Racing desire: Fans geared up for Sunday’s event

Jace Radke

Friday, March 1, 2002 | 11:01 a.m.

Twenty-two hours and 1,100 miles may seem a long haul, but for Tacoma, Wash., resident Bart Probst, his family and his friends, the drive seems a lot less arduous when there's a NASCAR Winston Cup race waiting at the end.

"It's the closest track to us with this big of a race, so we pack up the motor home and take a week," Probst said while sipping on a beer and barbecuing Wednesday night at a makeshift motor home park behind the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"We're campers and NASCAR fans, so this makes sense for a vacation to us. Not only do we get to see the race, but we also get to go downtown and gamble."

Probst was among the thousands of race fanatics who began arriving at the speedway Wednesday night from sites throughout the West. Their presence has helped make the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 the biggest NASCAR event west of the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

"The race has really helped to bring racing to the Western United States," speedway spokesman Jeff Motley said. "The race is good for Las Vegas and NASCAR. It brings a huge crowd into town, and having a NASCAR event in a world-renowned city helps the sport tremendously."

More than 135,000 fans are expected Sunday, easily dwarfing the crowds of fewer than 110,000 which typically attend Winston Cup events at California's tracks in Sonoma and Fontana.

Motley estimates that about 80 percent of the fans attending Sunday's race are from out of town. With motor homes bearing plates from Montana, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Idaho and California filling the speedway's El Monte RV corral, it's hard to argue the point.

The motor homes are parked in stalls marked by lines painted on the gravel, but soon those divisions melt away as fans set up chairs and barbecues and chat with their new neighbors.

"We stayed at Sam's Town for the race here two years ago, but it is so much more fun to stay out here in an RV," said Nancy Allen, who drove from Port Angeles, Wash., with her husband, son and daughter-in-law. "It's only $100 for the whole weekend to park here, and it's great to meet and mingle with other fans."

Ben Kardell, who has attended all five Winston Cup races at the speedway, has been to more than 30 stock car races at seven different tracks and says that the attitudes of Western race fans seem more laid-back than those of their counterparts in the Midwest and South, the cradle of NASCAR.

"You get some heavier partiers at places like Talladega, (Ala.)," said Kardell, a native Iowan who spends his winters in Arizona and drives his motor home to Las Vegas for the race. "Some of those Arkansas-folks bring their home brew to those races, and it can get a little crazy."

Campfires, music and hundreds of American flags dot the parking lot. On many poles the flag of a favorite driver or manufacturer flies directly below the stars and stripes.

"You'll find that NASCAR crowds are very patriotic and very loyal, both to their favorite drivers and the drivers' sponsors," Motley said.

Accommodations at the lot range from a tent in the back of a pickup to custom buses that cost more than $1 million and are parked in $2,900 spaces on a private berm overlooking the track.

Local race fans can also be found among the rows of motor homes at the speedway. Marty Schwartzer and the Lake Mead Yacht Club have set up a party pad in the lot with 1,000 square-feet of sod, a full bar and an 8-foot-long barbecue pit. He plans to have a hot tub installed by Sunday.

"We're out here showing everybody how it should be done," said Schwartzer, who owns a local bar. "We've got 300 pounds of tri-tip steak and 100 pounds of Bratwurst, and we're going to party straight through until Monday.

"We'll feed 300 people on Sunday, and we'll probably have people getting naked in the hot tub before it's over."

The race, which begins at 12:30 p.m., will be televised on KVVU-TV Channel 5.