Ganassi plans CART test at LVMS

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2001 | 10:51 a.m.

Team owner Chip Ganassi has scheduled a two-day test session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week for his two Championship Auto Racing Teams drivers, rookies Bruno Junqueira and Nicholas Minassian.

Although it will mark the first CART test at the 1.5-mile superspeedway, it doesn't mean LVMS is any closer to signing a deal to hold a CART race in 2002, according to Speedway general manager Chris Powell.

"I have absolutely nothing new to report," Powell said of his ongoing talks with the open-wheel sanctioning body. "I don't think anything is imminent.

"I'm happy to have them here testing -- I wish we could get every single team here for spring training and we would love to have an event. But, right now, we're in a wait-and-see mode."

Powell first began talking with CART about staging a race at LVMS more than a year ago, when Andrew Craig was the president and CEO of CART. Last summer, after Bobby Rahal replaced Craig on an interim basis, the two sides appeared to be close to a multi-year agreement to race in Las Vegas beginning in 2001.

But Texas Motor Speedway general manager Eddie Gossage beat Powell to the punch, landing a CART date for April, 2001, and taking the last available date on this year's schedule. Both Texas Motor Speedway and LVMS are owned by Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc.

At the time of the Texas announcement, Rahal said it was "only a matter of time" before CART added Las Vegas to its schedule and privately indicated that LVMS would be his first choice for a race in 2002.

But Rahal stepped down as CART president at the end of November to head Jaguar's Formula One program and former television executive Joseph Heitzler was named CART's president and CEO on Dec. 4.

Powell said he has had no contact with the new CART chief since he took over for Rahal.

"I must say that when Bobby Rahal was sitting in the (president's) chair, the lines of communication seemed to be running a bit more freely," Powell said. "We had gone a good ways down the road with Bobby but Bobby is no longer there.

"We're interested (in a CART race) but we're also interested to see just what direction open-wheel racing is taking."