarily the bumpiness in the turns.

"It's fantastic," Lasoski said. "It's nice to come out here to Las Vegas Speedway and run on a smooth racetrack. You definitely need to take your hat off to these guys ... they went above the call of duty on making this racetrack smooth and it's going to be fast."

Schatz agreed.

"It's nice and smooth ... they've done a very good job to get everything worked out from where it was (last fall) and it should be all right.

"To us, the ideal racing solution is going to be the slick track and I think it should be pretty racy when we come back next week."

Brian Hilderbrand

covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.