Texas lawsuit may hurt Speedway’s CART negotiations

Thursday, May 10, 2001 | 9:26 a.m.

Despite comments from both sides to the contrary, it appears as if talks between Championship Auto Racing Teams and Las Vegas Motor Speedway to bring a CART race to Las Vegas have stalled.

Texas Motor Speedway on Tuesday filed suit against CART seeking a reported $22 million dollars in damages as a result of CART's decision to postpone the April 29 race at TMS.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway both are owned by Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc., and it is believed the acrimony surrounding the events in Texas will have a negative impact on a potential CART race in Las Vegas.

"I have no comment on that at this time," Smith said Wednesday from his Charlotte, N.C., office, and referred further questions to LVMS general manager Chris Powell.

Prior to the scheduled race at TMS, Powell had been negotiating with CART president and CEO Joseph Heitzler about scheduling a race at the 1.5-mile superspeedway beginning in 2002.

Powell said he has had no contact with Heitzler since they met in Las Vegas on April 24.

"I have not spoken with Mr. Heitzler so, to my knowledge, (the lawsuit) has not affected us," Powell said.

But Powell added that he could not ignore the fact that LVMS' sister track is embroiled in a lawsuit with CART.

"There is an obvious issue with Texas," Powell said. "I'm still interested in talking with the people at CART but I'm also interested to see how the issue with our sister speedway works out -- I think that would only be prudent."

When Heitzler announced CART was postponing the April 29 race in Texas due to the dizzying gravitational forces the drivers were experiencing on the high-banked oval, it was speculated that the move would have a negative impact on the CART-LVMS negotiations.

But Heitzler said during a teleconference prior to Texas Motor Speedway filing suit against the series that he planned to continue talking with Powell about staging a race at LVMS.

"I anticipate because of the public nature of both of our companies that it's in the best interests of both of our firms to see CART racing at these facilities under the right conditions," Heitzler said.

"We feel that time zone and some interesting broadcasting options that we have available to us necessitates that we work closely with Bruton Smith and Chris Powell to see a race in Las Vegas."