Champ exec: Las Vegas announcement is close

Monday, April 19, 2004 | 9:35 a.m.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Champ Car World Series co-owner Paul Gentilozzi said Sunday the series is "real close" to announcing a season-ending race in Las Vegas in November.

Gentilozzi said he hoped to make an announcement concerning the race "within two weeks."

Gentilozzi, however, would not say where the open-wheel racing series is looking at staging a race, only that it would not be at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"If we race in Vegas, it wouldn't be an oval -- I promise you that," Gentilozzi said after Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

It is believed that the series has been in talks with the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino about holding a race on its property, but Gentilozzi would neither confirm nor deny that.

"We have (identified a site), but I couldn't say (where it is)," Gentilozzi said. "We have a couple options, actually, and we're going to have to pick something real soon.

"We're a little tight on time but if it doesn't happen this fall, certainly it'll happen in the spring -- but the weather is pretty good the end of November there," Gentilozzi said.

"It takes four months to promote a race properly and to do the proper engineering. The way we're going to do this event, it needs to be done right -- we don't want to make a mistake."

The 2004 Champ Car schedule has an open date in November for a season finale and Gentilozzi said Las Vegas would be an ideal site for the series to end its season and hold its awards banquet.

"Vegas is a special place," he said. "There were a lot of people from Vegas here today, looking at the Long Beach tradition, and we're hoping to push something forward there real quick."

The Champ Car series (known then as CART) last raced in Las Vegas in 1983 and 1984 on a modified oval in a parking lot at Caesars Palace. The Formula One World Championship also raced twice on the Caesars Palace circuit in '81 and '82.