Columnist Ron Kantowski: Second race at LVMS isn’t a grandstand play

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 | 9:43 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Anybody who thinks a second NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway would be an automatic slam dunk at the box office -- in other words, everybody but me, as I believe its chance to equal the first race would be more like a Shaquille O'Neal's free throw -- should consider what's happening down I-15.

With its wildly successful spring race filling the grandstands every year, California Speedway was awarded a second race beginning this year, to be held on Labor Day weekend.

Tickets for the second race are going like hotcakes. The only problem is that tickets for the May 2 California 500 are going like an undercooked breakfast burrito.

According to the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, Nextel Cup team owners say their sponsors are being offered blocks of tickets for the May race at California in a last-ditch effort to fill the sprawling grandstands.

The same thing probably would happen here. With roughly three-quarters of the LVMS crowd coming from out of town, selling out a second race would be contingent upon many (if not most) of those same fans returning.

How many people running garages in Mayberry -- or for that matter, working in a high rise in Charlotte -- can afford two Las Vegas junkets per year?

And if you think local fans would scarf up the seats the tourists didn't want, guess again. With most seats at LVMS going for three figures, a family of four can't afford one race without dipping into the kids' college fund.

Would a second race here be successful, i.e., make money? No question. Just not as much as everybody out at the track thinks it would.

"Two of the heaviest trophies I have are from Caesars," said the auto racing legend, recalling his victory and second-place finish in the final two Caesars Palace Grand Prixs in 1983 and 1984.

Andretti, who was in Las Vegas to promote a new driving school at Las Vegas Motor Speedway bearing his name, said the trophies were two of the more unusual ones he has received.

"They are absolute bronze cast Roman helmets," he said. "They are beautiful trophies. Obviously, (Caesars) always does things big. Anyway, those trophies were bigger ... and heavier."

In addition to his two Championship Auto Racing Teams podium finishes, Andretti also made his final Formula One start at the inaugural Caesars GP in 1981. But only Andretti diehards may recall he also dominated the only Indy-car race held at the old Stardust Raceway before running out of fuel in the closing laps, handing a victory to Bobby Unser in 1967.

"I enjoyed that racetrack," Andretti said of Stadust, which was leveled to make room for the Spring Valley housing project near the intersection of Rainbow and Flamingo. "It's just that for some reason, there were too many things going on in town, as usual, and maybe that facility was just not attractive enough to draw the kind of support they needed to keep it going."

In that the game will kick off at 6:45 p.m. on what almost assuredly will be a cold winter night, the lines for hot chocolate should be substantial.

But if the Las Vegas Bowl is contemplating ending its relationship with the Mountain West, whose teams have been hit and miss when it comes to supporting the game through ticket sales, there are a bunch of football fans in Texas who wish it would reconsider.

"When you talk about traveling, TCU has proven in its last six consecutive bowl appearances that we travel (well)," Malcolm Louden, chairman of the TCU Intercollegiate Committee, wrote in an e-mail. "That's why Mobile (the Mobile Alabama Bowl) wanted us back for the third time."

TCU is leaving Conference USA for the Mountain West and will be eligible to compete for the MWC title and one if its bowl berths in 2005.

"We are excited about being part of the MWC and having the opportunity to RETURN to Las Vegas," Louden wrote in closing.

On second thought, forget the hot chocolate. With TCU in the mix, perhaps the Las Vegas Bowl should consider Jack Daniel's as a potential title sponsor.