Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Las Vegas is being considered for The Winston

Tuesday, April 16, 2002 | 10 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which has been lobbying for a second NASCAR Winston Cup date since Bruton Smith bought the track in 1998, could get its wish as soon as next year.

Sort of.

Officials from NASCAR and series sponsor R.J. Reynolds are considering moving The Winston, NASCAR's annual all-star race, from its present home at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. One of the options being explored is to hold the race at a different track each year -- much like the format used by Major League Baseball for its all-star game.

"I think it would give some of these tracks, perhaps that only have just one event, a shot at having another event," Rich Habegger, NASCAR Winston Cup Series director for RJR's Sports Marketing Enterprises, told NASCAR.com. "Vegas, Texas, Kansas City, Chicago, places like that, where the fans can see more than one race a year.

"There's been all kinds of things talked about, move it every year, all that."

When the race was conceived in 1985, the plan was to rotate The Winston among the tracks that held Winston Cup points races. The inaugural event was held at Lowe's Motor Speedway. In 1986, Atlanta Motor Speedway played host to the all-star event but the race was poorly attended and The Winston was moved back to Lowe's the following year.

The Winston has been held at LMS since 1987.

LVMS general manager Chris Powell declined to comment on the possibility of his track hosting The Winston. Both LVMS and Lowe's are owned and operated by Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc.

Humpy Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway, said over the weekend that The Winston should stay in the Charlotte area.

"This is the place for it," Wheeler said. "The teams are already here; it's not a weekend you have to spend on the road.

"We have been through this time and again when the contract has run out. We had it here first and then it went to Atlanta. Well, to get it back we went to the format we have now -- the 10-lap shootout -- and we asked RJR to let us try it like that. Obviously it's worked out."

NASCAR also said in a release "that if there are any actions, in NASCAR's opinion, that are deemed detrimental to the sport or disruptive to the orderly conduct of an event, he will be suspended indefinitely."

Harvick already was on probation for an incident in a Busch Series race last month when he was involved in an on-track incident with Coy Gibbs in Saturday's truck race at Martinsville. NASCAR parked Harvick for the remainder of the truck race, then extended the penalty to include Sunday's Winston Cup race.

Gaughan was close to leaving the track after failing to qualify for the race, but made it into the 36-truck field when NASCAR found that Dennis Setzer, the fifth qualifier, had an illegal left-front spring on his truck. Setzer's qualifying run was disallowed and Gaughan made the field as the 32nd qualifier.

Gaughan, a Las Vegas native, then suffered a blown engine on the final lap of Happy Hour and was relegated to the back of the field because he had to change engines before the race.

"For a team that didn't make the show, that wasn't too bad," Gaughan said of his finish. "We started dead last and then worked our way up to fifth twice. We decided we were just going to follow Setzer to the front ... we just didn't follow him long enough."

Setzer, who started 33rd, went on to win the 250-lap race.

Cameron, who has won both Winston West races this season, holds a 30-point lead over Sean Woodside in the series standings. Woodside took second in the race.0